Last Wednesday night, we went out for dinner with EffanC (to Kinh Do - lots of really yummy food).

Then we headed into Civic to see Citizenfour.

I thought it was very interesting and thought-provoking, although I did get distracted from time to time by the whole film making process.

My dad used to lose it at governments doing that sort of stuff.  He was completely paranoid, hated the idea of "big brother" and even raged at having to do the census.  But, probably because he was like that, I feel a lot less paranoid.  Maybe because I feel like I have such a boring life that why would anyone *care*?  Probably not the right attitude, but I suppose it's one of the lesser likely things to keep me awake at night.

And, relatedly, it was just that same morning that I was doing some testing of our proxies (Simon says!) to see what is logged during image searches, and what images are returned from sites that are blocked.  It seems the image searches return images from Google rather than from the blocked site itself, means that things can show up that shouldn't.

So for anyone watching, that image search I did on "weapons making" was just for testing!

..

So this was dinner at Kinh Do

And this was the bar at the theatre

Last night was one year since dad died.  I've been listening to the list of "Dad songs" I posted last year.

Mum is doing well, and loving her new life in the retirement village.

There's some things I miss about dad (his technological knowledge and some of his quirks), and some things I certainly don't (his grumpy personality).  

I still have dreams that he's still alive, or that he recovered and came home to a house/garage that we'd cleared out of all his stuff.  The number of times I said "sorry dad" while we were getting rid of his stuff.. I think it haunted me slightly.

Yeah so what a marathon effort that cleanout was!  It took us about sixteen months, although it really accelerated in the last two months when mum had to move out.  I well and truly lost count of how many trips to Sydney I did!

Friday, June 25th 2004...
FQ Topic: Liar

FQ1: Lie about where you spent your last vacation.
Went to the moon

FQ2: Tell an untruth about your last romantic encounter.
With Jason Isaacs.  Gosh it's been over ten years since I've had a crush on a movie star.

FQ3: Fib about the last gift you received.
One million dollars

FQ DARE: This time tell the truth on all the above!
Well last vacation was Hong Kong and Taipei.  Last "romantic" encounter I'd say the nice drive the sweetie and I took last weekend, which was not necessarily romantic in the traditional sense of the word, but was just a really nice time together talking about life and stuff.  Last gift would have been Christmas presents I guess.

Compare with last time ...  looks like I had a lot more energy to think about it last time.  Also, I didn't forget this on Friday, it's just that we went out straight after work and pretty much was out the entire weekend..

Friday night we finished watching season 1 of Veronica Mars through.  I think that was my third time watching it through.  Still just as good.

I didn't sleep very well on Friday night.  Too many restless legs :(  Was awake for hours, so was tired and grumpy on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning I spent the entire morning cleaning the house.  Yay.  Although I *still* haven't done the vacuuming.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate vacuuming?

Marc and Jo arrived around midday and we chatted for a while.  

Then did a trip to Costco.  Because I'd never been and was interested to see the place.  It started off ok, looking around the home entertainment stuff and another non-food stuff.  But then we got to the food and thought we should see what inspired us for dinner.  Ended up picking up some lamb shanks.  But then we needed to find stuff to go with it, but it's really horrible to shop for fresh food there.  Smallest bag of potatoes was 5kg :(  Plus we didn't know where anything was and it was somewhat crowded, so it all became quite stressful.  Got through the checkouts, and then they take your receipt and count every item in your trolley to make sure it adds up.  And I'm like *what the??*  Seemed quite insane to me.  And the girl couldn't grasp that there was something buried under something else, which meant our tally was one item *under* and so she spent ages counting and getting confused.  Bizarre bizarre bizarre.  Then we thought we'd get some super cheap petrol (under a dollar a litre) but then we saw the queue, which was at least six cars waiting per bowser and thought screw that and just got out of there.

At home we started prepping dinner (it was like 4pm by this point).  But I was tired and stressed and grumpy and things just kept falling *down*.  Why does everything have to fall down??  Plus mess, and multiple people working just made it even more stressful.

But once we got dinner in the oven and cleaned up the kitchen I could start to relax a little.  So we chatted and looked at holiday slideshows before dinner.  Which turned out reasonably well.  The lamb shanks were *huge* and I didn't finish mine, and they could have done with being done a bit slower and longer.

After dinner we (read me - everyone else wussed out) went for a swim.

But then we started prepping breakfast (Marc's breakfast mince) and I accidentally knocked a wine glass onto the floor.  It *shattered*.  Into tiny pieces all over the kitchen floor :(:(:(:(  I was pretty upset because it was one of the nice ones Stu got when he left his job in Queensland nearly nine years ago.  But I really lost it when I tried to nibble a bit of onion of the spatula a bit later and dropped it trying to put it into my mouth.  I was just so sick of everything falling down I just lost it and went to bed.

Today was a fairly slow start.  Had the breakfast mince (too much food for me) and then Marc and Jo went home around midday.

Then the sweetie and I jumped in the car and went for a nice long drive out to Uriarra Crossing and Mt Stromlo (Scope is closed - boo).  We had a good long chat about life and stuff so that was really nice.

Got home and started on season 2 of Veronica Mars.  I remember watching this in Sydney, but found my dvds were still wrapped, so was wondering how I could have seen it.  Then figured I must have watched *live*, on *tv* .. surely not!  Actually watching tv as it airs?  Unheard of! heh

Mum came back from the little brother's tonight.  We had a very nice swim in the pool and talked about family and life and stuff.

Then I cooked dinner - cheesy meatballs and cutlets.  Yumm!

Then we played on the wii for a while.  I checked in for the first time in two years.  I might have put on weight.  Sigh.  Mum lost weight.  More sigh.  At least I won at bowling and tennis heh.

The other month, Dave2 resurrected his FridayQ posts.  I did many of these ten years ago (holy crap has it been that long ???) but I also missed a lot because I actually often found them too hard!  Often it required thought and brainpower that I just didn't have.  Anyway, I thought it might be fun to work through them for the next year (until I forget) and compare answers with ten years ago.  And I even still have a "category" in my blog, which is pretty disturbing in itself!

Friday, June 4th 2004...

FQ Topic: Escape

FQ1: What is your favorite way to escape from everyday life?
Movies, tv (to some extent), internet.  Jigsaws, although that gives me plenty of time to let my brain wander, which sometimes goes into fantasyland, sometimes about life in general.  Alcohol to some extent.  Travel, but not nearly enough of that :)

FQ2: When was the last time you made an escape? Where did you go?
Well our last proper holiday was to Hong Kong and Taipei.  Given that I did almost no planning for it, I guess you could say it was an escape.

FQ3: If you could escape to anywhere on earth right now, where would that be?
Gosh.  Probably Europe somewhere.  I love Europe.

FQ DARE: Post your passport photo (or your driver's license photo if you don't have a passport).
I *hate* my passport photo.  These days you're not allowed to smile for your passport photos which makes me look completely retarded.

Compare with last time ...

So 2014. We survived.

Probably the most significant event of the year was that my Dad died in February. Mum handled it fairly well, as she'd gotten used to the idea over the course of nearly a year. And in the end it was a relief of sorts, knowing that he was out of his misery and in a much better place. I continued doing trips to Sydney to help clear out the garage of all dad's stuff. We took many car loads to metal recycling and made a couple of hundred dollars out of it. We also freecycled quite a lot of stuff. In October mum got accepted into a retirement village and the next two months became a whirlwind of trips to Sydney, a trip to Hong Kong and Taipei, a trivia night that I had to prepare and run, a work ball I had to prepare for as well as life in general to be lived. I only just survived til December 16, then was able to collapse in a heap. It was pretty sad saying goodbye to the family home of forty two years.

So I actually had three big holidays this year. The first mum and I decided to go on when it was pretty obvious dad wasn't going to last much longer. That was for two weeks in Turkey. That was a pretty awesome trip and we saw heaps of amazing stuff. Then I did another trip with my mum in September. That was an Outback Spirit tour from Cairns to Brisbane via Mt Isa and Longreach. It was a good trip, but hideously expensive - as expensive as the Turkey trip, but didn't include international airfares, fancy hotels every night or restaurant quality meals for every meal. At the end of that trip we spent nearly a week with Chay and David which was a lovely chance to chillax after being go go go for two weeks. And the last big trip was to Hong Kong and Taipei for two weeks. I was in the middle of chaos at the time, so Stu did all the planning for it. That was a pretty good trip too, although we did struggle at times to find the best balance of going and seeing things and doing nothing and relaxing. Other than that, we went with DC to his coast house in January, to Bermagui in March, and also stayed at the coast briefly to go to Scott and Kerry's combined 40th.

Had an ok year at work. Spent a good amount of time "cleaning" - decommissioning old services and doing massive cleanups of firewall rules. Also got chucked in the deep end on a couple of projects that required extra assistance, so they were a bit stressful at times.

Healthwise I was pretty good this year. I got a cold during the Turkey trip (a pretty nasty flu thing had been going around the whole tour group so I got off pretty lightly). And it seems I got a cold probably at the movies the other night as yesterday I started sniffling. Other than that I've been pretty healthy.

We've spent heaps of time with our "whiskey" friends this year which has been awesome. But we've not seen nearly enough of Nat and Andrew as I'd have liked. We had a few games nights at Mishi's in January, August and December, with lunch at Damien's in December. My Sydney visits meant lunches (Peking duck!!!) with @StuartCRyan which was awesome, but sadly that won't be happening anymore. We saw Josh and Ally a couple of times, and Gaelian and Stef as well. A Sydney trip for George's 40th. A fair bit of drinking with the neighbours and playing with the animals. Various people came to stay over the year including the little brother, Chris and Zac, and Marc and Jo a couple of times. We're continuing to enjoy our visits to "the club" and went to many of the social events on during the year.

Pretty quiet year for the fish. All the zebra danios in the angel tank have finally died. I got five rummy nosed tetras for the two foot, and they're lovely little fish and drew out the black neon tetras which otherwise just spent their life hiding up the back of the tank. A couple of the duboisis died, which threw off the dominance balance, so one of them became dominant and picked off the rest of them one by one, so he's the only one left in that tank now with a sucking cat fish. Most of the kribs and multis downstairs are gone now too. Really would like to get rid of a lot of our fishtanks and crap ..

I didn't buy any Lego this year, but throughout January I got to play with all of Jake's Lego - around eighty sets of it! Building and dismantling and checking for missing pieces, and documenting. Sooo much fun! Also dismantled the Star Destroyer which had been out for four years!

Continued doing a lot of jigsaws at home during the summer, and some at work, although not anymore there which is a shame. I finally finished the 24000 piece "Life" jigsaw, but still haven't gotten around to taking it to work to document it all laid out. Not much else in the way of hobbies, other than part of a paint-by-numbers which I got for last break but still haven't finished.

January had a run of very hot days which required lots of icing the fish tanks to keep them cool. But the rest of the year was surprisingly mild. Winter had some very cold nights, but the pool only partly froze over a couple of times. We've had some very hot days too, but again generally it's been fairly mild. In fact this whole Christmas break has been *lovely*. Because of all the travel and chaos, the pool was a mess until just before Christmas, but because it hasn't been super hot since then, we haven't gone in yet.

Tried a surprising number of new recipes during the year - almost one a month by the look of it.
* two different lasagnas - both awesome
* black forest slice - needs some modification
* Boeuf Bourguignon inspired by Julie and Julia
* Coq au vin
* various vegetables
* breakfast raclette - trying to perfect a recipe
* white chocolate caramel slice
* duck breast
* harissa roast chicken
* zucchini and cheese fritters

We ate out a bit. I didn't think all that often, but still a fair amount. Our favourites are still Dumpling Inn and Pulp Kitchen. Bella Vista as well, although only once this year (maybe twice?). Went to Grazing a couple of times and it was awesome both times. Went to Ace Sushi a couple of times when doing shopping at the markets, but it's pretty average. Revisted Asian Cafe, Wig and Pen, Iori. New this year included:
* Grazing - awesome
* Ellacure - not fussed
* Edgar's - ok
* Bellucci's - pretty good
* Mocan and Green Grout - interesting
* A Baker - good
* Kinh Do - good
* Beijing House - meh

At work, other than the mall, tried out Altitude Cafe (meh), got thoroughly pissed off at Samiuz, went to Sanurs for an after party dinner, 2 Yummy a couple of times for after drinks dinners, and Outback Jacks a couple of times for team lunches/dinners (quite impressed with their feasts). Probably lots of other places too undocumented.

In Sydney our regular for Peking Duck was Super Bowl, and Tako Tuesdays were at Sushi and Grill on York Street for takoyaki - not fresh, but better than other places I'd tried, and it was just downstairs from work.

Also found a couple of speakeasys. The Baxter Inn in Sydney which is awesome. Went there by myself first up, then later with Luc and again later with Neil. Went to Molly with the sweetie as well.

Movies:
* The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
* The Lego Movie (x2)
* Lucy
* The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Books:
* Deadly Décisions, by Kathy Reichs
* The Earthsea Quartet, by Ursula LaGuin
* The Delinquents, by Criena Rohan
* Fatal Voyage, by Kathy Reichs
* Animal Farm, by George Orwell
* *batteries not included, by Wayland Drew
* Palomino, by Danielle Steel
* Star Wars Episode I, by Terry Brooks
* Dewey, by Vicki Myron
* A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle
* Thunder Dog, by Michael Hingson
* Star Wars Episode II, by R.A. Salvatore

Other Stuff:
* Multicultural Festival aka meat on a stick day!
* Hall Markets for first time
* Mapping Our World exhibition at the National Library
* Balloon Fiesta in March
* Inherited Dad's camera
* Inspected the Sentinel apartments in Belconnen
* Inspected my flat in Sydney. Got depressed over deadbeat tenants who don't take care of other people's property
* Won another work trivia night. Ran the next one
* Airport open day - flying visit as could only spend an hour there
* Went to the War Memorial but was disappointed the WWI exhibition was closed for renovations
* Whiskey Live - 44 whiskeys oh my!
* Stu's Japanese classes cultural nights twice
* Poultry show at epic
* Had to buy a new lens because I'd smashed my other one in Turkey. Bought the same one
* Drama with cooling problems with my car. Found a new mechanic who I think might have fixed it
* Had to buy a new dishwasher as the last one burnt out
* Fired up Stu's old Android and started playing Ingress. Got a sim for it seven weeks later but the damage to my iPhone battery was done.
* Took a random day off and cleaned half the garage
* Zone 3 with work
* Bought Stu a new car on a very good finance deal - cheaper than our mortgage!
* BBQs at @CLBradley's. On one of them I borrowed Frozen and have been slightly obsessed with it ever since
* Chucked out years of receipts
* Birthday dinner of Chinese takeaway in Sydney
* Whiskey tasting night on my birthday, Bella vista for dinner
* Skiing in August
* Chickens and duckies next door (and lizards and frogs and cats and dogs)
* Total lunar eclipse
* Pulled off a semi-convincing Queen Elsa at our work Halloween Ball
* Mum tried to electrocute herself but thankfully failed
* Carols service at Como Church

So that's 2014 done! I know some of my readers have had a tough year (especially my brother). Hope things improve in 2015.

Happy new year!

So I've had a great Christmas break so far.  Mostly.

Christmas day was a fairly lazy start after staying up a little too late with Kit on Christmas Eve (I forced them to watch the carols hehe and then we half watched Frozen, oops).  Didn't get to Potty's til a bit later than I wanted to, which meant the pork didn't get on til a bit late, which meant it was going to be a late lunch.  But we brought heaps of nibbles so ordinarily that would have been fine.  But just as we were sitting down to eat lunch everything happened at once.  While serving ourselves lunch Annie and the family turned up (it was 2pm and they were meant to arrive after lunch, but lunch was late hrmm), and miss V took that as her cue to open her presents.  Next year I'm not putting labels on presents.  That'll learn em.  Anyway, so instead of a nice relaxing Christmas lunch it was all super rushed and stressful.  Grunt.  The rest of the afternoon was a bit better though.

George really didn't like his Christmas collar and was so depressed he almost got run over because he wouldn't get out of the way when we came home.

Friday morning I got stuck into my holiday break.  Friday and Saturday I had really productive days, getting stuff done around the house, as well as some sorting out of *stuff* and sorting my photos and lots of sorting of Dad's photos.  

Annie got me this for Christmas - super cute, goes with the little Neuschwanstein Castle she got me last year.

Cherries at Damien's

Sunday morning was more of dad's photo sorting, then we went over to Damien's for a Thermomix feast lunch.  Not a demo as such (he wasn't trying to sell us one), just a fun little banquet of dishes from it.

First he made up some pizza dough.

Then he made a very nice dip of cream cheese, garlic, green onions and parsely.

Then a leek and potato soup

The leftovers of the soup made the base for a sauce that went with this steamed chicken and vegetables

And here's that pizza

And finally a sorbet to finish

So quite a feast in the end!

Afterwards we played a round of the Logo Game, which I won, then came home and did more photo sorting.

Monday and today was primarily photo sorting and a bit of house stuff.  And shaking my head over dad's "system" of backups.  So much waste.

Here's the "before" pile.  The offsite backups, the archives, the working copies, backups of mum's photos, unsorted cds, copies of other people's photos, and an entire large spindle of unfiled duplicates.

And this is everything I'm chucking out.  Over four hundred cds :(  Such a waste.  They would never even have been used either.  He would have just burnt them, filed them, and that was the end of that.  And I swear about fifty of those cds were from their Gulf Savannah trip in 2007.  Sooo many copies of everything.  Sigh.

Last night we went to EffanC's for dinner, and after dinner we watched Labyrinth on the big screen (aka their lounge room wall).  It was super awesome.

So I've gotten a lot done this break, although not nearly as much as I wanted to.  There's still so many things on the todo list.  Life is too short.  Holidays are too short.  Sigh.

Had a cleaning day today.  People will keep making mess, so I'll spend my life cleaning up after them .. hrmmm

Tony and Kiera convinced me to talk home with them.  Oops.  Did get a few new portals though.

Tonight I mostly geotagged photos (I've basically finished the Canon shots from the group tour).  But after you hit save on a day, you have about five to ten minutes where you can't do any more, so I used that time to work through some things on my todo list (mostly house cleaning type stuff heh).  If I can achieve as much as I did tonight *every* night then maybe I'll actually get everything done that I need to ...

Been trying like to crazy to catch up with life, as well as trying to get through some of the stuff I really need to do in the next few weeks.  Not succeeding too well.

Friday we got to see Angry Anderson and he spent an hour telling us about his life and how it changed quite dramatically when his daughter was born.  It was funny and emotional, a really good talk.  He also looks *really good* for a 67 year old!

Yesterday the sweetie was still feeling pretty blah from whatever bug he picked up in Queensland, so we didn't go out to the club.  This was a relief for me as it gave me most of the day to do some cleaning and geotagging of holiday photos.

Had dinner at EffanC's which was nice, although C and Stu weren't too impressed with the episode of You Can't Do That On Television that we put on after dinner.  Me on the other hand was in full nostalgia mode - not having seen the show in something like twenty five years.  Stu also suffered through a game of Bananagram, which I won.

Today I went to the George Harcourt (for the first time ever in fact) for a birthday lunch for Steve.  Then we did our food shopping.

This afternoon was trying to organise stuff for the ball.  

Dinner was lamb.  So much lamb.  Then catching up on rss feeds (I'm *months* behind :( ).

Can someone please stop the world, I need to get off for a moment....