Sunday.  3rd.  Epic roast pork for dinner!   The crackling and meat both turned out quite well (2.4kg deboned shoulder).

Then we watched the first episode on a documentary on lighthouses (The Secret Life of the Lighthouse) - this one on the Eddystone lighthouse of Plymouth. A bit of fun and quite interesting.  Then I watched Matilda the Musical which was a bit of fun. Emma Thompson is unrecognisable as Trunchbull and the kid who played Matilda sounded exactly like Emma Watson as a young Hermione. 

Monday.  Star Wars Day.  Took a while to get to sleep and awake early for ages. Frustrating day of waiting for people and feeling like I actually went backwards with the proxies. For lunch I made toast pizzas which were yummy.

And the raindrops on the climbing rose in front of the cherry tree which is turning yellow looked pretty cool

Stu cooked up a bunch of veggies for dinner including a nice goats cheese cauliflower bake (the cheese was a couple of months past its use-by date (I bought it past its use-by date from Chris's before we went on holidays).. she'll be right!!).

Then the second episode of the Secret Life of the Lighthouse (on Bell Rock).

Tuesday.  Slept okish. Another frustrating day of waiting for people, then a super busy afternoon with various meetings/calls. Oof. Leftover pork and veggies for dinner then episode 3 of The Secret Life of the Lighthouse (on Fastnet Rock). Neither Lego set that I put up/relisted last week sold. And buying the last remaining missing pieces off Bricklink is also frustrating because the places that have a lot of the pieces I need charge exorbitant prices for them, and the places that charge reasonable prices don't have many pieces, so the postage gets prohibitive. Blerf.

In other fun crap today. We tried to turn the heater on after quite a few days of not needing it. But it kept dying. This afternoon Stu replaced the brand-new-second-hand controller we bought last year. This one the temperature dial works properly and so does the display, and now we can see the new error it's giving - Err 50 HI (and Err 10 HI). Google AI from Facebook says:

A Brivis ducted heater "Err 50 Hi" (or Error 50) indicates an ignition lockout, meaning the heater failed to light after four attempts. Common causes include no gas supply, a faulty igniter, or a faulty gas valve. Reset the unit using the reset button on the controller to try clearing it.

On the old controller the reset button just caused the whole controller to crash out. At least the new one can get it to work eventually. We'll have to see if a service will fix it. Leftovers for dinner and the Lighthouses series 1.3 on Fastnet Rock.

Wednesday.  Awake from 3:00 for hours sigh. Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Stu cooked some vege ravioli in creamy mushroom sauce which was nice then the Secret Life of the Lighthouse 2.1 on Wolf Rock.

Thursday.  Awake from like 3:30 for ages sigh. Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Good drinks - several other tables of peoples. Picked up Mills and Grills pizzas for dinner.

See Dominos.. THIS is how pizza is done!

Potata $21.90 - cheese, bacon, potato, aioli, garlic - yum!

Don Pepperoni $15.90

Death in Paradise 15.7. I think the entire solution was speculation with barely any evidence.  How would they ever get this to trial?

Friday.  Slept in til like 5! Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Kievs for dinner, Lighthouses 2.2 on The Smalls.

Then I watched The Little Mermaid "real life" remake from 2023. It's like two hours fifteen minutes though WTF??  Caribbean setting, but filmed in Italy. They kept most of the original songs, and even added a few.  And Jodi Benson was in it which was pretty cool.  And Melissa McCarthy was pretty good as Ursula.   I mean it wasn't *bad*.. just not the same...

Saturday.  Awake for ages from like 1:30 blerf. Quiet day of house and photo stuff. Leftover pork and veggies for dinner. Then we watched Remarkably Bright Creatures which was funny and sweet and I found quite emotional. Lovely!

Also this strawberry didn't get the memo that it's autumn not spring..

Sunday.  Awake for a while around midnight, and I was awake just before midnight when someone let off a whole heap of fireworks down the back which were quite pretty! Went for a walk (called the mother type person on the way), then popped out to pick up some Lego off a Bricklink seller, which ended up being two hours of that, Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction to drop off a pile of jigsaws (and not pick up any more!), and food shopping.

Happy Mother's Day!

Sunday.  26th.  Lit our anniversary candle and we had Chong Co delivered.

Had a couple of snackages from them as well (not pictured)

This cracked me up - the neighbours had setup a fire pit and they'd taken a tv out side to watch tv by the fire..

Then we watched Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching. Uh oh, a two hour documentary on birdwatching? Well it was actually really good, and very funny. Very well done. I reckon even better than the Hollywood Big Year movie.  Worth the time!

Monday.  Slept ok until 4:30 then awake.

Quiet day of house stuff and photo stuff and dotz. Stu fried up more leftover sausages from the Christmas party and we had them with some leftover veggies. Death in Paradise 15.2.

Tuesday.  Slept okish but awake from 5:30. 30 years since the Port Arthur massacre, and 30 years since Como Presbyterian Church reopened after the 1994 bushfires. Crap day achieving pretty much nothing.

We had a mini team lunch at Bombay Duck.  I had butter chicken which was very nice.

Leftover Chong Co for dinner, Death in Paradise 15.3 (yeah maybe, like, test everyone for GSR), then going into battle with eBay again. Tonight they'd changed all of their postage options from last week. Utterly ridiculous. This time "letter" was an option though. Just not a small package. The smallest package option was "up to 3kg". Anything in between you have to use "satchel", but what the hell does that mean? The smallest is 40x20x15cm .. can I still use a box for that?? WTF?? Also last week's set didn't sell. But disturbingly at one point during the week there were two views on it. By the end of the week there were none. Are they like deliberately hiding the listing unless you choose to pay extra to "promote your listing"?? I wouldn't put it past them. ebay is evil. One of the worst companies in the world. Got Tony to search for it. It came up ok so there's that.

Wednesday.  Super restless sleep.

Chaotic day. I have a task I really want to get done but I can't because I keep having to go to BS meetings or people keep asking me questions. It's getting crunch time and I'm getting more and more stressed about it. Just fricken leave me alone to do my work!!! Leftovers for dinner then Death in Paradise 15.4.

Thursday.  Took ages to get to sleep and awake early. Another crazy busy day. Fairly quiet drinks. Pizzas and garlic bread for dinner.

Death in Paradise 15.5. Like, no physical evidence at all, just conjecture.  How would that even get to trial?

Friday.  Mayday! Not great sleep. Spent most of the day working through all the scenarios of the proxies with AWS. I have like ten or fifteen use cases to figure out. We also had the tree dudes out to chop back the ivy, photinia and pittosporum.

Carnage!  I really liked having the ivy on this wall as it offered some sun protection, but I couldn't manage it because it just got too high and we don't have a ladder long enough.

Kievs for dinner then Death in Paradise 15.6. Then watched Matilda which I haven't seen in probably 20 years (and last read the book in 2009).

Saturday.  Slept okish. But cranky with the world all day. Headed out to the club via Queanbeyan.

Stu went into Coles to shop for the bbq, and I went to return the frames I got from Homebase the other week.  Turns out Homebase Queanbeyan is dodgy as hell.  The frames I got the other week were meant to be 40cm x 50cm.  Except they weren't.  They were 38cm x 48cm - way too small for what I needed them for.  You'd think it would be a simple matter to return them, since were literally not what was on the label.  But noooo Homebase Queanbeyan tried to pull some BS "store policy" crap even though the product was clearly not what was on the label.  They said it was "more than seven days" so they have a no returns policy.  Well, I pretty much had to go full-on Karen on them and they begrudgingly gave me a store credit valid for three months.  Not really what I wanted, as I really never want to set foot in that store ever again.  DO NOT SHOP AT HOMEBASE QUEANBEYAN - they will try to rip you off!!  I told Stu about it after, and he agreed that Australian consumer laws override store policy in the case of products not matching descriptions.  

Made it out to the club and Stu cooked up sausages for lunch while Dominic and I raked and carted leaves off the tennis court. 

After lunch a half dozen or so of us raked and carted leaves off a big chunk of land below the toilets.  Pretty impressive effort actually.  Was aching by the end of it - sore back and ankles in so much pain I could hardly walk.

Got home and had a shower and washed my hair (again) and the sweetie got Crust pizzas for dinner.  I may have almost had a meltdown when I was too weak to open a bottle of Henkell...  It really was that kind of day..

Crust truffle beef rossini pizza

Peking Duck pizza.  This was great until I hit a landmine of really hot chilli chunks

Watched Okja which has been on my Netflix to watch list for years.  It was.. interesting.. 

Sunday.  Slept like crap - took ages to get to sleep (upset and stressed) and woke up at like 4:20 for ages. Quiet day of photo stuff.

Apparently this is a plume moth.. who knew?  Found it on one of the walls this afternoon

Sunday.  19th April.  Leftover curry for dinner then Professor T 4.3. Then I continued watching a Disney series The 90s Greatest, which has been a bit lame but a bit of memories. What was freaky is the second last episode looked at the Waco seige and the Oklahoma City bombing.. both 19th April.. woah!!!

Monday.  Slept okish I think. Was looking at ways to download the URL categories for our new proxies.  They literally don't have a way to do it.  They just say, oh use this third party python script that someone has written to call the APIs yourself.  Lame.  Then I found they'd upgraded our version of Postman to a cloud version which forces you to create an account on their cloud and sign in to use most features.  Except we block that because it's a massive security risk to, you know, save your passwords in clear text on remote servers.  Not to mention that by upgrading they blatted all my collections which filled me with all kinds of rage.  Then I got home and found the Chinese ebayer I bought a lens cap with a string off, sold a plain cap with no string.  Like how hard is it??   Filled with rage at that too.  Later she partially refunded me (it was only like $5 to start with) since it didn't match the photo.  It does seem to be a genuine Canon lens cap too, although can you believe "Made in Japan" printed on it if it came from China?  Stu cooked up some broccolini in a nice sauce and we had that leftover sausages from the Christmas party, which was very nice.  Then Professor T 4.4.

Took ages to get to sleep, woke up early, and Stu was SICK in the middle of the night! He never gets sick (almost never). He was feeling slightly nauseous before dinner. No idea what set him off. Fighting with the new proxies all day. Trying to get my head around their dumbness. Although did find one super useful feature in their URL categories (which is utterly needed to do the daftness of how their URL categories actually work) - it lets you find other places that has a wildcard (because you need to add an explicit URL to the wildcard category, otherwise it won't be included in the wildcard.  Don't even get me started on that trash). Cooked up some brussels sprouts, capsicum and potato gems for dinner.

Professor T 4.5. OMFG I hate ebay so much. I've been needing to sell some of Vic's Lego, but ebay make it as painful as they possibly can. They don't *do* letters, so even though I can fit stuff in a large letter box (<2 cm thick) if you try and choose that it blanks out what the local postage will be and only shows you international (at $13-$30). So you choose regular package which is like $7-$9 which isn't toooo bad considering it has tracking, but they don't give you any provision to charge for packaging (the box cost me like ~$1). And then they will charge like 13% FEE on POSTAGE, which is money they literally steal out of your profit. But if you don't jump through eBay's hoops (and include tracking) then you're at the mercy of the buyer whether they'll just lie and say the package didn't turn up, and ebay will literally take your money back off you. Then you have to go to Australia Post and argue with them to try and get a refund which they'll only do up to $100 unless you buy insurance. It's the most stressful thing ever. I hate it. I really really wish there was a better alternative to ebay. And don't even get me started on Windoze 11. If I'm on another desktop and click to open windows explorer, it takes me to ANOTHER DESKTOP ENTIRELY!!! Same with Notepad. Double click on a text file on one desktop, and it opens notepad ON ANOTHER DESKTOP!! How is it that windows is STILL SO BAD???

Wednesday.  Slept mostly okish I think. Didn't get much done all morning - too many meetings. Tried out Gianni's with Neil at lunch and had their lunch special. Managed to get something working on the new proxies that I'd been fighting with. Turns out someone else just hadn't done their job properly and my stuff worked once it was fixed. Sigh. Leftover Japanese curry for dinner (we're almost through it!), then Professor T 4.6 (end of season 4).

Thursday.  Took a while to get to sleep but okish sleep after that. Lots of doing doco today and testing the new proxies. Quiet drinks, only one other table. Made pizzas and garlic bread for dinner and watched Death in Paradise 15.1 since Professor T season 5 isn't on Prime yet.

Friday.  Restless sleep. Distracted morning. For lunch we went to Bentspoke to celebrate Neil having worked there 50 years!! It was actually last year that the anniversary came around, but he was recovering from knee surgery so it got put off. Lovely afternoon and around twenty people came.

Saturday.  Anzac Day.  Went to bed as soon as I got home last night, okish sleep, considering. Nice quiet day just doing house stuff and photo stuff.

I may have made some Anzac biscuits.  These were a lot drier than last time (I measured everything properly for a change) so they held their shape a lot better (the last ones melted everywhere). 

Kievs and gems for dinner (since we missed out last night) and then watched Amelia which was somewhat interesting.

Sunday.  Mostly ok sleep but awake super early (half an hour earlier than normal) to go out to Mulligan's Flat for a bird walk of sorts. I've never actually been out there. Didn't see a huge number of birds (we were really just scoping out the place and went for a walk round the dam) but there was a little flock of red-rumped parrots having a bath which was pretty cool. Then we went to Cafè Luzon, a Filipino inspired cafe for brunch. I had the eggs benedikto which was quite nice although the spinach left that weird spinach feeling in my mouth long after. Then just a quiet day, and did some dotz and some music.

Our friend at Cafè Luzon...

We may or may not have Chong Co coming for dinner... :)

Sunday.  12th.   Leftovers for dinner then Professor T 3.4.

Monday.  Slept okish I think. Felt all day that work was completely pointless. I keep getting called into meetings for one project that people have to do every couple of years, but instead of reusing previous years' work, they insist on redoing everything from scratch, which feels like the most massivest waste of time and money ever. Then I was waiting for other to people to help me with some stuff. Still waiting. Stu cooked up some goats cheese and caramelised onion ravioli with a creamy mushroom sauce which was very nice. Professor T 3.5.

Tuesday.  Slept okish I think. More pointlessness and waiting for people at work.

Went into town after work for the first Shine Dome talk of the year in the Bright Minds, Bold Voices series.  This time they had Professor Stephen Simpson from the Charles Perkins Centre and Vanessa Hudson the CEO of Qantas to talk about "Reimagining how we fly".  The format was a little different from previous years (although I missed most of last year's due to reasons so not sure what they did then) in that they just had the guest speakers sitting out the front and chatting about stuff rather than having formal talks.  They were talking about the collaboration they're doing between science and Qantas to optimise the long haul experience by the choices of lighting and food service to try and reduce the worst of jetlag.  This was going to be especially relevant for Qantas' Project Sunrise A350 flights which are aiming for 22 hour non-stop flights from east coast Australia to the UK.  Which is great and all, but I was still hung up on how little *space* you get in cattle class. Vanessa addressed this right at the very end with a quick comment about how economy will get 34 inches between seats instead of the usual 31-32.  pfffffft.  Sorry but I need more horizontal space as well so I don't feel like I'm pinned in (which leads to epic restless legs).

Professor Stephen Simpson, Vanessa Hudson, Lish Fejer

We saw this very purple mustang in the car park..

Then Tony and I went for a light dinner at Badger & Co (we split this on account of pigging out at the Shine Dome)

Wednesday.  Slept okish I think. I don't think I achieved anything useful today. I did get a ride to and from work with Chrissie though in her Tesla. OMFG there are so many DUMB things. Like the door handles for a start (to get in you have to press them in then you can pull them out, and to get out you can either find an awkward little handle in the arm rest area, or push a button). You have to change gears using a touchscreen WTF?? (Ray pointed out that how often do you *really* need to change gears in an automatic electric car?).  Yeah so if the touchscreen dies you can't drive your car. Hurray.  And blinkers are a button on the steering wheel. The torque on it is pretty impressive though. Like a rollercoaster.  Stu cooked up a fake satay chicken using some almond paste we wanted to get rid of out of the fridge, with some red curry paste, coconut cream, fish sauce, chilli powder, sugar and some veggies that needed using up out of the freezer. It was very yummy and tasted like satay.  Professor T 3.6 (end of season 3).

There's actually a bunch of rice under this!

Thursday.  Took forever to get to sleep - super restless. Then another day of not achieving much. Chrissie came to drinks which was kinda fun. Although I think Mike hates me. hrmm. Got Dominos again, but only because they sent us a $23 voucher for a free pizza during the week (something about the delivery taking longer than 24 minutes last time). These pizzas actually went back to almost being full sized. Almost. Yeah, still only 9.5 inches.  The thin and crispy pepperoni we got was just over 10 inches. Still pretty hopeless. Professor T 4.1.

Friday.  Broken sleep from 2am. At work mostly just fixing up logging on the new proxies. Kievs for dinner. Professor T 4.2.

Saturday.  Somewhat restless sleep. Got annoyed (listening to the news in the morning) that I was going to miss the airport open day. I knew it was coming up but they hadn't put tickets online yet before I went away for our holiday, then I forgot to keep an eye on it while we were away. Annoying too because they were going to have an A220 which I haven't seen before. #grunt. Went for a walk again in the morning.

Got back then went out birdwatching with the sweetie. Suddenly the day is half over. Whoops.

.

Quiet afternoon.  I may have done a jigsaw.

Fire out at Googong (hazard reduction)

The sweetie cooked up a heap of veggies for dinner (including a very nice cabbage (cauliflower I think) bake using a pack of goats cheese I got from Chris's that was already past its use-by date when I bought it before we went on holidays... she'll be right!)

Then watched Netflix's 2023 "Civil War" which was a bit.. bleak..

Sunday.  Slept mostly okish I think. Quiet morning, then in the afternoon went with Jo and Mel to see The Sound of Music at the NSFA .. singalong!!!!! OMFG it was so much fun. The sweetie just barely tolerates me singing along in movies, so this was a great opportunity to really have some fun. It was awesome! Thanks Jo for the invite!

Sunday.  28th.  Cooked up an epic lamb roast ($22/kg from Tathra Place in the markets) and veggies for dinner, then watched The Big Year (which some random dude on our holiday told us about).  It was a bit "serious" for all the comedic actors in it, but kinda cool.

Monday.  Slept relatively ok I think, for a change.  Spent much of the day geotagging holiday photos.  Stu also pulled out all the bedroom furniture to vacuum nearly 18 years worth of dust behind stuff...

Had some of Lily's Youfoodz for dinner.

Watched Professor T 1.5 together then I watched Taxi Driver which I've never actually seen.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep, epic restless.  Finished geotagging holiday photos.

In the afternoon we went to Palmerville for a walk and to do some birdwatching.  This Bell 206L-1 (VH-OAS) chopper had been buzzing around Canberra all day, Evoenergy checking powerlines.  

I hadn't walked along the new pathway yet

Such a fun shot..

Finished off Lily's Youfoodz dinners and the last of the salad

Then watched Professor T 1.6 together (end of season one) then I watched a doco on the Titanic - Titanic: Digital Resurrection.  Considering the effort they went to to digitise the ship, the computer graphics they also used were pretty cheesy.  Interesting though.

Wednesday.  April Fools!  Slept okish, only awake for an hour or two around 3.  Back to work.  Yeup definitely an April Fool.  Spent most of the day catching up on chats and emails.  

The sweetie cooked up a heap of veggies and I fried up some lamb, then we watched Professor T 2.1.

You can tell the sweetie was cooking - the potatoes are all lined up nicely ;)

Then spent the rest of the evening putting up reviews of all the places we stayed on our holiday in booking.com.

Thursday.  Took ages to get to sleep.  Mostly still catching up on crap at work.  Had a gin night at drinks but hardly anyone else turned up.  Sad times. 

Bus home (trying to save petrol) then made pizzas for dinner and watched Professor T 2.2.

Friday.  Good Friday.  Although not so good for Jesus back in the day.  Slept mostly ok.  Didn't get much done all day sigh.  Pretty much a nothing day.  We did go for another walk in the afternoon to Palmerville to try out Stu's new toy (all the bird pics I'll put in another post one day).

Kievs for dinner then Professor T 2.3.  I then watched "Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes" from 2015, which was mostly footage around Christa McAuliffe.. (as an aside, I didn't know that her backup, Barbara Morgan, later went on to be a full-blown astronaut in her own right.. cool!).  Eerily, the peeps that are on their way to the moon right now used booster rockets from the shuttle programme.. that wouldn't be freaky .. at. all.   .. !!)

Saturday.  Only awake for an hour or two around midnight.  Spent literally the entire morning doing housework.  Sigh.  Went out with EB to have a look at the new road around the north/east side of the airport which was pretty cool, had a good long drive around the area, then went in to Quangers for lunch at the Royal Hotel (had a very nice caesar salad).

Air traffic control tower at Canberra Airport

Did you know they're closing down the air traffic control tower at Canberra Airport and replacing it with cameras done with remote control..?  What could possibly go wrong?

Swing bridge in Queanbeyan

Caesar salad at the Royal Hotel in Queanbeyan

It's such a shame they haven't setup any sort of dedicated planespotting area with all the new works

Stu cooked a tuna bake and veggies for dinner then we watched Professor T 2.4.  I then watched Lantana which I'd never seen before.  Lots of unlikeable characters behaving badly.  Hurrah.

Easter Sunday.  He is risen!  Slept mostly okish I think.  Woke up 6am!  But 5am in reality. Sigh. Didn't achieve really anything all day.  Stu took Stumpy outside for a walk.

In the afternoon we went over to Annie's for afternoon tea and catchup with the family.  Pebbles wasn't being *quite* the scardey cat...

Leftovers for dinner.  The just-past full moon was rising and it was like, hey there's four peeps in between me and that bright shiny thing!  Pretty cool!  Then watched Molly's Game, which I'd seen on a plane but Stu hadn't seen.  

Monday.  Slept mostly okish.  Got a bunch of Europe 2016 photo stuff done, and a heap of jigsaw.  Stu has cooked up a bunch of veggies to have with some leftover lamb for dinner.

Thursday.  26th.  Got home from our holidays around 17:00ish.  I started the download of photos from the Canon and my phone and also the GPS and blogged the last couple of days of the holiday.  The sweetie ordered pizzas and we watched Professor T 1.2.

Friday.  Awake from 3:40 hurrah. Did some unpacking and house stuff. Went outside to check on my plants and was horrified to discover my chrysanthemum is dead. Sigh. It'd obviously had some issues previously, but when I got to it it was bone dry and all the green leaves (and little flower buds) had dried out.  I chucked it under the awing to get a good soaking and I'm just HOPING that there'll be something left alive in it to send out some new shoots.

Not so problematic..

Apparently we had a lot of rain...

Everything else was fine though, thanks Tony.  Didn't stop me being zombie tired *and* depressed though.

Got some stuff done but not nearly as much as I wanted to. I did get some pretty amazing support out of Region media though. Their RSS feed stopped working at the end of February (which I didn't notice because we were travelling and I wasn't really keeping up with most of my feeds). Looks like they were blocking automated clients - it still worked in a browser. Anyways I took a punt on their support address and emailed them, and shortly afterwards got a mail back saying they'd fixed it. .. !! .. And sure enough they had! I was impressed :) Kievs for dinner then Professor T 1.3.

Saturday.  So had an earlyish night and thought I got to sleep ok, but then woke up at 4:11 for a couple of hours. Sigh. So an hour late starting my day. Not as zombie tired though so that was useful - was able to process (rotate and rename) all my Canon photos from the holiday and back them up. Also started going through receipts/statements to figure out how much the holiday cost. Hint: it was a lot. We spent over $800 on petrol! Eeep! In the afternoon we went over to Annie's for a while which was nice. And brought home seven tv dinners that Lily had bought by mistake and couldn't eat (and no one else wanted).

Had said tv dinners for dinner (they were tasty!) and watched Professor T 1.4.

Then I watched Elio which was a bit of fun, but really just a fun kids movie. "Your disk is muted" haha.  Also watched a video Dave2 linked to about how Pixar is so fundamentally different now.

Sunday.  Bed normal time, awake for chunks of the night sigh. So I was fairly tired although not completely zombie tired. Ploughed through some of the todo list, and finished sorting holiday finances. 43% went on accommodation, 19% on food and drink, 10% on booze, 9% on petrol, 6% on transport (mostly the ferry to Kangaroo Island), 4% on entrance costs to things, and little bits on donations, tips, fees, laundry, parking and some I counted as gifts (for Tony as well as taking peeps out for dinner/drinks).

Sunday.  1st February.  How'd it get to be February already?  Had an epic roast pork for dinner. The crackling turned out really well and the meat was pretty good too. Then MacGyver.

Monday.  Went to bed fairly early. Didn't get to sleep for hours (restless legs). Woke up for a bit around 4 because of the epic wind. Then woke up again at 5 because that's what I do. Busy day doing tickets and crap. Stu made a tuna mornay for dinner (onion fried in butter, steamed asparagus (I would have skipped the steaming part as it would have cooked later), tinned tuna, cream, mustard powder and cheese, finished in the oven for 20 minutes).. it was delicious! MacGyver.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep again and then restless. Busy day doing tickets and crap. Stu made cabbage with soft boiled eggs which was nice enough. MacGyver.

Wednesday.  Slept relatively well. In fact I "slept in" which was a bit annoying because I had to leave early to take the car in for service, and waking up a bit earlier would have given me a bit extra time. Gerald Slaven have changed their drop off procedure. You used to be able to just park in the car park and drop the key in at the office. Now you have to queue up in the parking lot. One at a time you go into the garage and they sort you out and take your key, then you can go and then they park the car before taking the next car. Seems pretty inefficient. hrmmm. Busy day doing tickets and crap. And cleaning up messes cause I can't help myself. Leftover pork and salad for dinner.

Thursday.  Busy day doing tickets and crap. Went to Bar 59 for drinks as Neil was off getting his knees manipulated.

I thought the lens flare on this photo of a cockatoo outside the Labor Club was pretty cool..

Pizzas for dinner then watched Hook, which I haven't seen in probably 25-30 years.

Repeat of last week's pepperoni, olive and capers, and mushroom pizzas

OMFG there was a mouse in the house!!!!! First time we've seen a mouse in here since when we first moved in. Even during the mouse plague of a few years ago we didn't see any.  Don't know what's changed.  Maybe they were desperate to find water after all the weeks of no substantial rain.

Friday.  Meh sleep.

My work desktop wouldn't render on my left screen after my last reboot.  hrmmmm.

Busy day doing tickets and crap.

This was funny..  Yup, we had chokos! Was never really a fan.  We also had corned beef and white sauce (I didn't like it - I thought it was too salty); ham steaks (not actually spam) but floured and fried which I actually liked; devon - not really a fan, even now I'm not a big ham eater; steak and kidney, yeup Mum used to do that, really didn't like it; rissoles, well how could you not!  Fun stuff.

Saturday.  Spent much of the morning sorting Lego. Mid afternoon we headed over to Mishi's for a games afternoon/evening. Best I can tell, this is the first time since 2016 we'd been over!!!!!  I knew we hadn't been since pre-covid but what the hell?!? Chatted for a while in the lounge room, then chatted for a while around the table, then played a game of Ticket to Ride (Asia expansion), which was a bit confusing to begin with but we eventually got the hang of it.  I came second or third (out of five).

There was Turkish delivery for dinner then we played a game of regular Fluxx then a game of Pirate Fluxx. The first game was one of the most complicated games of Fluxx I've ever played, with some rules that made for a lot of confusion (eg inflation).

Sunday.  

It rained overnight!!!!

Out of sorts all day (maybe feeling like I lost a quarter of my weekend, and just generally feeling overwhelmed). Food shopping after lunch.  Stu is cooking some chicken and mushrooms for dinner..

Sunday.  25th.  Stoopidly hot day.  I should have taken some screenshots when it got even hotter later in the week..

So we turned the oven on and cooked a cauliflower bake and other veggies. As you do. Then watched Kangaroo Island (2024 movie).

Monday.  Nice quiet day. With an epic lunch at the Burns Club Star Buffet with David and Kellie (they'd come up for the drone show). Whoops.  

I started to feel full about half way through this

And by this point I was feeling like Mr Creosote but still had dessert to get through..  They totally should have After-Dinner-Mints because that would just be funny.

No dinner required so Stu got himself a pizza. Then we watched Inside Job, a documentary on the 2008 GFC.  Made in 2010 yet we still hadn't seen it.

Tuesday.  Went to bed nice and early (while the first drone show was on that I missed out on on account of it was all too hard and I wanted to go to sleep), but awake from 4:11. Mostly finished up the AD rules I've been working on for months, then started in earnest on a cleanup of some desktop objects. My headset dropped out right in the middle of a meeting which was annoying.  Stu cooked some little school whiting with Japanese cucumber salad for dinner, then we put on some MacGyver, which we haven't watched since 2019.

Wednesday.  Slept okish. More work on the desktop and ldap rules. Stoopidly hot - like 42. And the building aircon didn't work half the morning. #grunt. 

Had lunch at Rashays for the first time since their $5 lunch specials in 2019. 

Rashay's Schnitty and Chips weekday lunch special with creamy mushroom sauce $16.95

Nearly killed Neil giving him a lift home.. eep!!!!! Mince and salad for dinner then MacGyver.  My headset seems to have a dicky connection - if you hold the mute/volume button cables in the middle just right you can get audio, otherwise nothing.  Annoying.

Thursday.  Took hours to get to sleep and restless half the night. Sigh. Probably the weather - way too hot even with the cooler going. LDAP rules and testing for a change. Good drinks. Made three pizzas for dinner - a pepperoni and feta, an olive and capers and a mushroom.  Then MacGyver.

Stu got out his epic mouse mat in the last week or so and put out some of his ships..

Friday.  Slept okish til about 5:15. Spent pretty much all day doing a huge cleanup of objects for our desktops. It was crazy. Five different firewalls and dozens of objects on each. Mental. Stu lent/gave me another headset but it's very heavy. Kievs for dinner then MacGyver.

Saturday.  Hot and restless. So not great sleep. Fairly quiet day. Did go out to drop off a baking dish to Annie and do our food shopping. Like mad dogs or Englishmen.

And with all that new fresh food in the house we got Chong Co for dinner. hrmmm.

Then watched The Boy and the Heron which was.. weird.. even for Ghibli standards. It was stoopid hot today, even with the cooler going hard it's still hot in the house. Well ok 24.4, but that's hot for me!!

Sunday.  Slept relatively well considering the heat. Another quiet day of fish and photo stuff and not having time for music because I spent most of the afternoon cooking keto breakfasts for the next week. hrmm.  Oh, that's the first use of a Coles baking dish I got for free a few years ago, but pressed into service after I cracked our last baking dish putting a frozen turkey roll into a hot oven..

Sunday.  18th.  Stu spent all afternoon prepping veggies for a spectacular tagine.

Only problem is our tagine is quite small so nothing fitted and he ended up having to resort to saucepans. We had Jenn over for dinner and we all enjoyed it.

Monday.  Slept okish. Paperwork for changes and changes. Stu cooked up the mince I cooked on Sunday with some tomatoey goodness and we had that with salad. Beyond Paradise 3.5.

Tuesday.  Slept okish.

We tried out Oishii Go at lunch.  It was *ok* but the takoyaki didn't have much octopus and both of them were cold, which is really not the way to eat takoyaki or tempura.

Cleaning and changes. They think I broke something, but I'm not so sure, and in the middle of it other stuff broke that I was worried would be me but it wasn't. Stressful afternoon so may have had a beer after work. Stu cooked up some leftover Christmas party sausages, with salad for me and sauerkraut for him. Beyond Paradise 3.6 - end of season 3.

There was supposed to be auroras.

There wasn't.

Not that me or my camera could see anyway.

I did get a hand-held shot of the Southern Cross though

Wednesday.  Slightly late night aurora hunting but then woke up early. Plodding my way through DC rules. Leftovers for dinner then watched part 1 of the Last Night at the Proms from 1984.

Thursday.  Um. Busy day not achieving much. Went to Yat Bun Tong with Neil and XL - first time since 2019!

Dry fried chilli beef $21.80

Steamed combination buns $17.80 and Pan fried pork dumpling $15.80

Nice drinks. Made a pepperoni pizza and a cheeseburger pizza for dinner. Watched the 2025 Beyond Paradise Christmas special.

Our usual pepperoni and feta pizza above, and a cheeseburger pizza below - tomatoey mince, pickles, and special sauce at the end

Friday.  Another busy day not achieving much.

Tried the crispy chicken El Maco at lunch which was quite tasty but a little messy

Got lots done at work between 4 and 6 though when the interruptions stopped. Stu cooked up some couscous and leftover tagine for dinner and we watched Ready Player One.

Saturday.  Headed out to the club fairly early for the committee meeting.

I did some cabinetry priming (pretty much done now), a bit of tidying and vacuuming, some tapestry, and just tried to not feel too miserable in the heat.  Oh and listened to ABC Classic FM's 50th birthday celebrations all day which was a bit of fun because they mostly played "popular" music.. ie.. crap I'd actually heard of.. so that was good.

At happy hour we went up and got in the pool for a couple of hours which was lovely. Dinner was pretty spectacular and then Chris's trivia which was actually quite reasonable this time.

Had another swim before bed (which was a bit late).

Orion as seen from the club (handheld on the Canon - 24mm, f/4, 0.8 sec, ISO 25600)

Sunday.  Woke up at 6:00. Because that's what I do.

Stu rescued this enormous longhorn beetle from the bathroom

Went up to the shed and did some washing up and tidying then we came home. Fairly quiet day doing some holiday thinking and photo stuff.

Sunday.  4th.  Managed to get the end of last year's photos posted before a storm came through that was a little too close so I shut down my computer (and it BSODed as I was doing it #grunt). Then had to sit around doing nothing much for an hour because my dotz were packed up, Lego was done, jigsaws were all done. So I did some kitchen stuff. Hurray. Dinner was nachos. We are going to get healthy soon, I promise.. haha. 

Watched the Death in Paradise 2025 Christmas special. Then I went to bed. 20:30 is bed time right? Weird going to bed while it's still light though.

Monday.  Slept fairly well. Back at work full time. Sigh. Went back to some decommissioning tickets that have been banking up for the past few months. Went into work at lunch to drop off most of the Christmas party stuffs, then had lunch with Neil at Kingsley's (the mall is feral over the school holidays). Finished the leftover tuna bake for dinner then watched Beyond Paradise 2.1.

Tuesday.  Went to bed at normal time but then didn't get to sleep for HOURS. Sigh. And awake from well before 6 again. Zombie day. Again. Was putting away more Christmas decorations and couldn't find a string of fairy lights. I remember taking them off the lounge where they were, but now I can't find them to put them away. Sigh. Edit: found them, I was confusing them with another string/box. This is what happens when your brain is zombie tired. Lots more decom prep work today. Even did a bit of playing with Powershell/APIs. Dug out some sausages leftover from the Christmas party to have for dinner with some very old pork jelly and very old sauces. One of them might give us food poisoning, we shall see. Beyond Paradise 2.2.

Wednesday.  Slept okish. Disjointed day at work.

We may have gone to Grease Monkey at lunch.  That's like three times in like a month.. whoops..

More Christmas party sausages for dinner and Beyond Paradise 2.3.

Thursday.  Spent most of the day deleting stuff which was nice, trying to clear out a backlog of decommissions going back til last September. Drinks at the Labor Club, Dominos for dinner then Beyond Paradise 2.4.

The 8th of January is always the day I remember the Como-Jannali bushfires (32 years ago), my blogiversary (23 years this year!!) and David Bowie's birthday (he would have been 79).  This year smoke from the Victorian bushfires made for a very red sunrise and sunset...

Friday.  

Didn't achieve much in the morning but did some more deletions in the afternoon and some certificate replacements as well. It's been stoopidly hot this week (37C today), and yet we still turned the oven on for #kievfridays. Whoops.

Saturday.  Slept okish I think. Spent pretty much the whole day cleaning the house and cooking. hrmm. Had EffanC over for cheese and champagne and dinner. The lasagna ended up being a bit overdone as noone was really ready for dinner when it was ready, so turned the oven down and let it sit for longer. Still fairly good though. A lovely catchup.

I forgot to get a photo before cutting it up

Sunday.  Fairly late night but of course I still woke up at 6:00. Filled the green bin in the morning and did some house stuff and spent entirely way too much time geotagging Dad's photos of Kangaroo Island.

Found this on the weekend too! WTF!?

On 1-November-2025 Thryv who manage White Pages directories, have removed Residential listing from the White Pages website.
To search for a residential listing your options are:
Collect a copy of the White Pages from your local Australia Post Office or order online at www.directoryselect.com.au for a copy to be delivered to your home.
Contact Directory Assistance on phone 1223
Please note that the search functionality for White Pages Business and Government is not changing.

Still not ready for being back at work full time...