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... :)

Was filing photos and came across photos I took of a tree removal being done at our neighbour Rhonda Owen's house years ago.  It prompted me to go look for real estate agent photos of the place to see what it looked like now (and then).

The funny thing is, there's actually a few key moments and memories of my life that I have that were at that house.

First up, is that I learned to ride a bike right here!!  There were a few kids over at their place playing and puttering around on the bikes.  I was on a bike (this was before I'd learned to ride) and was just going round and round the clothes line.  I remember the moment that I was obviously fast enough to get the gyroscopic stability and the feeling of actually "getting it".  It was pretty cool.

I also had my one and only ride on a motorcycle in that back yard, as David Owen's father was there for a birthday party and was giving all the kids rides.

The Owens had a Commodore (I think) computer with an actual cassette tape drive that would take half or three quarters of an hour to load a game from tape. Excruciating!!  This is where it was setup.  Very likely at this exact side table!

One time I went down to see if I could play on the computer and walked into a full on orb web face first right here!!  I was horrified!!  I spent ages at the door trying to pull that spider web off.  Rhonda let me in even though David wasn't home to play with.  Awkward!!

Saw this on Neil's a while back and thought it would be cool to do.  One of those old-fashioned "blog memes" that people used to do twenty years ago.  I stopped commenting on Neil's blog forever ago because when I tried to catch up with him when I was in York in 2010 he completely ignored me.  His blog went dead for years but my feed reader still had it and notified me a few years back of new posts.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

Vic said I should.  I was doing unpaid work at CIA/Host1 at the time (well, helping out with windows hosting support and answering support mail in exchange for free internet and web hosting).  I'd heard of blogs by then (January 2003) but had never read or subscribed to any.  Vic probably wanted to spread the word of his ISP a bit, so I did it.  But it very quickly became a place I could brain dump and I only wish I'd started the thing sooner so I could have recorded my life better.  Not that the early years were much good at recording events.  Too many times when I've been sorting my photos I've wondered what I was doing the day I took them, only to find no useful record.  These days are much more betterer.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?

Movable Type.  Been using it since day 1.  I started using it because it came as part of the cpanel setup Host1 had so it was easy to start with.  There was one big upgrade a few years in that changed the whole directory/post/file structure layout, and the one that started inserting images as assets, but otherwise it really hasn't changed much.  I'm still using the last free open source version before it started costing $500 USD .. PER YEAR..!!  WTF!??  I really do need to modernise, not the least of which is because it uses http not https and I still haven't figured out how to *fully* sslify it (eg, canonical links)

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

I did put a few entries up on blogger.com for some more private stuff, but it never really went anywhere.  Same with the "This Day in History" posts I was trying to do here.

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that's part of your blog?

I just use the Movable Type web interface.  And only ever from my computer, or laptop when travelling.  Phone is too hard.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

Back in the day I would blog nearly every day and sometimes more often.  Usually in the evenings.  For several years now I've only blogged on the weekends after I've downloaded and processed my photos for the week.  I definitely post a lot more photos than I did twenty years ago.  Really my blog now is a place for me to post photos.  With a little bit of filler about what I've been doing.  It's also a bit less cryptic.  Reading my old entries now I have no idea what I was talking about half the time.

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

I always publish immediately.  Usually on Sunday evenings.

What are you generally interested in writing about?

Nothing.  My blog's byline is "Boring Life Of a Geek" - BLOG for short.  My life is boring.  My photos are mostly of flowers and food.  I do like my travel blogs though.  There's even at least one holiday blog (USA 2000) that I wrote up from literally a paper notebook of notes I took during the trip.  And my USA 1983 blog was written entirely from my memories of the trip thirty years after the event!  When I was 9 years old!

Who are you writing for?

Myself. There's maybe like half a dozen readers that I know about, and maybe a few more I don't.  My mother and brother care most.  The sweetie might read things if they happen to show up in his feed reader.  Mostly I do it for the record of my own life.  And it's been quite useful for that.

What's your favourite post on your blog?

Don't have one. 

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

This thing really needs to move to something more modern.  One that bakes in https naturally.  But the idea of moving it is just too daunting.  Maybe if I retire and have more time to think about such things.

Who else do you want to tag?

Ha.  Who even does that anymore??  The only two active bloggers I know that might even still read my blog from time to time are Dave2 and kapgar.

3.6.22

A couple of months ago there was a thing on the Riot-ACT asking for submissions for people's memories/experiences of the Queen's visits to Australia.  I sent in a couple of photos I took of her on Lake Burley Griffin in 2011.

Anyway, I got an invitation for an afternoon tea at the National Capital Exhibition to celebrate the launch, so thought why not.

No idea who this is, does anyone know?

Roslyn Hull and Sally Barnes

Notice anything wrong with this photo?  Neither did we until we went to try and find it, and realised they'd printed the photo backwards!!  But the story gets even funnier.  That tree was stolen a couple of days later!!  They had to replace it.  The replacement tree was pulled down earlier this year.  Check out the story!

And here's my contribution (which we had to go back and find because we missed it the first time).

I really wish I'd kept a blog in my twenties.  How else am I meant to remember the "dark ages" of my life otherwise?

And now with dementia taking over my brain it's kind of a race against time to document my memories.

One of them is Fantasia 2000.  I (thought I had) vivid memories of watching this on Friday evenings when I was living in my flat in Marrickville.  I'd have a shot or two of Cointreau and be very happy watching it before watching something "edgier" after.  I lived there from February 2000 to May 2001.

According to IMDB it was released in Australia (presumably theatrically) in June 2000.

I also thought I saw it for the first time after November 2000 at Cynthia's place, because I thought I saw it for the first time at her place and was super excited to see the "been-there" at Times Square during the Rhapsody in Blue sequence (I was in New York in November 2000).

So the logic would be I saw it in late 2000 with Cynthia, bought the VHS tape soon after, and watched it in early 2001.  Except early 2001 was a pretty dark time after my car got kidnapped and murdered and I don't remember many happy times there before I eventually bought my place in Kogarah and moved houses.

So I dunno.  Maybe the memories were more of it at Kogarah... I didn't think so though...

It's all part of Life's Rich Tapestry..

Good Friday.  Still wasn't really sure if I had a sore throat or not, but warned Mum anyway just in case.  Spent the morning tidying up the house.  Mum arrived just in time for lunch (of hot cross buns and leftover chicken and plum sauce). 

She made good use of the shelves I got for David :)

Spent most of the afternoon going through about fifty boxes of Dad's slides so she could fill in any details and memories.  Mum brought down Five Crowns card game, so we had a game of that.  I started off well, but Stu won.  Had salmon and salad for dinner.  After dinner we went for a drive around Canberra to show Mum some stuffs, and then we went up Mt Ainslie to have a bit of a looksee.

I also might have taken some photos of stars

Saturday morning we got ready then Mum and I headed north to go west.  We stopped in Jugiong for a pitstop and thought we'd go for a walk down to the river.  There was heaps of campers and horse floats about, as it turned out there was a Polo Cross tournament that weekend!  We went down to the river, and watched some of the guys practising.

On the way back to the car I found a wallet just sitting on the ground.  There was a medicare card, but no licence that I could see.  Not that we looked very hard, we felt a bit odd going through someone's wallet.  We did find one slip of paper with some possible phone numbers on it, but none of them worked.  Maybe there was some contact info in there somewhere, but it certainly wasn't obvious.  Pro tip: always leave an easy to find contact information card in your wallet in the case of loss!!  I asked some of the people camping nearby if they knew the people, but they didn't, but did agree to hold onto it for us and sort it out, since they were planning on being there all weekend.  The lady tried messaging them on Facebook, but they didn't answer while we were there.  Anyways, she called me back later in the afternoon to let me know that their daughter had heard someone asking about the wallet, so it was returned to the owners!

We drove past Stu's dream home in the country

We stopped in Cootamundra to have a wander around the station and look at the rail yards.

Then onto Junee in time for lunch - of noodles :)  Had a look through David's photos of the RAAF Air Show (just some random selections throughout the five thousand or so of them that he took ;) ).  David was supposed to have a sleep and Mum thought she would too, so I went and found a jigsaw to do.  But it was more like a model made of cardboard - of the Titanic!  So David stayed up and we did it together.  Took a couple of hours.  And Mum ended up coming out but having a bit of a snooze on the lounge.  

Then we helped David do some DVD sorting.  Then we got ready and walked down to the Junee Hotel for dinner.  Mum and I split a "rump and ribs" which was very sensible - just the right amount of food, and the ribs were lovely!

Went back to David's and watched most of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, followed by the new Storm Boy in an attempt to stay up a bit later to try and sleep in a bit with the end of daylight savings.  I enjoyed the remake, as I seem to remember the original being fairly slow and bleak.  

Sunday.  Slept quite well, and because of the late night I slept in a bit - which meant I woke up exactly on time for my normal routine :)  The problem was David was at work and didn't know what time he'd be home, so we just hung around the house bored.  I did a few logic puzzles which was a good distraction.  He ended up getting home at nearly lunch time, by which time was a bit frustrated that I hadn't achieved anything useful all day.  David organised (in the space of ten minutes!!) for a bunch of peeps to meet up at the Junee Hotel for lunch for roast lamb - Peter, Nick, Ben, and Ben's sister and kids who were down visiting. 

So quite a nice lunch.  But it was pretty big, and we didn't finish eating til nearly 2pm, so decided I'd call off doing the lamb roast I'd planned for Sunday night.  After lunch Mum and I headed back to Canberra. 

Didn't get home til about 17:40.  And not at all hungry.  Put on a documentary about Machu Picchu, then had a game of Five Crowns, which I won, over pepperoni and cheese that I had for dinner.

Kings were wild this hand, and look what I got dealt!

Monday.  Slept well, and woke up exactly on time for the new time.  Mum got ready and went home.  I tried to catch up on everything I'm behind in.  I failed.  Abysmally.  Stu wanted to go out at lunch to see the new works they're doing at Lake Burley Griffin.  I just have this feeling like they're further ruining the circular shape of the area that was in the original design...   Still, it was a lovely day and nice spending time with the sweetie.

Came home and put on some Asian Style Beef Cheeks, and watched some tv in the evening.

This arvo Mum and I were going through Dad's slides so I could capture her memories of stuff.  We happened to be going through Mum and Dad's trip to Tasmania and found photos taken by Dad in Queenstown.  On this day.  Fifty years ago.  So that was pretty cool.  They got a much better photo of the main street than Google did in 2008...

Before I start, this is the lemon cheese cake I made last weekend.  Similar to the previous one, except using light evaporated milk instead of cream, and made in a much bigger container to thin the base out a bit.  I also tried to melt some cooking chocolate (not baking bits), but it just wouldn't melt.  I then had flash back memories to have a similar problem with cooking chocolate when I was living in Sydney.  Note to self: never buy that again (I don't think I even bought it, I can't remember where it came from).

Monday.  22nd.  Got two boxes of Dad's slides fixed up before work (had some extra time, and not as many needed fixing up).  Being at home is sooo much better for my mental health, especially in the evenings.  I feel so much more relaxed and can get so much more done.  Even though it's only an hour and a half or so extra it makes such a difference.  Watched last night's Amazing Race.  The top three teams all really annoy me.  The girls are full of themselves and take every opportunity to tell everyone how awesome they are.  The sikhs I liked to begin with but they're just as mean to people they don't like as anyone else, and while they claim to have helping people ingrained in their culture, they really only help people they like.  The cowboys are ok, but were still out to get Chris and Aleisha.  No idea why those two are so unpopular with everyone.  Did get 346 photos labelled today, although 63 of them before work.  It'll certainly take the pressure off the rest of the week.

Tuesday.  All the stoopid.  Had dinner out with the sweetie which was nice.  Dumpling Inn was closed (have they even reopened since Covid?) so we went to Pizza Artigiana. 

Quattro Formaggi - SANDRA $22 - mozzarella, provolone, gorgonzola and shaved pecorino.  Yum yum.

Diavola - RINO $22 - tomato, ricotta, Nduja hot salami, and marinated red peppers.  Ok, spicy but not insane, just a bit meh.

Then we did our food shopping.  Watched last night's Amazing Race and was sad to see Chris and Aleisha go.

Wednesday.  Blerf day.  Had a stoopid meeting in the afternoon where they put me on the spot *on the phone* arggh.  But then Skype had a spack which saved me so I could troubleshoot offline.  Seriously DO NOT ask me to troubleshoot something over the phone, especially in a whole group situation.  Hate hate hate.  But we did managed to shut down a good chunk of the old network which was pretty awesome.  Didn't do a whole heap of work past four pm, chatting to peoples about all the things.  Super late home.  Salmon and salad for dinner which was very nice.  I stepped on one of those little bastard millipedes though while I was cooking and it popped and left a smudge on the floor.  So gross.  Labelled photos while watching Amazing Race.  Eyes felt very tired.

Thursday.  Despite being tired it took forever to get to sleep.  Sigh.  Good drinks, lots of peeps came.  Had Kingsley's for dinner (since we'd already had pizza this week), Simpsons, Laid Back Camp, Encore.  

Friday.  Awake in the middle of the night for hours.  Sigh.  So even more of a zombie than yesterday.  Which was a pity because I was having a random day off.  So I couldn't concentrate on anything that required brainpower.  But still, I had a super productive day getting things done around the house. 

This jungle has to go.  Ten minutes at a time.

Another last chance summer flower seen on my walk

Our next door neighbour when I was growing up had one of these bushes.  So many little red berries!!

Watched more X Files in the evening, and started watching Becoming.  

Saturday.  Slept well!  Hurrah!  Except I spent the entire morning finding where photos on our Dubbo trip in 1981 were taken.  Some were easy, but others super tricky.  Like exactly whereabouts is the old platform at Newnes?  And did we drive along the new railway line being constructed between Sandy Hollow and Gulgong?  (since some of the places look a little tricky to get to by car).  After lunch we headed out to the club.  I wanted to do some painting, but Stu wanted a sleep, so no painting for me. 

I don't know which way up this flower goes...

Instead I worked on a tapestry by the fire. 

Matt and Michelle put on an awesome Mexican feast, we all had a lovely evening.

Sunday.  Today.  Slept okish, then we came home.  Spent entirely too much time trying to sort out Dad's slides (for anything that doesn't have a date on it - when were they taken?  What else was on that roll?  hrmm).  Michelle (a different one) came over for a while, and then we all went for a walk, but the magpies weren't around. 

Had slow cooked beef stroganoff for dinner with a packet mix from before 2000, was actually quite nice. 

Blogged while watching the Amazing Race finale (both took nearly two hours all up).  Just finished blogging as the race finished.  Pretty happy with the outcome actually.

No movies so no movie quotes.. 

Two blog entries done tonight, third right now, so not backdating!!

Monday.  18th.  Slept ok on the new mattress I think.  It's quite firm!  I was a bit worried it was going to be *too* firm.  The tencel sheets I bought in the middle of last year are *very* slippery, which is a bit odd.  Had another long day at work being on the phone for most of the day again.  Did my quota of Eurasia photos in the evening.  Also added a couple of things to the year in review post that I'd missed.  Since I was done with labelling, I watched the first episode of Into the Unknown - a documentary on the making of Frozen II.

Tuesday.  Quiet day at work until it all happens at once in the afternoon.  hrmmm.  Filled up the green bin in the evening.  Then the yappy dog started barking again for an hour or more, after a week or so of peace.  Got a cold call from a mob called Sunny Money (seriously WTF, would you do business with a company called that??).  I hate being cold called at the best of times, so I'm like, wait, who are you? how did you get my number?  And when he was like "how long have you owned your home", I was like "a while" and made it all kinds of difficult for him.  So I'm like well fine, I have your details, when we've done a bit of research maybe we'll call you, and he's like but then I won't get my commission.  #grunt.  Hard slog getting through photo labelling.

Wednesday.  Slept ok I think.  Dog was barking again this morning.  In fact I think that was why I was cranky/on edge for most of the break - that damned dog.  Caught up with the backlog from yesterday in the morning.  Then had a day of failure because I'm dumb.  

Thursday.  Ok sleep (woke up 5:30ish).  No progress on all my failures of the previous day.  But there were work drinks which was nice.  Got pizza, and watched some Simpsons and more Laid-Back Camp.

Friday.  Okish day I guess.  Avoided looking at all the things that make me a failure.  Had a bit of a play with Powershell in the afternoon.  Really really need to learn Powershell more bettererly.  

In the evening watched the 2018 version of A Wrinkle in Time.  Disney's problem is trying to do a movie from a book that people cherish so dearly.  If you read the reviews on IMDB, it's literally all one star ratings from people who can't stand how much it deviated from the book.  I'm lucky in that I have dementia.  I read the book as a late teen or early twenties, then again in 2014.  I saw the tv movie in 2003.  So I don't have a lot of memories of any of it.  I do remember enjoying the Dumbledore quotes in the tv movie.  And the brain from the book.  There should have been a brain.  So the new one I didn't think was terrible if you'd never read the book(s), but otherwise yeah it's a bit of a fail.  And it was written by Jennifer Lee - who wrote Frozen!

Saturday.  Typical weekend day just doing all the things.  David took it upon himself to clean the bathroom fan and light fitting.  Have I ever mentioned I have the bestest brother ever?  He also helped us rehang the Lego mosaic in a new spot (out of Stu's study).  This mosaic has been there since 2009.  I *really* need to make up a new picture!!

Stu cooked his gnocchi carbonara again (with actual egg!).  And we finished watching Laid-Back Camp.  I watched a Titanic bluray documentary of David's and then a Netflix documentary on Anne Frank - Parallel Stories, about a series of survivors with similar stories to Anne Frank.  

Sunday.  Today.  !  Got up to fog!  Which is quite surreal at this time of year.  Also meant having the cooling on with water made the 99% humidity even humider, if such a thing were possible ;)

But we did keep the cooler on all day, and it didn't get above 25C in the house all day!  Hurrah!

In the morning David packed up his car with the last of his stuff and left for good.  As staunch introverts we would stress over *anyone* in our space for so long, but having my brother here was still ok.  I probably get on better with him than pretty much anyone else except the sweetie, and I guess for the sweetie it's a bit like having two of me ;)  Plus, as a houseguest he was pretty awesome.  Not only was he respectful of our space, but he was super helpful around the house.  I will miss his generous heart.  

At lunch we tried out using the new rice cooker we got for Christmas from David as a steamer to cook up some steamed pork buns

We watched a few videos from Solar Quotes while we had lunch.  In the afternoon did a bit of cleaning and tidying.  And hunted through Mum and Dad's photos for photos for This Day in History posts, including processing another two hundred of Mum's photos for use in the blog/online.  And blogging.  All the blogging.

And so here we are.  Caught up on the current events blogging.  I still have This Day in History posts to do.. one day ..

1980

I was seven.  In bed asleep.

1990

No photos, and no memories, but possibly I was with Chrissie and my friends at the Reid's.  

2000

I went over to Luc and Cynthia's for a bit of a party, and we walked down to the Glebe Island Bridge aka Anzac Bridge and watched the fireworks from there.

In fact we watched both the 9pm fireworks..

.. and the midnight fireworks..

2010

Had Nat and Andrew, as well as Steve for a bit and their friend David, and had a bit of a pool party, and played games until midnight.

2020

The sweetie and I went out to the club with a small group of people and had drinks and snackages.

And because it's Canberra, it was so cold we needed to put the fire on!

Happy New Year!!  (year in review post coming "real soon now" ;) )