Monday.  5th.  Slept ok.  Got on early to see if there were any problems from Friday's work but haven't heard of any.  More cleaning planning.  Hacking photinia and creeper after work.  Basa bake for dinner.  Then watched crap on the internet while filing photos, and did some music.

Tuesday.  Woke up before 4 and never got back to sleep.  Sigh.  I don't even know what I did all day.  Did some weeding at lunch.  Had leftovers for dinner.  Music after dinner again.  Oh I started watching Survivor Canberra, a fan-produced show which is actually pretty decent (aside from audio quality issues in one of the early episodes).  

Wednesday.  Woke up at like 5.  hrmm.  Very distracing day.  Everyone wanting All The Things.  Went and run a heap of errands at lunch - bought some new pj bottoms, bought some bubbly, booked an eye appointment and went to the bank to get pretty green ones for the kids.  We won't mention the old fart who barged past me waiting outside the bank to go in, then convinced himself that he was next despite me saying I was waiting outside.  Buttplug.  But I did see Fleur from Lego Masters in the mall!  I almost said hello but I just wasn't sure (I have no idea where any of the contestants are even from).  After work caught up wih Aaron at the lighty which was nice.  Talked about everything and nothing.  Mostly work I guess.  

Thursday.  Solar installation day!!  One guy spent all day moving out roof files, grinding them down, and attaching mounting brackets.  In the afternoon another guy came as well and they got most of the panels up.  Went in to work for drinks.  Pork larb for dinner.

Friday.  The solar guys had the power off most of the day to completely rewire the switch board and plumb in all the devices.  I used the lack of electricity time to sort out all the boxes we've collected over the past couple of years.  At lunch time I went in for round two of work Christmas parties which was a very pleasant afternoon.  Chicken kiev for dinner and the second episode of Picard.

The first step is admitting you have a problem..

Saturday.  Solar guys installed the battery and associated cabling.  They wandered off in the middle of the day but didn't actually tell us they were done for the day.  In the meantime, Stu hired a carpet shampooer to attack the moldy carpet where the shelf had been downstairs.  It did a decent job although is not perfect.  Also did the hallway and some bits of the lounge room and study.  I was trying to attack my todo list but it was all too hard and ended up wasting most of the day catching up on rss feeds.  Sigh.  After dinner went over to see Mila in advance of her 21st birthday.  

These are all the seeds from *one* poppy head!

Sunday.  Went out for brunch at Market St Eats and did some food shopping.  Then cooking pretty much all afternoon (although did squeeze in twenty minutes of music).  Sigh.  Jenn came over for dinner - a very overcooked vege lasagna.  Then a relatively early night.

A mummy-long-legs and her babies (being evicted from the house)

Monday.  Woke up at 1:40 to the thunder of a coming storm.  And then didn't get back to sleep til like 4.  Sigh.  Bit of a zombie day.  Another day of all the people wanting all the things.  Solar guy spent all day wiring up the battery.  Apparently these things are so new that there's a few design quirks that need to be worked around.  He disconnected power a bit after lunch for like twenty minutes to hook it in.  Leftovers from first work Christmas party for dinner.  And caught up on blogging.  I still can't get Geosetter to work.  It died last week - refuses to load the map.  I suspect it's because it's using an ancient IE api that Google no longer supports (as of the end of November, so the timing fits), but noone else is complaining on the forum so I have no idea.  Might have to start looking for another photo geotagging app.  

Sunday.  20th.  Yummy roast pork for dinner.  

Monday.  Slept ok.  Run/sun/rain/sun all day.  I managed to get the G5X photos off the SD card, but not the Canon (got them later).  Weeding after work.  Honey mustard chicken for dinner.  Used cream that was two weeks past its use-by date, and chicken that was use-by today.  It'll be fine right? :)  Culled a few days worth of photos (first pass anyway).  Then watched the first episode of the Lego Masters Bricksmas special which was a lot of fun.

Another paver weed strawberry

Remember early this year I completely cleared this?  Sigh.

Tuesday.  Took a while to get to sleep because I was COLD!.  Then I was awake in the middle of the night for no good reason.  So a relatively slow day.  It was COLD again in the house.  14C on the heater thermostat.  We would normally turn the heater on at that temperature, except someone opened all the cooler vents the other day because it was getting hot enough to turn the cooler on.  So we suffered all day.  I had a coat around me some of the day.  My boss has covid!!!  But I haven't seen him since Thursday last week so I'll be fine.  But he was in the office yesterday so worried about other people getting sick.  More weeding after work.  Stu cooked sausages for dinner.  More photo culling.  I was going to watch the second episode of Bricksmas, but that's not til next Sunday.  Then I found out they did a Bricksmas last year!  So watched the first episode of that.  

After half an hour of cleaning yesterday

Wednesday.  Started working on something new to clean up.  Home late so nothing useful, other than a bit of culling.  Started watching the second episode of last year's Bricksmas but didn't finish it.

I love how these poppies can live where there's like, no water

Thursday.  More cleaning.  Bought a new phone at lunch.  It might turn up in January if China doesn't have too many more lockdowns.  Sigh.  Frank and Karen came to drinks which was nice.

Friday.  Catching up on bits and pieces, and more cleaning.  Stu cooked "chorizo mince" for dinner.  Started the Christmas movie season a little early with Die Hard.

More paver weed strawberries

Stu's chorizo mince

Saturday.  Panicking about my todo list and my lack of time.  So I squandered the little time I had with music and jigsaw.  Hrmm.  I was hoping the Lego Titanic might have a Black Friday discount, but it didn't, so decided to just buy it anyway.  They had stock when I looked at the price on Thursday/Friday, but when I sat down Saturday morning to buy it, it was "out of stock".  Sigh.  There goes my other Christmas present.  Sigh.  Headed out to the club after lunch and helped a bit with the setup and a bit of food prep.  Chilled for a bit then had a swim with the sweetie.  Dinner was pretty amazing as always.  Didn't stay up too late so that was good.  A lovely night as always.

Sunday.  Slept okish.  Up fairly early and came home.  Started to do All The Things, but didn't get very far before we went out to the chemist and Bunnings.  Also had a look at the Cameron Offices demolition, and tried out Pattysmiths which was nice enough.  Then home and did some more Christmas tree stuff.  Had out the fairy lights and there were enough blown bulbs to take out too many strings, so decided to rearrange the bulbs to get working strings in the middle.  Had gotten a fair way through it when Stu brought out Stumpy.  Who then proceeded to poop right where I was working.  Sigh.  So went and cooked dinner and download my phone photos (tried a few times but still can't get the SD card).  

Today's haul

Cameron Offices demolition

Pattysmiths Cheeseburger

Crazy busy boring week.  Three photos to blog, no movies to quote, and a few days where I didn't even get any useful notes.

Monday.  14th.  Awake from about 1 til about 4.  Hurray.  I was stressing about ebay to start with (ebay have made things a lot nicer for buyers but much much much much more stressful for sellers), then I got hungry and restless.  Sigh.  Started prepping our next proxy upgrade (maybe it'll fix problems they introduced with the last upgrade).  Geotagging holiday photos and filing this year's photos in the evening.  I also spent the afternoon charging up a bunch of rechargable batteries to put in Yvonne's keyboard so I could have a play on it.  Haven't played any keyboards in years.  Weeding and leftover buttbeef cheeks I dug out of the freezer.  

Tuesday.  Somewhat better sleep.  All the stoopid.  Weeding, music, leftover turkey for dinner, geotagging, photo filing, Mentour Pilot.

Canberra is overgrown with grass at the moment - they can't keep up with the mowing.. doesn't bode well for summer grass fires around the place..

Wednesday/Thursday/Friday.  Super busy days at work (although not as much on Friday).  Mostly slept ok.  I accidentally gave myself a reputation of being knowledgeable and helpful to some users by fixing some longstanding problems for them (all I needed was an error message to fix a problem that had been kicking around other teams for weeks).  Whoops.  Had chicken kiev for dinner on Friday and watched episode 11 of Andor.

Saturday.  Got some stuff done in the morning but not nearly enough.  Food shopping, where I got stressed out by being in the aisle and people pushing past and STRESS and trying to get the trolley back and Kippax sure doesn't make it easy (all the trolley bays are on the Other Side of the car park so you either have to All The Way Around, or squeeze between cars or go up and over kerbs between cars.  Sigh).  So was in an odd mood the rest of the day.  But I did finish geotagging our holiday photos!!  In the evening was the Lego Brick Show at Thoroughbred Park but I'll leave that for another post.  One day.

Sunday.  Slept ok but woke up at ~5:20 hungry (I really didn't eat enough last night).  Depressed about how much stuff I have to dooooo but seemingly not enough time to do it.  I had to drag out the old vacuum cleaner to vacuum the house because the stoopid Dyson is playing up (it's pulsing and keeps turning off.. could be something needs cleaning or could be the battery is on its way out or something stoopid).  The thing is only two years old!!  I maintain that Dyson, like Herman Miller, is simply over priced and not actually GOOD.  Change my mind!  Not to mention the stoopid SD card reader on my computer only works intermittently.  I still haven't been able to download all my photos from last night.  #grunt.  But did do some weeding and music and cooked a lovely roast pork for dinner and watched some tv with the sweetie. 

Did someone say Tumut 3 Power Station Open Day?!?

Friday

Left work a little early and headed down the Hume.  We stopped at the lookout at the north end of Gundagai to see All The Water.

Then took a drive down to the flood plain to see All The Water.

Middleton Drive across the Murrumbidgee was closed to traffic.  Because All The Water.

Also had a look from the south end of town.

Straight after arriving in Tumut we headed up to TRBC for a couple of beers and noms.

We had a potato and rosemary pizza which was lovely and the Amazeballs were actually totes amazeballs! 

Saturday

Bacon and egg rolls for brekky then off we headed to Talbingo.

We got the second shuttle from town, in time for the second power station tour at 9:10.

They had a bunch of staff doing the tours.  These guys were not normally tour guides!  We had an electrical fitter? engineer? (can't remember) and another tradie as well.  We had to wear a hard hat and highvis, and also safety glasses which were pretty pointless because they didn't fit over my glasses (and the "tour guide" wasn't wearing them anyway).  They also said "no photos" but then "you'll be told where you can take photos" and our guide was like, um what places would they be? heh.  Part of it they were worried about people dropping things down some very big holes, but also apparently they were a bit secretive of the electronics at the top of the turbines.  The rest of it is all pretty much common knowledge anyway.  We walked down and past the busbar room and onto the generator hall floor.  I did ask if we could take photos of the old control room which is no longer in use (they remote control everything from Cooma these days and just have a skeleton crew on site, plus whatever projects are going on).  

After we got out I said we should take the earliest penstock tour we could do to beat the crowds.  We walked straight onto a coach and it wasn't full - winning!

We went up past the dam wall, and across the top.  People could have gotten out at the far end, but it would have meant waiting for the next coach in half an hour to come back, so noone did (plus I had better photos from last time when we had glorious weather).  

Then onto the top of the penstocks.  They gave us ten minutes there and it was super cool!

Then back down.  The queues were already getting long now.  I totally called it.

The signs said no climbing on the pipes.  Nothing about standing under them to show how damned big they are!

The last time we were here I had a sad that this wasn't open to go in and have a look.  So I was pretty excited that we could this time.

The turbine hall is super cool.  Six turbines.  Three of them only generate, and the other three can either generate or pump water back up the penstocks when power is cheaper.  The generators were upgraded from 2006-2012 to 300 megawatts, so the whole power station can generate 1800 megawatts.

Looking across to the old control room.

One of the inlet pipes

They also have a super cool working model of one of the turbines.

And a model of the area around the dam and power station

I'd love for this thing to be on the internet - it's a graphic of all the different powerstations on the Snowy Hydro system and which ones are in use.  Only like three were in the whole system - lots of solar and wind around or something.  

Finally we took a shuttle back to Talbingo.  The guy organising the queues for the buses (one for the penstocks and the other for the town shuttle) clearly wasn't used to doing this sort of thing and was completely overwhelmed by the crowds.  Luckily most people seemed to be queueing for the penstocks, so we walked straight onto a shuttle back.

Stopped by Jounama.  It was flowing pretty hard, and Blowering was full right back up to this dam.

Last time we were here Blowering was a *lot* lower.  Blowering was actually over full.

We tried to get a good view of the spillway which was spilling *hard* but as I discovered last time there's not really any good views of it.  And sadly the road to the top was closed off, so couldn't even walk across the top to see it (we saw people up there so no idea how they got there).

We did find this suspension bridge over the Tumut River.

The Tumut River was flowing hard with All The Water.

Found somewhat of a view of the spillway on the way back.

Had a pie back in Tumut for lunch, then headed out to Adelong.  It had been flooded just last week.  Water was up to the level of that bridge.

This house had water midway up the shed, and the yard was full of damaged gyprock from the house.  The owner's story is here.

This is that bridge from before showing all the damage from debris.

The sculpture walk was closed, but we did see this rabbit sculpture which reminded me of Donnie Darko.

The mine area was closed off too, so just got a view from the viewing point.

We tried to get out to the truss bridge over the Tumut River east of town but All The Water was over the road from both directions.  It *probably* would have been fine, but we decided not to risk it.

Back in Tumut we walked down to the Old Bridge park.  Last time we were here the water was a lot lower!  The bridge itself had a big gate across it as well.

The walkway either side of the bridge was flooded in various places.  This is on the south side with the bridge over Mcfarlane's Creek.

The park was also filled with All The Water.

Had some bubbles back at the motel before heading over to Mendrinas at Brooklyn for dinner.  The steak was just a teensy bit over done but the lamb was quite overdone which was a bit sad.  The salad was pretty amazing though.

Sunday

Went for a bit of a wander around town to fill in some time.

The Tumut River with All The Water from Wee Jasper Road.

At 11:00 it was time for our tour at TRBC.  Unfortunately we didn't get Tim this time (apparently he has to have time off *sometimes* hehe) although we did see him in the bar and chatted for a while.  So the story wasn't as rich this time.  They do have more brewing tanks now, and they've recently got their own canning run, so they can can their beer as needed and not have to wait for the canners to come in.  They're still getting used to it.

The tour isn't nearly as good value for money either now.  Last time the four tasters were larger and included lunch.  Now the tasters are smaller and lunch is not included.  Oh well.

For lunch we had maple bacon and blue cheese pizza and a salad with smoked trout.

Bought a mixed case of beer, then headed home.

Sunday.  16th.  Had crumbed basa bake for dinner which was very nice.  Third episode of Andor an early night.

Monday.  Slept ok.  Trying to do All The Things before work.  Still didn't have time for them all.  I DON'T HAVE TIME TO GO TO WORK!!  All afternoon everything was out of focus.  I can't SEE!!  Which is incredibly frustrating.  Maybe because I'm tired.  Or maybe I'm tired because everything is out of focus.  I certainly wasn't up to concentrating on anything on the computer.  7pm is bed time right?  So I just watched crap on the internet.  Of course then I was depressed that I still hadn't achieved anything useful all night.  Life is too short to go to work.  I'll be dead before I've done everything I want to.

Tuesday.  Started geotagging Europe photos in the morning.  Another afternoon of not be able to SEE.  Did some weeding but struggled to see music.  Kept missing notes because the lines were all blurry and I couldn't tell where the notes were.  Stu cooked mince for dinner.  Bit more geotagging, but hard work trying to accurately geotag photos in Munich's Residence because the thing is so huge.  I had to fudge things a bit.  

Wednesday.  Slept okish.  All the work.  At least I could see when I got home, but it was late(ish) so no weeding or music.  Stu was exhausted as well from a very draining day, so we ended up having beer and pizza.  hmmm.  Finished geotagging til end of day 5.

Thursday.  Ok day, pretty busy.  Ok drinks.  Since we had pizza last night I wanted KFC (first time in months).  Except we had to wait 15 minutes in the drivethrough :( Watched Romeo+Juliet, because, we'd just been in Fair Verona.  

Friday.  Woke up at ~4am and never got back to sleep.  Super super busy day (have been doing three people's jobs all week.. well two really since I didn't have time to do any of my own work).  

Saturday.  Did all my morning stuff then we did food shopping, then I cooked dinner, then had lunch and by then it's 13:20.  Sigh.  Got some more stuff done in the afternoon, including moving a set of shelves because Stu wants to get more substantial ones for all his wargaming stuff.  I'm not if we've fixed the rising damp issues by fixing the drainage, but this sure isn't great... 

It didn't feel wet, so possibly it's ok now.. we really don't know.  I doused the area with vanilla fridge wipe to sterilise it..

Alan's beef stew (aka runny poo) with a heap of roasted veggies for dinner which was very nice.  Watched episodes 4 and 5 of Andor.

Sunday.  Just a day of All The Things.  House stuff, a couple of days of geotagging, a bit of Lego.  I also dropped the sweetie at the airport (he had to go to Melbourne for work) and dropped by Scrivener Dam on the way back.  It was flowing nicely, but not nearly as intense as 2010 or 2012.

Saturday.  8th.  Arrived home from our overseas adventure zombie tired.  I partly unpacked.  Had a nap but didn't really rest because I was too stressed about wasting a weekend day.  Went to Chris's to get some milk.  Did some clothes washing.  In the afternoon I started to feel the twinges of a sore throat.  The sweetie ordered Chong Co for dinner.  Then had an early night (20:30).

Sunday.  Woke up around 12:30 and stayed awake til around 06:00.  With a sore throat.  I got another couple of hours sleep after that, but it wasn't good quality and I was stressed about losing half the day.  Took a RAT which was negative.  The sweetie did the food shopping.  Had to fight with my phone to get all the files off it (I decided to recopy in case I'd missed any doing it piece-meal while I was away). And fighting with windows and memory sticks.  Cooked roast pork for dinner with heaps of crackling, so that was nice.  But basically achieved nothing much all day.  Simpsons and saw the first episode of Andor.

Monday.  Woke up at ~1:15 and stayed awake until like 4 or 5.  Sigh.  Slept til about 8:30 but again not good quality and felt zombie tired all day.  I flexed off most of the day, but could maybe have taken it as sick leave.  On account of I was sick.  Fortunately not super sick.  Just zombie tired.   Fought with SD cards and windows explorer - my computer kept showing the old card even with the new one plugged in.  Tried rebooting.  Then it wouldn't read my SD cards at all.  Sigh.  So got the files off using my old computer.  Gonna be pissed if the SD card reader is dead, the computer is less than a year old.  Nothing much else.  Logged onto work for a couple of hours in the afternoon to check my emails and catch up with Con.  Cooked san choy bow for dinner.  

Tuesday.  Work up some time after 1, til past 3.  Sigh.  Went to work (well, logged on), but brain dead.  Not as sick though.  Did a bit of weeding after work (attacking the huge growth of weeds next the lemon tree).  Was making good progress when John came and helped me and we ploughed through the rest.  Stu made pizzas for dinner.  And I made a coconut cake.  It was that kind of day.  

Wednesday.  Woke up a bit after midnight, didn't get back to sleep til like 4.  Sigh.  Zombie day yet again.  Went out and did some weeding at lunch for like 3/4 hour to get some sun to try and convince my brain that day time was actually day time.  Took some extra vitamin D as well.  Possibly being a bit sick and zombie tired meant not even setting foot outside the house, so not seeing any intense sunlight so not resetting the circadian rhythms??  Red curry with leftover pork for dinner.

Thursday.  Slept relatively ok, if restless.  Went into work for the first time in two months.  Had sort of farewell drinks for Jim, although not many people came, and dinner at the Brindabella/Magpies.  

Friday.  Ok sleep.  Our home internet died in the morning.  Unplanned outage.  Not that Internode ever bothered to update their status page.  They've gotten really bad since being taken over by iinet.  Flexed off the rest of the morning then headed down to Herbert's for lunch with the Chrises and Tony.  Except that Braddles had a Floriade shift conflict, and then Aquila got caught up at work, so ended up being just Tony and me.  The internet still hadn't come back after lunch, so got a bus to work for the afternoon (although the internet came back shortly after I got to work, doh).  Leftover san choy bow for dinner, finished season 28 of The Simpsons, and watched second episode of Andor.

Saturday.  Woke up at 6.  First time since I'd gotten home a week ago that I'd woken up naturally at normal time and actually felt human.  Did some house tidying in the morning, did our food shopping (we went together for like the first time since covid, but at Woollies Kippax where everything is *different*).  Then got stuck into organising photos from the trip (reorienting, and renaming with date/timestamp).  In the end I took 3727 on the big Canon, 5486 on the G5X, 3467 on the phone, and Mum took 1997.  Also 41 videos (11 on the G5X, and 30 on the phone).  So 12680 photos all up from me,14677 total.  Whoops.  Stu cooked sausages for dinner.  Also couldn't find my memory stick purse (that had backups on usb sticks, as well as the orginal SD cards not in the cameras).  Grunt.  Reread the travel brochure I wrote.  That was a bit of fun.  We did make a few changes to it, and missed out on a few things.  Did some weeding while Stu mowed the jungle.  Put the clarinet back together and had a bit of a play.  Was surprised I could still remember how to play.  Then Simpsons and Matrix Resurrections (which I'd seen on the plane on the way over, but was good to see again on a big screen).

Sunday.  Ok sleep again which was nice.  Did some house stuff in the morning, and a Bunnings run.  Dropped into work and found my memory card purse.  Also did some weeding and photo processing. And fish tank stuff and planted some seedlings and seeds.  Made some Lego.  Did some music.  Had to clear some space on one of my backup drives which is full, in order to backup holiday photos.  Basa bake for dinner.

When the weeds in your pavers are actually strawberries..

Why can't all days be like the last two??  I don't have time to go to work, I have far too many other things to do!!!

Sunday.  28th.  Roast chicken with all the veggies for dinner.  19:15 is bed time right?

Monday.  Ok sleep.  Noone screamed over the proxy upgrades.  Got stuck into some other work that needs doing.  Spent the entire evening organising one day in Milan and Cremona.  Just when I thought I was done I found out that Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" is in Milan.  And that tickets are nearly impossible to get.  And that the only day that you could get tickets in the next two months was the day we were going to be there.  For 26 euros I thought why the hell not.  And rearranged our day around it.  

Tuesday.  The start of the proxy problems.  Well really just one problem (two actually but the other one was an easy fix) that manifested itself in a bunch of different ways.  I was dealing with the first of them when I started getting hassled by other people about the second.  Which of course made my brain explode.  Stoopid proxies are big fat poos and hate me.  Oh yes, there was another problem with memory leaks and crashes.  Sigh.  

Wednesday.  Without people hassling me I had a look at aforementioned second problem, and was able to resolve it quite quickly.  I work so much better when I can just tinker away at stuff without people hassling me.  Had to redo the plastic sheeting around the beam the birds were eating because it had come loose.  The sweetie got bacon and eggs for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and Chong Co feast for dinner (I cooked the first two).  In the evening I was closing off travel browser tabs in Chrome, noting anything useful in them if need be.  

Thursday.  Woke up at 4:20 stressing about All The Things.  And an awful day at work fighting with the proxies.  So not much planning in the evening.  Watched a bunch of videos on Italy (a few on typical scams - which is really just common sense stuff for any city).  We also started watching Super Cub, which is a bit like Laid Back Camp in that nothing much really happens but it's still lovely to watch.

As I feared, the birds discovered there's another beam at the other end of the balcony they can get at.  So this time I wrapped tinsel around it.  So far so good.

Friday.  Had an early night and slept ok, but was super stressed out about All The Things and even ended up in tears before I'd even logged on to work.  The stoopid place in Ortona I'd booked responded to my question about getting a taxi from the station with "ok". wtf??? So I asked them again.  I couldn't get SSL in Eudora to work on the laptop, even doing everything I did for this computer.  The kitchen was a disaster.  There were no clean plates or cutlery left in the house but the dishwasher wasn't even full.  The day didn't improve.  Well, until I declared POETS, had my last music practise for a while and had chicken kiev for dinner.  Watched some more Super Cub in the evening.  

Saturday.  Slept like crap.  Sigh.  Woke up some time after two stressing about All The Things, and didn't get back to sleep til probably around four.  Had a bit of a sleepin (til 6:38!!) but still tired.  The place in Ortona didn't even bother to respond, so I cancelled it and booked somewhere else.  If someone can't even respond to a super simple question, then there's no way I can trust them to respond to any sort of problem should it arise.  Then just holiday planning all day.  The new place in Ortona I booked got back to me about a taxi - no such thing in Ortona, but they'd be happy to pick us up from the station.  Only problem is they charge an extra 15 euro to make up two beds for two people, even in a three-single bed room for two people.  A bit dumb.  If I ever rate it it'll lose marks for that.  Started writing up a "brochure" for the holiday to get me excited about the trip (and to make everyone totes jelly) which was a bit of fun.  Roast pork and veggies for dinner and more Super Cub.

Sunday.  Slept a lot better.  Finished the holiday brochure.  Puttered through the todo list.  Had a go at packing my suit case.  I wanted to see if I could fit my fully loaded backpack into it.  Turns out I can!  (a lot of places won't let you take backpacks, and so on quite a few days we'd be needing to leave our bags either at hotel reception or stations.  So I wanted to be able to lock my laptop away inside the suitcase).

This is pretty much everything I want to take.. yipe!!

Believe it or not I actually travel fairly light.  This is the suitcase fully packed - heaps of room!

And this is with my fully loaded backpak inside!  Winning!

Our last overseas trip was much much harder to pack for, in that in addition to summer and winter regular clothing, we also needed a stack of formal and smartwear.  This trip will be sooo much easier!

OMFG I will be going overseas again this week!!  Link in blog :)  And OMFG I'm going to miss the sweetie.  Like in Dresden in 2016, I'll probably feel it most acutely in places I've been to with him - probably in Neuschwanstein this time.

Sunday.  14th.  Celebrated with some bubbles and a Chong Co delivery feast.

Watched Moulin Rouge! in the evening.

Monday.  Slept ok.  Documenting more things to clean.  Plus being Neil on account of him having covid.  Had a go at playing some of the music in my new John Williams book.  John Williams is *hard* !!  Stu cooked a big bag of spinach which we had with some chicken.  Ordered an International Driving Permit.  At least you can do it all online now and upload a digital photo, so no need to go to NRMA.  Although you do have to pay $9 postage, which negates the saving of getting photos done at the post office.  Doh.  

Tuesday.  Tried to get back into the swing of planning proxy upgrade during the day.  Stuffed capsicums for dinner (using leftover veggie mince from the lasagna from last weekend). Switzerland planning in the evening.

Wednesday.  Dunno, no notes.

Thursday.  Tried to do more proxy planning but all the people with all the problems stopped that.  Homemade low-carb pizzas for dinner, with epic awesome garlic bread (Chris was selling it cheap as it was past its use-by date).  Watched Shine in the evening.  I saw it once a long time ago.  I swear you used to be able to see Geoffrey Rush's doodle on the trampoline!  Coincidentally, David Helfgott's second wife (not his first as shown in the movie) died just two days earlier.

This is the output of Stu's birthday present to himself

Friday.  Bad sleep.  Too much hissing.  Super tired All Day.  Deleted 3-5% of our ruleset from decommissioned apps that noone had bothered to tell us about.  That was fun.  Kiev and kalettes for dinner.  So awesome.

Roast the kalettes for 40-45 minutes and they go all crispy on the leaves and chewy in the middle.  So damned awesome!

Watched Kingsman: The Golden Circle in the evening.  Silly fun.  With Elton John!  And The Mandalorian!

Saturday.  Super good sleep which was lovely.  Holiday planning literally all day.  Got about half the hotels booked.  Although the Florence hotel was a bit of a poo and after I booked it was like, oh we *might* be able to give you a double bed.  So I cancelled.  Cause I aint sleeping in the same bed as my mother! ;)  Was too busy to do any music or even light a candle.  Stu heated up some minces for dinner with some spinach.  Watched the first half of Blue Murder, which I'd never actually seen before.  Richard Roxburgh was so young.  And Gary Sweet with hair was a bit disturbing! :)

Sunday.  Slept well enough.  Booked a different hotel in Florence.  This one is bigger, but they also were like, we can't guarantee two single beds.  Are you freaking kidding me??  Sigh.  More planning in the morning.  Fish stuff, music, photos, blogging and a bit more planning in the afternoon.

18.6.22

I last went to ANSTO in 2017 to visit Chrissie's dad, but he worked on the outside of the complex and we didn't go inside at all.  Before that the last time I went was twice in the early-mid-nineties.  Gordon M from the church I was going to at the time worked there and I got to go into the HIFAR (High Flux Australian Reactor) building *twice*!  Once by myself and once with Hao.  The reactor was shut down in 2007 (although it's still physically there).

The second reactor that was on site when I was there has also been shut down, but it's been completely removed.

ANSTO's latest reactor is OPAL - Open Pool Australian Lightwater (which even *looks* like an opal in photos).  It's housed in a building with a titanium cage over it that will supposedly shred a 737 and protect the building.  Unfortunately we didn't get to go in here.

So we met up at the discovery centre, then got split into two groups and went off to tour the place.

First up was the Opal Auditorium building, where we saw a couple of different models of the place and the reactor, and got a talk on the reactor and what they do there.  We also got to have a look at a live feed camera that he could control to show us the interior of the reactor building.  I couldn't find any photos of the models online though.

Next up we went to the molybdenum processing room where they make molybdenum-99 and technetium-99 used in medical imaging.  There were people working in there which was pretty cool and they have manipulator arms that they use to do the work behind nearly a metre of glass. There was also a small canister there that he said was 3/4 tonne on a little trolley.. not sure if I misheard, but seems a little.. high.. to me.  You can see the trolley in this pic

Next up was the beam room (Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering), where they divert neutron beams out of the reactor for all sorts of experiments.  The instruments all have Australian animal names (which they're running out of heh).

Finally we got to go into the Antares room (Australian National Tandem Research Accelerator), which is actually housed in a building that used to house a couple of non-active reactors, so there were epic thick concrete walls. Next door was a massive pressure vessel (vacuum chamber). One of the things they use it for is carbon dating organic samples.

While we were waiting for the other group, we stared at the massive poster they had of All The Isotopes which was pretty amazing.  Looked a bit like this..

The silliest thing about the visit is that there's strictly no photography (you have to leave your phone etc in the free lockers), BUT, most of the things we saw have photos freely available on the internet anyway.  Dumb.

Still, it was a really interesting tour.

Sunday.  Backdating a few days because life and birthdays and crap got in the way.  Had all the veggies and some chicken thighs for dinner.  Then watched more of The Crown.

Monday.  Um.  Probably a cleaning day.  Spent the evening looking at distances between places in Europe to see if we'll go over the daily allowance or need to buy unlimited kilometres.  And trying to plan an itinerary.  

Tuesday.  Woke up at 3 to pee, then started stressing about All The Things, then got hungry, then the hissing.  Sigh.  So tired, but still an ok day, mostly cleaning.  

Went to another Surprising Science talk in the Shine Dome.  There was Dr Chris Guppy from UNE talking about sulphur in soil, and Mahdokht Shaibani from RMIT talking about lithium sulphur batteries.  

The previous two photos of the Shine Dome were on my new G5X.  So is this next one.  This is hand held!!  Half a second.  Pretty impressive.

Had dinner at Master Bao but was disappointed they don't actually server bao!!?!?!  wtf!?

No bao at Master Bao!

Spring rolls

Dim sims

Shantung duck

Wednesday.  Ok sleep.  Busy cleaning day.

Thursday.  Okish sleep.  Another busy cleaning day.  Two days cleaning up stuff to get it all consistent and pretty.  And literally noone will care.  But I did fix something else that had been broken for a while (not by me) and did actually impact people so that was a win I guess.  Also got filled with rage at Outlook which by default only adds reminders to meetings created within Outlook, which means I keep missing stuff because I don't get reminders.  Hate Outlook.  HATE.  This was never a problem in Notes.  Just sayin!!

Homemade pizzas for dinner on Stu's low carb bases.  Then watched Careful, He Might Hear You.  I might have seen it once a very very long time ago.  I read the book ten years ago so was good to finally see the movie again.  I was disappointed they didn't have a shot of him on the train going over the Woronora Bridge (or in fact any shots at all of Sydney, I guess too hard with all the modern buildings).  

Friday.  Ok sleep until the hissing.  Had a fairly quiet day catching up on emails and stuff that had been slipping because I'd been busy the last couple of days.  Chicken Kiev for dinner, then watched Broadcast News.

Saturday.  Woke up at 2:22 with mild hurty.  Had a pain killer and some cheese.  An hour later I felt hungry again.  Then the hissing.  So a very slow morning.  I was trying to get things done in the afternoon but then more hurty so slow and painful.  But then that eased up and we had EffanC and Rob and Fiona over for dinner (brisket, blue cheese potato bake and roasted kale (I over cooked the kale :( )) which was lovely.  

 

Sunday.  Slept ok.  Finally booked a car for the first week of our trip.  Then spent like three and a half hours out and about running errands and doing shopping before we go into self-imposed quarantine.  Stu is not coming on this trip (sadly :( ) but I need him in quarantine as well in case he gets covid and brings it home to me.  I did get KFC for lunch, which is somewhat of a tradition, so that was nice.  Then tried to allocate seats on my flights.  For most of them this worked ok.  But the Sydney to Dubai leg I can't even tell which airline I'll be flying on.  Qantas say it's Emirates, and Emirates say it's Qantas, and neither will let me book seats.  Other than that, panicking over my todo lists.  Also.  Neil has covid.  He started feeling sick Thursday morning.  This was after I'd sat next to him all day Wednesday.  Sigh.  Felt like I was getting a sore throat Sunday.  As with every other time in the past two and a half years I'm sure it's just my imagination.  Suddenly it's 16:20 and it's like wtf happened to my weekend.  Managed to download my photos before giving up for the day and relaxing with the sweetie with some bubbles.