Boring Life Of a Geek
Monday I was just having my lunch when it got loud. Really freakin loud. I thought the glass roof was going to cave in. It didn't, but it did leak in places.
Then I went outside.
Later we went and did our food shopping. Aldi was closed.
And Pizza Artigiana's awning was shredded.
We were super lucky, but the carnage throughout Canberra was insane.
Can this summer get any crazier? (I shouldn't say that, that's totally tempting fate...)
Urgh. I hate Apple. But more on that later.
Monday I finished blogging our Hong Kong and Singapore photos and got them online which was good. Finally I achieved something. Hurrah. Logged onto our Disney+ account and had a look around. There's a bunch of the new live action movies I want to see (although not Lion King), and Toy Story 4 is coming in February. But there's a bunch of things I want to watch before we take a break from it.
Tuesday. Blerf. Stoopid insomnia. Couldn't get to sleep *and* woke up for ages feeling uncomfortable. Spent the day deleting All The Things. Had EPIC steaks for dinner (I didn't eat all this! Not even one of them! ;) ).
Wednesday I extracted all the geodata out of Google Earth (myplaces.kml) from the geotagging I did of our flights across America in 2000. Used exiftool to take that geodata to geotag the files, and then fix them up slightly (because annoyingly the data has tilt and range, it doesn't have altitude in the geodata, although I did calculate it trigonometrically).
And it rained! A bit anyway.
And people that spit chewing gum onto the ground have to be up there with the most disgusting ferals on the planet. Right up there with those who leave their dog turds on other people's front lawns.
Then Echofon lost its auth, and Internode started blocking me from sending mail via its smtp server.
So a bit of fun, but also a lot of pain.
Thursday we had a bbq at work to finally finish off all the sausages from the Christmas Party. Stu wanted to have drinks after work so I went to get him, but first we had dinner of pizzas at Grease Monkey.
The lake was very low last week...
Friday might have shared some wine with Neil at Grill'd. Made tacos for dinner. Watched the first episode of Who is America, which was extremelly cringey (especially the gun fanatics).
Saturday morning (after waking up at 3:50 #grunt) I spent much of the morning filing and organising my old photos (mainly the ones taken on my Olympus camera between 1999 and 2004, as well as a bunch taken on the Sony in 2004). Making sure everything had the date in the file name (so I can find them for the This Day in History project) and just general neatness. Also with a view to sorting out all the kids' photos for Ryan's 21st.. hrmm..
Then we headed out to the club. Had a swim then a bit of an antisocial with a bunch of people that were out there. The new carpet and kitchen bench are amazing.
Sunday morning I spent ages going through the "tool shed" in our van, taking of stock of what's there and sorting things out. Then came home and spent the rest of the day doing photo filing and sorting.
Monday had a super intense hail storm. Luckily our car was under cover, and it all missed our house. But the carnage in Canberra was crazy. Hundreds if not thousands of cars, awnings and gardens damaged or destroyed. I'll put up some pics in another post.
Did some food shopping in the afternoon and marvelled at the blue sky, which we really haven't seen in nearly two months.
Came home and then went into battle with Apple. As per usual, downloading even regular videos caused the device is not attached to the system error. Had to reboot the phone because it refused to show me the file system at all afterwards. Twice. Had to do *multiple* reconnects of the cable to even show the file system. Then when I got (most of) the files, most files' timestamps were changed by Apple on the phone and had to be manually fixed. Took literally all evening to get all most of my files. Transferred some with Google Drive, but even one of the regular videos (not a timelapse) won't play. F#%$ I hate Apple.
Tonight I got home and did a water change in Chrissie's tank and cooked and ate dinner and then it was like 20:00. #grunt And then I spent the next hour or so continuing to fight with Apple. I should paste the table of crazy inconsistent behaviour. In the end David used his Macbook to recode the couple of videos that I couldn't get to play.
You're lucky you got this blog entry at all. Two nights battling with Apple is killing my will to live, or in fact do anything. And I have a billion things that need doing, and none of them are getting done. I'm dying from the stress of it all.
I don't think I saw any movies this week. Sad times.
Relatively quiet week this week. Had a fair bit of insomnia - not being able to get to sleep and/or waking up and not being able to get back to sleep. So frustrating.
My phone upgraded itself to 13.3 this week because I forgot to disconnect it from power overnight. So far a couple of retarded bugs. The first is that if you have two phone numbers associated with a contact, Apple will now merge them together in sms messages, and I can't see any way (within the sms app) to choose which number to send it to, short of making a whole new contact to separate the numbers. And my scheduled reminders stopped working, although it was happy to pop up old reminders that had long gone. Apple is so retarded.
Edit: you can start a new message in the SMS app to whichever contact you like, but you can't just hit reply to an existing SMS because you literally have no idea which number it will use.
David brought his super fancy vacuum cleaner up, and on Thursday and Saturday he moved out the lounges and vacuumed seven years of accumulated dust.
On Thursday night we watched The Last Jedi.
Friday night we all met up in the city and had a lovely dinner at Kinn Thai, then saw The Rise of Skywalker.
Saturday was just house stuff during the day. Was quite productive in the morning, not so much in the afternoon. In the evening was a bbq at Brett and Sharon's.
Today I finished culling photos to show for our Hong Kong/Singapore trip. And finished a yukky jigsaw. And made another pavlova. And we did some food shopping at the markets.
But disaster! Saigon Streetfood and Groceries is shut!!
And my computer bluescreened this arvo when I plugged in my camera's SD card. Not Happy Jan!
And I still have no idea where these little terrorists are coming from :(
Let's see how well an early night will work...
The last week of our break was overshadowed, quite literally, by the catastrophe of the bushfires. I watched them get closer and closer to Kit and Pete's place, then it skirted round their town, but they're not out of danger yet. It's still very close to David's place at River Island. It got very close to DC's place at Malua Bay, and Fiona's place in Newcastle. @CLBradley's place at Kangaroo Valley is still under threat. Lisa's family lost a farm house and a camper. Connor's inlaws' land was burnt out, but the shed was ok. Chloe's land got burnt out and their shed and tractor are gone, but the house they are building was untouched. And that's just people I know. People have died. Many homes, farms and historic buildings have been lost. The toll on the bush and the wildlife is incalculable. The smoke we've been breathing for the past few weeks is the remains of millions upon *millions* of plants and animals. It's utterly devastating and heartbreaking. I really fear that this weather is the new "normal" and wonder if it will ever properly rain again...
So New Year's Eve was very hot and very windy, and I was *super* nervous about fires starting. We were going to go out to the club but decided not to. EffanC also decided not to go, so we went over to their place instead as conditions eased.
So it was fairly quiet evening of just chatting and watching the Sydney fireworks. Even David joined us after his shift finished which was nice.
The smoke got thick again as the wind changed in the evening. My first photos of the new year are of the smoke on the way home..
It was a pretty late night so Wednesday, New Year's Day, was a slow, quiet day. Did a bit of photo processing, blogging, some jigsaw, and we watched Die Another Day in the evening.
Thursday ended up being another quiet day. Didn't get a whole lot done. Stu signed up for Disney+ and we watched The Force Awakens in the evening. Of course our introduction to Disney+, literally the first thing on the screen, was Error 43. Fricken useless.
How cute are these!? Stu got them in the mail (before Australia Post stopped deliveries because of the smoke).
Friday with the cooler weather I took the opportunity to check on the gutters. They weren't too bad. David also couldn't help himself and pulled apart our cooler and gave it all a good scrub. Bestest brother ever!
After lunch Kit called. They were in Canberra - they'd come up Thursday night with all the animals (two dogs, a cat, two birds, three frogs and a snake) leaving behind the chickens and the fish. They came over in the afternoon and just chilled out for a couple of hours which was nice. Pete had a lot of fun watching the wedding videos, while Kit monitored the fires and social media. We dropped their car back at her mum's and had a drink.
Then Stu picked us up and we all went to Bella Vista for dinner.
We had Garlic and cheese foccacia to share $9 which was delicious (Kit said it was the best cheese and garlic bread she'd ever eaten heh).
For dinner I had Vitello Saltimbocca: Veal escallops with sage, Prosciutto and mozzarella cheese in a white wine reduction sauce served with creamy mash and green beans. ($35)
Then back to our place to chat for a while. It was nice that they felt they could just come and hang out and relax with us. We think they made a sensible decision getting to safety ahead of the predicted craziness on Saturday.
So Saturday. The hot north-westerly winds picked up again, fanning the flames of all the fires going on at the coast. I was tense again. I spent the morning putting away all the Christmas decorations. Didn't get much done in the afternoon, although I did finish blogging our Melbourne trip, where we went and saw Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Link is here - http://kazza.id.au/oz_holidays/ - if you wanted to have a look (last entry is first on that page so scroll down to see it in order). We watched Casino Royale in the evening.
The wind did blow all the smoke away for the day, but it came back again around 10pm.
And when I say it came back, I mean it *really* came back. We could smell it as soon as it hit, and it was swift and all consuming. In the morning it was like waking up in hell... the phone wouldn't get the white balance right, I had to fiddle with the DSLR to get this.
Played through an escape game on my phone, but otherwise only got little bits and pieces done during the day.
In the evening a bunch of us went over to Rob and Lyn's for dinner which was lovely. The temperature had cooled down significantly so it was nice outside, just very smoky, so we stayed inside, which was a lot hotter. But had a very pleasant evening. Rob cooked some quite delicious steaks and there was heaps of other food.
So back to some sense of reality on Monday. My "essential" todo list kept me going til 10pm but then I couldn't get to sleep (a mosquito buzzing around certainly didn't help, not to mention where the f@#$ did it come from, given there's no standing water anywhere in Canberra at the moment). So today was a bit of a zombie day, but was able to do lots of cleaning which was good. And tonight processed photos, and have spent an hour writing up this entry.
Stay safe everyone...
The new year started for us in the Bermuda Triangle! It was 9am Caribbean time, 12am AEDT time. Stu was in bed and I was eating breakfast. And I watched the Sydney fireworks. Live. On an ocean liner. In the middle of the North Atlantic. I love technology :) We actually managed to stay awake til midnight ship time and heard them sound the horn to mark midnight.
So our overseas trip of the year was just the tail end of our North Atlantic crossing and Caribbean cruise. Had four days in New York which is not nearly enough time. Came home via Singapore on the longest commercial flight you can take (for now) - 18 hours!. Early in February I went up to Sydney to visit Mum for a post-Christmas catchup. Went and saw a Lego show, took the River Cat to Parramatta and caught up with Pam, and later with Daniel and Fi. Didn't get to see the Cartans on the Sunday morning which was a shame because Doug Cartan died later in the year. Visited Luc and Lizzi for Ryan's penultimate donut photo and saw Cordeaux Dam on the way home. We went down to see Kit and Pete several times - in March to see their house and go to their engagement party, in July for a visit and to do some wedding planning and go to the zoo, in November to do some wedding planning and meet and ride Kit's new horse Jet, and in December for their wedding. Went and visited David in Junee in June. In August I went up to Sydney for Diana and Graham's funeral, and Chrissie and I geeked out at standing in the spot we met thirty years and a couple of weeks earlier. Came home via Dapto that trip to meet up with Kit who wanted to look at a horse (not Jet), and had a fun drive up Macquarie Pass. In November we went to Melbourne for the weekend to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child with Hannah and Rita.
Work was pretty decent this year. My life is four things: source, dest, port, protocol. Simple. Except way too many people don't understand basic client-server communication which is pretty frustrating. Whenever I had the time I would clean things. Our section disbanded (or was announced it would be disbanded) around February 14 - exactly one and a half years after I started in that section. I went back to comms but kept sitting in the same place for a while longer until they did a bit of a floor reshuffle. Fortunately I was able to get a seat away from the corridor and things stayed pretty stable which is essential for my mental health. Socially there was a big event at the beginning of the year which included an Escape Room, and dinner at the War Memorial, Laser Tag, and I ran a trivia night for it (using mostly recycled questions). We won a trivia night in April which meant we ran one in September. Had a whiskey night in June and a ball in October. Our drinking buddies dropped like flies though - Lachie, then Doc, then Hannah. Very sad times. Ran our annual Christmas party at the lake again, but it was very smokey and numbers were down - only about 40 this year!
On Valentines Day I had my appendix out! My first ever general anesthetic and first ever hospital stay. Then in April Annie had hers out too - didn't know these things were contagious ;) After surviving the plague ship (don't travel in northern hemisphere winters with old people - everyone gets sick) and not even getting sick when Stu did, I had a very small cold in February, but then survived all winter without getting sick again, only to get one in September then another one in December. The one in December was the worst and I was coughing for a couple of weeks, including being sick at Kit's wedding. Insomnia was a lot better this year but still got bouts of it.
Saw a bit of my family. Saw Mum in Sydney in February. David and Kat came to stay in April. Took them out for a bbq at the new van. Mum came to visit in June and we went down to Junee to visit David. Later blacklisted Kat from ever coming here again - I can't stand the way she treats David and there's no way I could be civil to her if I saw her ever again. David came to visit in October and we took him out for his birthday and then on a tram because he was going to interview for a job driving them. David got the job, and moved in with us in November (had to clean out space in the bedroom, bathroom, pantry and study). Mum came down at Christmas for a couple of days. We saw a little bit of Stu's family too. The other Stu came over for dinner in January. Kerry and the kids came to see the balloons in March and dropped in to visit. Dropped in to see Annie and the kids in April and save Daisy's life (emergency cash supply). Scott and Kerry and the kids dropped in briefly in October. Saw Noah on his 18th birthday. Stu and Annie and the family came over for Christmas lunch. I saw a bit of Chrissie during the year. Went over for a couple of low key dinners in January (hot cross bun ice cream!) and December, saw her the night her aunty and uncle were murdered and we just tried to process, had a few lunches out and about, and a nice BBQ on Anzac Day which also included her Dad, siblings and their partners. Saw quite a lot of EffanC and the N-gang which was great, including a couple of dinners at R&F's, various visits back and forth and dinners out at Pot Belly and Malaysian Chapter with EffanC including an election night event and New Years. We're still missing Kit and Pete and the chickens although did see them a few times during the year. Other than the four times we went down to the coast, they also came to stay for Tarun's wedding in March. Went wedding dress shopping with Kit then had dinner at Old Canberra Inn for Pete and Leisa's birthdays. They came back again in April to see Kit's brother before he went home to Germany. Kit came up again in May for Katie's sister's funeral and her friend Sophie's wedding. I organised Kit's Hen's at the end of November - Laser Tag and dinner at George Harcourt with drinks after at Moby's. And I ended up being a bridesmaid at their wedding after it became too difficult for Audrey. We farewelled Stewie and Cath (again) in February. Fiona came to stay the weekend after I got my appendix out, but was pretty stressed about it because everyone was sick and I couldn't sleep in the spare bed. Jenn came over a week later for a Turkish feast, and we caught up for drinks with her in October. Went to see Doc's new place with a big group of work peoples which was lovely. Had a couple of dinners with Hannah, at Dumpling Inn and Pizza Artigiana so Stu could get to know her before we went away together. Had our annual hanami part with Nat and Andrew, although I was sick the original weekend and the flowers were mostly all gone by the time they did get to come over. And went to @CLBradley's 60th at Ciscos.
Spent a bit of time at our social club. There was a Finnish night in March, with a wallaroo joey. Not to eat - that's Australian, not Finnish ;) In April we bought a well-established van off another member to give us some space to move (our old van was just barely big enough to sleep in, and even then not really). Sold the old one for a lot less that we paid for it because it had a leak that we never fixed and wasn't in great condition. Spent a bit of time cleaning and decluttering the new one, but there's still a long way to go. Had Chris and Ian's anniversary there, it's been a shame that I've had to miss two of them over the years. We did Christmas in July again for a huge crowd. Had a couple of nights there in August, including the AGM on Stu's birthday (doh!), and another night in September. September was a Chilean night, which was great, but some people really need to learn to better estimate catering. I mean a bit of overcatering is fine, you don't want to run out, but you also don't want an entire fridge full of leftover food - both cooked and uncooked! Went for Oktoberfest in October. We missed the Christmas party because we were down the coast at Kit and Pete's wedding. We were going to go out at New Years, but I was too nervous about the weather and potential for fires.
Pretty quiet fish year. I discovered my angel is a girl - she laid a couple of batches of eggs! At the end of the year I had four active tanks. The angel tank, with the angel, a cory, and a sucking catfish. The two foot, with three black neon tetras and a sucking catfish. Chrissie's little tank, with two clown loaches and a sucking catfish. And the downstairs two foot, with one large danio. Stu has his four foot which is always covered in algae because the lights are too good and there's not enough algae eaters, a tiny tank on his desk with a white cloud, and a little tank downstairs with a white cloud. There's also four empty tanks that were for killifish but they all died. I want to restock my tanks, but needed to prove I can take care of them first (ie, making sure at least one of them gets a water change every weekend, so no more than four weeks between water changes for each tank).
Nothing much on the Lego front either. I'm still working on sorting out Vic's Lego. It's extremelly slow going. It takes a good chunk of the weekend to do pick parts for six sets, so if there's anything on on a weekend nothing would happen. Really need to get back into it, as I really want my tubs and floor space back.
Not so many jigsaws this year either. I feel like there's too many other important things to do to "waste time" doing jigsaws :( Similarly with any of my other hobbies.
The weather was *hot* when we got back from overseas in January. We had the cooler running for three weeks straight. There were a lot of thunderstorms at the beginning of the year too. Had a duststorm in February. Then drought with a dry winter and super dry November and December, and the shroud of bushfire smoke for most of December.
Around the house.. I took a few days off at Easter to have a ten day break, and we Marie Kondo'd the house - well, clothes, linen cupboard, under the house a bit, some of the garage, and the pantry. David came during that break and replaced the light in the fan light, and also the kitchen lights, with LEDs. Had the sewer pipes eeled in May and he cleared a blockage at the same spot twelve metres in as last time. For Christmas I treated us to new towels - the first time in my life I've ever had matching bathroom linen - loving it!
Considering it feels like we don't eat out all that often, it seems like we ate out a lot. I tried Master Hin Dumplings at the mall. Very average dumplings. I'm surprised they're actually still there. Went to Chong Co on Australia Day and had their delivery a couple of times. Went to Gus's with the sweetie in February. Malaysian Chapter and Pot Belly a couple of times with EffanC, and for a work farewell lunch. Indian Pantry with Cath. Had Pho Hub with Neil. A couple of work lunches at Chompy's. Had Yat Bun Tong at least once with the sweetie. Possibly only made it to Dumpling Inn once this year - to meet up with Hannah so she and Stu could meet and we could discuss Harry Potter. The sweetie took me out to Temporada on our anniversary which was expensive but excellent. A group of us went to Rashays for their $5 lunches in May. We haven't been back since. Tried Tasting China and Akiba which were both pretty good. Went to Chez Kimchi a few times. They're ok but their menu is just a mess. Had Disappointing Sushi (aka Hero Sushi in Canberra Centre) a couple of times. It always meets expectations - it's always disappointing. We had Pizza Artigiana a couple of times. The first in July to meet Hannah's flatmate Rita who we were going to see Harry Potter with, and again with Stu in August. Tried lunch at 54 Benjamin a couple of times. Nice, but a bit expensive to do too often for lunches. Had Alice's in July, the Lake George Hotel in Bungendore in August with EffanC, Bella Vista on my birthday, Happy's in December. Tried out Yarralumla Kebabs' new store in Belco. Pro tip - take a knife and cut one in two and split it with someone - otherwise you'll feel to stuffed at the end (even Stu finds them too big!!). And went to Bharat International with some work guys. And there were several treks to Kingsley's ;)
It seems I wasn't terribly creative in the kitchen this year. Or maybe I just didn't document things. We ate one of Kit's little roosters and made a couple of lasagnas with her tomatoes. I had a lot of fun with puff pastry - making cheese and vegemite scrolls, pizza scrolls and cheese twists. Made tacos a couple of times. A large kit works a lot better with three people than two ;) Made a gnocchi carbonara bake a couple of times. Also made cheesy hash browns which are always pretty awesome. And made a huge batch of gingerbread biscuits for Christmas.
The only theatre/shows/exhibitions I saw were two Lego things (Lego Cities by Ryan McNaught in Sydney, and a private Lego Christmas Show in Ngunnawal), and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in Melbourne.
The only movie I saw in theatres was the Lego Movie 2 - the Second Part.
Saw a lot more movies on TV. As well as invididual movies which I won't list, we (or I) also carried on watching movies in series. Including:
Watched a surprising amount of TV too!
I'm not a big reader but did get through some books:
And as always, I finish off with a big list of other bits and pieces..
We finished out the year at EffanC's for a quiet evening with great friends.
Gosh what a busy week.
So Sunday a week ago was the Lego show at Ngunnawal. Earlier in the day, which I didn't note last time, we went to Aldi and saw that they've changed their coin locks so my tool will no longer work with them. Bastards. I wouldn't mind using a coin if shopping centres could get off their asses and have a decent trolley return system, but they don't, which is why I'll continue to use my tool until it no longer works.
Monday morning I woke up at 4:15. Hurrah. And couldn't get back to sleep. At least the day at work was relatively peaceful. I cleaned out my locker and did a bit of inbox tidying. After work we did some food shopping for Christmas. But I was acting as a go-between for a couple of guys at work for a crisis that was going on, and so trying to rapidly type messages to both of them. But OMFG iPhone autocorrect is infuriating sometimes. It kept changing words that I'd typed correctly into different, incorrect, words, and so I'd have to keep retyping everything and sending correction message after correction message. I swear I nearly smashed the damned phone onto the ground. And I managed to screw up the steaks I cooked for dinner. Yay.
Tuesday morning I woke up at 5:10. Hurrah. None of us were wanting to touch anything at work, because who wants to risk breaking anything so close to the break. But as it turned out, the crisis the day before (still continuing Tuesday) was caused by someone changing something on Monday, and not telling their own damned team what they'd done. So the others in the team had no idea that the problem was caused by one of their own. Our team was dumbfounded. I did however delete a bunch of Dev firewall rules for servers that no longer existed. I figured if I broke anything in an environment that was being shut down anyway noone would care :) Had a couple of sneaky drinks that we had leftover from the party before going home. Had a super relaxing afternoon. I even managed to finish scanning Mum's 1960s negatives and finish labelling our Hong Kong/Singapore photos, both of which I'd wanted to get done before Christmas, and I did! In the evening we watched the Carols by Candlelight, which is so much better than the Sydney one. It's more traditional and more mature and just not as *tacky* as Sydney.
Look how low the lake is at the moment! A good six inches down on its normal height.
I may have iced and sprinkled some of the gingerbread cookies.
This is the cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I got a better view of them on TV than I did in the theatre.
Wednesday. Christmas Day. Had a fairly relaxed morning. Well other than having to take three quarters of an hour out of it to go feed Chrissie's animals, and clean up the cat poop one of the cats had done in the bath tub. Hurrah. The last hour before lunch was pretty busy, but the sweetie helped me with stuff so that was nice. Annie and the family came over and we started snacking. Then Mum arrived and we had Christmas lunch of prawns, ham, salad, bread, dips. Then Stu put on stoopid YouTube videos so I went and did my own thing.
We got the house some new towels for Christmas.
Mum brought this down from the cleanout at Diana and Grahams. I can't believe noone else in their family snaffled this up. And the wedding favours on top were from *our* wedding!
After everyone had left, Mum went off to go catch a tram, because they were free. I went to put on a Christmas movie I had saved in my Netflix list, only to find that Netflix had deleted them all. Bastards. Moral of the story: if you see something you want to watch on Netflix, watch it as soon as you can, because it won't be around for long. Not the first time we've been caught. I ended up watching The Movies that Made Us: Home Alone. We watched Love Actually in the evening. Well Mum and I did. Stu ran away.
Thursday woke up early. Hurrah. Went to Bunnings in the morning with Mum. Tried to have a sleep when we got back. Failed. Spent ages going through Mum's photos with her and updating labels with extra infos. At one point we came across photos of the new Youth Hostel in Canberra that she was at the opening for in 1968. So we went for a drive to try and find it. We found it but the view is covered by trees, and even the building has had a lot of work done around it. Had pizza for dinner and watched some BBT and into season 5 of Fuller House. Played a couple of rounds of the basic game of Itchy Feet, a game I got for Christmas. It was a little boring as the basic game, but may be better with the expansions, but I was too tired and cranky to feel like trying them.
Mum ate all the leftover prawns for us ;)
Friday woke up at 2am, didn't get back to sleep til after 3:30. Then woke up around 6:30 with an aching spine. Hurrah. Mum went off to Chrissie's for the morning, which gave me peace and quiet to tidy the house and prepare lunch. David arrived just before lunch, and we had roast pork with a lot of crackling and it was all very yummy. Although not convinced by the stuffing (most of which oozed out and then burnt). After lunch Mum left to go visit friends on her way home, David went to work and Stu went to the club, leaving me home alone. I had a bit of a look at my todo list for the rest of the break but didn't actually do much. Had some crackers and dip for dinner and a piece of crackling. Healthy dinner, yay. Watched 28 Days in the evening which I enjoyed.
This is what we call Five O'Clock Charlie - the smoke blowing in from the east. It's usually more like 7pm though. These photos were taken just four minutes apart.
Saturday woke up at 5:30 with an aching spine. Hurrah. With no car and no sweetie we couldn't do any shopping. So grabbed the little brother to go storage tub shopping. Basically there's a bunch of stuff in the dungeon and the spare room that's just all over the ground because there's no cupboard space, and I don't want to put any of it in the garage because of all the bugs. But you can't even walk in those rooms because they're so choked up, so we can't even start with the decluttering of them. So the idea is to use tubs as temporary storage to clear the rooms enough to be able to work in them again. Once things are clearer, those tubs will be for more permanent storage of things that are in cardboard boxes right now - not good because, silverfish. Spent the afternoon rearranging and filling tubs and getting rid of stuff. Tidied the linen cupboard, the garage, the dungeon room, the hobby room. So that was pretty good. In the evening I watched Phar Lap, which I *might* have seen once more since seeing it at the movies in about 1983, but may not have. Lots of been-there's heh. Started watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, but then David pointed out that The Sound of Music was on, so may have accidentally watched the rest of that. Even though I have it on DVD with no ads. Whoops.
As I was cleaning out the linen cupboard, I found that my roller blades had completely disintegrated!! :(
When I was in the garage working, I heard a scratching on the door outside. When I went to look, there was an itty bitty little blue tongue lizard. He was pretty energetic too because he was so warm but I still managed to catch him for a photo.
Sunday was lots more tidying and organising. Also a bunch of computer work. Finished watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which was silly but a bit of fun. I totally want a food machine ;)
Monday not a lot of physical stuff, mostly computer stuff, including catching up on blogging. Went out for lunch and did a bit of shopping. Picked up a heap of lemons off the ground, and made a lemon meringue pie with five of them. Managed to piss everyone off after dinner, and so instead of watching Die Hard 4 we all got grumpy with each other and did our own thing. I watched Sliding Doors which I first saw a few years ago.
Blue sky! Haven't seen blue sky in weeks! It's gone again now though.
Today I've pretty much been doing computer stuff all day - downloading and processing photos and blogging. The weather is making me extremelly tense. Canberra new year festivities have been cancelled. We were thinking about going to the club but don't think we're going to now. I certainly couldn't concentrate on writing up my year in review post so that will have to wait. Have a happy new year and stay safe everyone!
So after not really getting any sleep at all, I was a bit of a zombie on the Saturday morning. I raided my food supplies and had some cheese and salami for breakfast. Had a shower and wandered out to the shed to help setup.
The others surfaced, and we started getting ready.
Audrey steam-ironed the dresses.
The dresses all hanging up. Guess which one is mine?
The makeup and hair ladies came around 9-9:30. I was first to get makeup done (this is sans-lipstick).
Chloe plied me with champagne (Henkell) while I was getting my hair done.
Ending up with a sort of "messy bun" style.
We even got little flowers glued in.
Kit got us all matching jewelry.
Chloe's mum did the flowers.
I had time to go and photograph some of the setup. This was where the ceremony was held. Such a pretty spot.
Hazel did an amazing job with the flowers.
The tables had books and bottles and greenery and it all looked very rustic.
Kit's mum prepared a stack of fruit, and there were some party pies and sausage rolls which became lunch.
Kit getting her hair decorated.
Kit all ready.
Then it was off to the ceremony. Being in the ceremony I didn't get any of my own photos. Not that I would have been allowed anyway, they said "no photos" which would have made me PISSED at any other wedding. I can understand not wanting people to take photos during the ceremony, but where's the harm in letting people take a few photos during the entrance and setup? #grunt.
This is me and the sweetie afterwards.
And I did get a few of my own other photos after the bridal party photos were done.
Including one or two of Kit and Pete.
And a couple of the venue
There was pizza for dinner, and speeches and dancing, a pretty fun night.
At the end of the night the wedding party stayed up a little longer just hanging out which was pretty nice. Did make for a late night though.
Three weekends ago we headed down the coast for Kit and Pete's wedding. We left on the Thursday after lunch. I was still sick and coughing and had been in bed all morning. Hurrah.
Driving down Smith's Gap we saw the fires over at Braidwood.
This was the last weekend we were to see blue skies this year. As I write it's been three weeks since we saw properly blue sky (except maybe a day or two).
This C-130 water bomber (N134CG) had just left HMAS Albatross.
We stayed at the Springs Shoalhaven, quite close to the wedding venue. Pleasant enough place. It had a pool although I didn't have a swim (Stu did). Both those beds were *very* soft. I took the single to give myself a bit of distance from the sweetie with my coughing.
We chilled out for a bit, then went next door to the Ex Serviceman's Club for dinner. It had a lovely aspect, facing north over the golf course. At the far northern end of the golf course was the venue for the wedding.
Pasta I had for dinner
Spent half the night coughing. Of course.
Stu thought it might be nice to have room service breakfast on the Friday, so we ordered that the night before. Unfortunately because I'd had so little sleep I really wasn't hungry when it turned up at the appointed time. It was nice enough though and I would have enjoyed it on another day.
I pretty much spent the morning in bed. We were waiting for word from Kit to see if they needed our help transporting anything or setting anything up, but they were running late and a bit frazzled. In the end the sweetie and I went into Nowra to get some supplies (I still wasn't very hungry) and stuff for the wedding. Then we headed all the way down to the end of Greenwell Road to have a look at the water. That was quite nice.
Dropped the sweetie back to the motel, then met up with Chloe, Katie and Kit so we could all get our nails done. I've never had my nails done professionally before.
The result!
Picked up the sweetie, then it was off to the rehearsal. There were quite a lot of people there and it was a little bit chaotic, so took quite a while to get through.
Dropped off the sweetie again, then to Kit and Pete's to load up the car with food. Swung by the motel on the way back and got Stu to drop me at the venue with all the gear/food. He'd had a rotten time at the Ex-Serviceman's club - it was super noisy and crowded and he had to wait *forever* for food and couldn't even go get another drink because otherwise he'd have lost his table. Poor thing. Then he headed back to the motel while I stayed at the venue.
At the venue four of us girls stayed in the "Bunk House", while Kit stayed by herself in her own room (at Chloe's recommendation to get a better night's sleep).
Chloe got us some takeaway burgers for dinner (and very nicely got me a kids meal so it was a lot smaller ;) ).
Chloe and Audrey made up little bubble blowers.
And Katie and Kit made up decorations.
I supervised ;)
I slept on my inflatable mattress. Or rather, I *didn't* sleep on the mattress. I was so stressed about my coughing/snoring keeping Katie awake, that I couldn't get to sleep til very very very late. And then I woke up early. I think I might have gotten about two hours sleep. How to recover from a cold - get lots of rest. Yeah right. Vowed never to sleep in the same room as anyone else (aside from the sweetie) ever again in my life.
Anyways. I'll leave the day of the wedding to the next post.
This magpie was hand raised by the owners of the venue, and hung around while we cleaned up. Very cool.
After driving Pete's ute back to their place late morning, with everyone's cars full of *stuff* that we'd spent all morning packing up, we finally headed home.
We couldn't even see Smith's Gap through all the smoke.
This was leftovers of a massive antipasto platter that we had at the wedding (I put it in the fridges overnight, everyone thought I was mad heh). We didn't need to do any food shopping that week - we just ate this all week!
Sunday afternoon watched the finale of The Amazing Race. I quite enjoyed the season, although with a limited Australian budget they only went to two other continents (Africa and Asia). After "the influencers" went, there wasn't really anyone I *didn't* want to win, except maybe the nurses, they came across as a bit dumb. Good on the guys that won!
Monday was too busy to actually achieve anything much at work. hrmm. I did manage to get dinner/washing/kitchen done by 19:25 which was nice.
Tuesday wasn't much better at work - so busy I don't know where to start, and when I do start it's just interruption after interruption. So much smoke around too! And I totally ruined David's day by preempting Christmas shopping on him.
Tuesday evening went to Chrissie's for dinner - some yummy fried chicken, skewers and fried rice.
We started calling the smoke Five O'Clock Charlie because it keeps coming around in the evening.
Tuesday night I couldn't get to sleep - stoopid restless legs. Then work up really early. Hurrah. Got cranky at Italian Bite putting the price of their small place up from $7.90 to $9.50. So went to Ali Baba, only to get cranky at them because they've downsized their kebabs - meaning if you ask for a small you get a small, but it's the price of their "original". So $9.90 for a small. Not. Happy. Jan. They'll go out of business at that rate, with Yarralumla kebabs offering about four times the food for only $5 more.
Wednesday night I went to bed early, but another night of restless legs keeping me awake late. Zombie day Thursday. Finished BBT up to the end of season 4. Had a wildly unhealthy lunch with the sweetie at Kimchi.
Friday I woke up at 4:15 stressing about the party. Then. Smoke. So. Much. Smoke. One guy thought we should cancel, but I already had all the meat. We thought about doing it on prem, but the poo-pooers probably would have had a hissy fit, so we went ahead with the lake anyway. Noone did any running around, we just chilled and ate and drank and had quite a lovely time, and there was even a slight breeze to make it all less unpleasant. At one point there was just me and twenty-eight other boys ;) Unfortunately there was a *lot* of extra food as there were less people and it was so damned hot. I caught my duck again, although I didn't catch her wings so she was a bit more stressed and uncomfortable. Then she pooped on my hand haha.
Came home and we watched Die Hard 2.
Saturday morning I woke up at 5:00 stressing about the leftovers. Because that's what I do. Le sigh.
Spent much of the day scanning mum's negatives and labelling Singapore photos. David and I had some of the leftover sausages in the morning, and we didn't die of food poisoning, w00t. I might have made gingerbread cookies.
Went to the Green Shed in the afternoon and did a bit of shopping in Gungahlin. Finished off last week's lamb for dinner, watched some BBT, then Carols in the Domain. We haven't watched commercial television in literally months, and when we turned on the tv guess what, a commercial. Le sigh. I reckon there's more adverts and promotions and just *fluff* than actual singing. Next year I might time it. The Sydney one is always a bit lame. No Ode to Joy or Hallelujah chorus, and only one or two hymns. And I was surprised that they allowed candles during the total fire ban, but apparently they're allowed for "religious ceremonies" so long as there's suitable containment.
Today was pretty much all just housework and getting the place tidied up for Christmas and having peoples over. I did play through the "Rime" escape game which was pretty good. Got stuck in a couple of places where I didn't even realise you could click on certain things. The "ending" was a little odd, and got a bit complicated, probably wouldn't have been able to solve it without walkthroughs.
And there's a big white bird outside our window eating Kit's plums.
Didn't sleep well Sunday night - awake for hours with hurty and coughing. But went to work as I'd already taken too much time off. Slogged my way through the backlog of tickets. Had leftover antipasto for dinner, haven't made a dent in it. And so. much. smoke! Got lots done on my own todo list. Was hoping for an early night but didn't finish the "urgent" stuff til 21:30.
Tuesday continued doing All The Things. The wind swung around in the evening and blew in all the smoke from Braidwood, so sky went from relatively clear to smothered in the space of a few minutes. Was pretty scary. Had more antipasto for dinner. In the evening I was looking at storage units - I just wanted to see what the things cost these days. But the couple I looked at sure don't make it easy. Instead of a simple table saying how much each size is per month, no, you need to fill in all your details before they'll give you any information. And then they want to call you. And message you. Over and over again!!! Sheeesh. For what I want it's prohibitively expensive, will just get some tubs and stack things in the garage.
Thursday was drinks for Noah's birthday.
Friday the sweetie went to the club for the night, so David and I watched The Hunt for Red October.
Saturday had a great day doing All The Things. Got heaps done, but also relaxed and generally took my time. Was a productive yet relaxing day. I updated a couple of previous entries with photos if anybody could be bothered going back to look. Watched Kit and Pete's ship leave Sydney on their honeymoon.
Watched Die Hard in the evening.
Today was pretty quiet. Didn't get a whole done, which is a bit worrying because of how much is on the todo list. But have been trying not to panic and take things easy this week, as I've been stressing myself out trying to do everything. We did do some food shopping, lamb roast for dinner, then photos/blogging.
