As seen at Blogography, a saturday-8

1. if you celebrate christmas, do you have your tree up yet? if not, what's your excuse?
Yep, and it looks lovely

2. christmas is in a week ... do you have you holiday shopping done?
Pretty much. Still one person I want to get something for

3. do you take time off during the holidays, or do you work straight through?
We have a compulsory holiday between Christmas and New Years. I still sorely miss the three month holidays I used to get as a student

4. do you take a winter vacation to go skiing or do the iditarod?
mmmmm snow. Sorry we don't get snow in Sydney, even in winter

5. in your neighbourhood, are there a lot of holiday lights up?
A few. If you really want to see a lot of lights, go visit Bonnett Bay. Practically every house in the suburb is decorated. I did see on one of those lifestyle shows a couple of years ago a house in Newcastle that was just *covered* in lights. Can't remember whereabouts tho.

6. do YOU put holiday lights up? if so, are yours up this year? if not, why don't you do it?
"You can never have too many fairy lights"

7. describe the most gaudy/tacky/cheap holiday display you've seen. where was it?
I'm a huge fan of bright shiny coloured things, so you're really asking the wrong person. I did see something this year though - a front yard full of mega-sized inflatable santas etc. They look ridiculous.

8. for this holiday, mr. laura is gutting my dining room and adding on a computer room, so my house will be full of drywall dust instead of holiday house trimmings. have you had a year in which you didn't or weren't able to decorate your house for the holidays?
Never! Although I still haven't managed to get a small tree up at work - I've just been so busy :(

FQ1: Which entry in your blog is your favorite so far and why is that?
Don't think I really have a favourite. One that I probably put the most effort into was Creative Cockroach Control

FQ2: Which entry in your blog has gotten you the most attention and why do you think that is?
Definitely my Aqua One AR-620T Support Forum. It wasn't originally called that, but people kept coming to it after a couple of people posted looking for information on this particular fish tank, and it snowballed from there. It's the only forum on the web dedicated to discussion of this particular aquarium model.

FQ3: Which entry in your blog do you feel was overlooked and why should people have read it?
I am still astounded that anyone reads about my boring little life at all, although I did drop a not so subtle hint one time that wasn't responded to :)

FQ Reveal: Which entry in your blog do you think is most indicative of who you are and what makes it so?
Dunno. I have censored the worst of my rants and self wallowing. One of my worst rants on how people easily piss me off is Completely Pissed Off

They say there's never anything on tv at three in the morning. So when you find stuff it's always somewhat of a miracle. Like Rage. They seriously just played The Rainbow Connection by the Muppets. Now they're playing David Bowie/Bing Crosby doing the Little Drummer Boy. And there's Queen coming up. It's just a pity I can't actually get the ABC, I can hear it ok, but it's like trying to see the images through a snowstorm.

Well my file copy has finished. Bed time.

ok so it's a little late. Actually I've had the FridayQ website up in a browser window *all week* waiting for me to get around to doing it.

FQ1: What's the coldest you've ever been and where was that?
Dunno about coldest ever. One time many years ago we stayed in Perisher just after the ski season and I went outside one morning in bare feet and realised it was very cold and I wouldn't be able to stay long. Last time at the snow I had to stop skiing and warm up my wet hands that were starting to go numb.

FQ2: What's the warmest you've ever been and where was that?
Again, plenty of times I've been hot but don't know hottest ever. This week was pretty hot, but not humid so bearable. I once was on a bushwalk and started to get a little delirious, and the people I was with said I had heatstroke.

FQ3: If you had to choose, would you rather be too warm or too cold?
Too cold - it's easier to warm up than it is is to cool down.

FQ Ego: What's a moment you were at your coolest? Your hottest?
I don't think I've ever been either. Except perhaps at NY2K, where I had rather a slinky little top on (see the pic at the top of my blog)

Sometimes I wish I'd take more photos of things. Take for example the Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mt St Helens. There's half a chance it may not be there for much longer. Of course there's every chance that it will be, but it's closed at the moment for fear of a devastating eruption wiping out thousands of tourists. I'm just glad that we got to see it when we did, it could be months or even years before they reopen it.

I never did write up my ski trip. It's kinda getting past it now.

The trip down Monday night felt long. Didn't help that I was still feeling a bit sick. Arrived well after midnight and simply crashed out. Was in mixed rooms which I'd never done before with strangers, so that was kinda weird. Then stressed over how long I'd have to wait for a shower in the morning. As it turned out, noone was in the other room, and I ended up having first shower.

Day one on the snow was very average. It was snowing which was a good thing, except for the fact that I was getting snow on my goggles, which was melting and sitting there as big droplets which prevented me seeing anything. That combined with so much snow in the air that I really couldn't see a thing, and didn't have a very good day skiing. At higher altitudes it was a like a freezing blizzard, so I didn't get much out of the front valley area of Perisher. Got taken out by a damned snowboarder who mustn't have been watching where he was going, and still have massive bruises on my arms to show for it. Not to mention having to go to the toilet repeatedly to clear the bowels of whatever made me sick the other day. Fell over quite a few times on day one and was very tired by the end of the day. Basically just had dinner and crashed early.

Day two was perfect sunny conditions, fresh snow, much better all around. Decided to dump my bag in a locker after taking some photos, and fared much better for it. Headed over to Blue Cow and had lots of fun on the Pleasant Valley run. Wandered back to meet Tamlin and Frederico for lunch, before heading back again. Didn't fall over at all after dumping the bag and had a ball as I started getting better at skiing again. Got a relatively early night after pulling out of the pool competition (they kept adding more games to round one so I'd never get to my second game).

Day three was another perfect day. Went straight up to Blue Cow with the camera and took pictures all over. Then dumped the bag again and went straight back. Headed over to Guthega, but they had a lift problem and ended up with massive queues. Was all set to head back to Blue Cow but the queues cleared somewhat and I did several of the blue runs without too much trouble. Then did the summit express chair which I'd never been on before, although the conditions were a little icy. Finally headed back to Mt Perisher to do some of the runs there, and the highest lifted point in Australia. I didn't stop for lunch on the third day, because there were too many runs to do and not enough time to do them! Really didn't want to come home by the end of the third day, because I was really starting to get the hang of things again. I didn't even fall over at all on the last day! Now have to wait at least another year :/

I can recommend Oz Snow Adventures. They were fairly well organised, all the transportation and accommodation was organised without any glitches. Everything was as described on the website, and booking was very low fuss. The only thing I really didn't like was the mixed rooms, but even that wasn't really a big drama.

Will get some photos up on conspiracy eventually.

After getting my Jason fix for the night in Peter Pan (hadn't seen anything of his in weeks due to the Olympics and being away), I put on The Man From Snowy River. I haven't seen that movie in *years*. And I hadn't seen it since we went to the set of Craig's Hut on Mt Stirling in Victoria. Not to mention I was literally just in the snowy mountains. Gorgeous film, and the making-of special was pretty cool.

Had a frustrating lunch waiting in post office queues, trying to fill in bank deposit slips in a bank branch with no pens, and rain to make it all interesting.

Spent most of the rest of the day researching quota software.

I didn't mention last night that I'm going skiing! It couldn't have been easier. I did a Google search to find a mob to go with. Then I just called them up and said "I want to go" and they said "cool what's your credit card number" and that was it. Too easy. Sadly I'm going by myself because I don't have friends that ski. Actually I have three. Two of them I may have gone with but they both piked to due family and boat committments. The other was going on a "family holiday" and I was told in no uncertain terms that if I to the same resort as them in the same week I'd get in trouble. yay. And George sided with them which annoyed me. But I was not going to let this great snow go unskiied, so stuff them all, I'm going by myself.

And trying to clean up all the crap in my flat. There's just too much stuff that doesn't have homes, so it all piles up in heaps that must then be sorted through.

Had a thoroughly sucky day today. I've put in an order for a better day tomorrow. Dunno why it was so bad. Just trying to get my brain around tedious stuff mostly.

I actually got invited to go skiing this weekend. But this weekend would have to have been the worst that could have come up. Any other weekend I may have said stuff the expense and the crowds and just gone. But for about the same price I could go midweek and get five full days of skiing for the same price. So I sadly declined. But I'm definitely going to go this year. Even if I have to go by myself! The snow is just too good to pass up, and with global warming it may never be this good again.

Had an interesting night though - did a breakdown of all my USA costs to see where all my money went. It was quite interesting. I ended up spending about $7800 on the trip, plus another coupla thousand on cameras and hard drives and memory and shoes and the like.

Now I think I'll go to bed to recover from kaos waking me up in the middle of the night last night.

Theme Thursday photo coming tomorrow (I still have to take it, and the thing I want to take it of is at work)