All up a pretty decent year.  Nothing too life shattering.  Quite busy as always.

We didn't manage to get overseas this year.  Stu's work was being a bit special and didn't want to give him one of the weeks off in November.  We could have pushed a trip back a week, but then would have started missing Christmas parties, so we decided to postpone.  The only flying holiday we did was to Queensland to visit Chay and David which was a lovely relaxing long weekend as always.  We did get down the coast a couple of times.  Firstly in March, where we also went down to Bermagui, and over the June long weekend as well.  I only went to Sydney once this year - in May to inspect my flat, go to a body corporate meeting, and stay with mum.  We also did a weekend in Junee to visit the little brother.  And did a two night trip to the snow in September, after a failed proxy upgrade, and I was so flustered I forgot the charging cable for the GPS, *and* couldn't find the android.

At work I started the year busy but "comfortable" - in that I knew what I was doing most of the time.  We changed proxy vendors in May - and traded one set of problems for another.  At least the performance of the new ones is generally a lot better (I was still sad when we finally turned the old ones off for good).  At the end of June our team was restructured out of existence, and I lost most of the work I'd been doing to another team (I could have gone with the work to the new team, but decided I'd rather pick up new work with a more local team). Neil was away for the first month after the restructure, which mean I was literally the only person doing half the work of our old team.  So that was a super stressful month.  Then I moved desks away from Neil which made me feel even more isolated.  I spent several months in the new team really having no idea what I was doing.  But towards the end of the year I've been fairly well immersed in some new firewalls and am starting to get the hang of them.  Just before Christmas I organised a BBQ for fifty people which was pretty cool.

Healthwise I've been ok, but starting to notice the whole getting old thing.  It seemed I blogged quite a lot about insomnia.  Not able to get to sleep for no good reason, or waking up and not being able to get back to sleep.  I had a one-day cold in April, and a one-month cold in October.  I was at home for a full week in October, and was coughing for another three weeks after that :(  I started monitoring my blood pressure again, and noticed it was high *all the time*.  I tried a low-salt diet for a time, and it did come down, but it was pretty much impossible to maintain.  Go out for dinner?  High sodium.  Go out for lunch?  High sodium.  Pretty much anything in a jar or can?  High sodium.  Cheese?  High sodium.  I started taking my lunches into work several days a week which helped for lunches.  And was a bit more careful about dinners too, as well as buying low-sodium breakfast cereals.  But I was getting sick of the same boring stuff all the time, and let's face it, I can't live in a world without cheese, so I went on medication.  Still working on a dosage that will suit, although what I'm on now I think is causing some skin issues, so will see the doctor again in the new year to see if it's related, and maybe try a different medication.  I also realised in March that my bottom two wisdom teeth have finally fully erupted.  And my eyesight is getting worse.  Next year will definitely be an eye/teeth/skin/blood pressure sorting kind of a year.

We spent a lot of time with our "whisky" friends earlier in the year - dinners and movies etc - but less later in the year.  We only saw Nat and Andrew once this year in January which is a bit sad-making.  We had games nights at Mishi's in March, June and November, with a special party for her in December.  Met up with @phonakins when she was in town for Eat, Drink, Blog, and @Chrispycon and Anne when they were back from Hong Kong briefly.  Doc came over in September for some MarioKart and Singstar, but the TV died in the middle of a race, and we still haven't gotten it fixed because we're slackers.  Had dinner at the Dumpling Inn with Damien and Amanda in September.  Various people came to stay including Jo and Marc, the little brother several times, Chrissie a few times, and Mum in January and December.  Chris applied for a job and had moved to Canberra (in stumbling distance of us) within the space of a month, so that's pretty cool.  We've spent quite a bit of time with Kit and Ben over the year too which is fun.  It's nice having cool neighbours.  And finally we've still been enjoying our visits to "the club"  and going to the social occasions.  The pool exploded there earlier in the year, and we helped build the new one.  We also provided a Christmas in July feast there, and did pork again for the proper Christmas party.  Any excuse for me to do a big roast pork with crackling ;)

In the fishy world, I've been making better attempts to maintain the health of the fish and the fish tanks, although not until a bunch of disasters (and still had disasters after).  The original AR-620T had some small angels in it, but they had died over summer.  The last one had been in there a couple of days, and we only pulled it out just before putting in the last remaining duboisi and sucking catfish in there.  They died within two days which upset me rather a lot.  Tank of Death living up to its name :(  So the big four foot remained empty for a while.  My AR-620T also remained empty for a while.  I gave it a good cleaning out, and left it running with just plants for a couple of months to try and stabilise it.  Eventually I got five danios for it, which have survived, and later four baby angels which are also still alive.  That tank is actually looking really good at the moment, and I'm keeping up the regular water changes in it (it helps that with all the heat the potplants need a lot of water, so fish tank water goes onto the plants).  Stu gave his four foot a cleaning out and later in the year, and has set it up with really bright lights, and a soil-based substrate to make a planted tank.  He has some native fish in there too and it's looking pretty good.  The two foot tank has massive issues with this black slime algae, and I think it's pretty toxic.  The two nine-year-old black neon tetras and five rummy-nose tetras are still going ok in there.  I had five new danios in there which I've since taken downstairs to avoid the worst of the heat.  And then I bought five cories for that tank, hoping that maybe they'd eat some of the algae.  They started dying off pretty much straight away. :(  I moved the last two into the angel tank.  One continued to deteriorate and die, but the other one recovered and is still going strong in there.  The light in the two foot also just died the other day, so I'm going to completely clean that tank out and start again.  Downstairs the ten-year-old krib is still going, but she's looking pretty old.  I put five danios from upstairs in with her for the summer.  When Chris came down from Sydney she had nowhere to put all her platies, so I filled a spare tank for them.  I put four of them, and the big sucking catfish, in with the krib and the danios and the rest are still in a small tank awaiting their new home to be ready.  Stu also has two small tanks on his desk.  One has two endler guppies and a cherry shrimp, and the other has four teeny shrimp he just got the other day.  So currently seven tanks with animals in them at the moment!

I got two Lego sets this year - both from the Lego Movie.  I got the Double Decker Couch and SPACESHIP!!  I also made mosaics of the Ingress Enlightened logo in two different sizes (32x32 and 48x48)

I continue to do jigsaws.  I seem to have a never-ending supply of them.  Once they're done I usually give them away.  I still want to have some sort of jigsaw exchange going in Canberra, but I'm allergic to organising people, so good luck with that.  I finished a paint-by-numbers set of a fox earlier in the year, and bought a much larger one which took me months to do, but looks really good.  At the club I finished a longstitch that I'd inherited off Nana *years* ago.  It looks pretty good too but I've not done anything with it, it's just sitting downstairs.  I spent December evenings filing digital photos from the past year into folders by subject.  With a clean slate, it might now be time to start tweaking the folder filing system a bit.  Really the goal is to make it easy to find stuff, and obvious what things are in case I go and cark it.  Although if I go and cark it, noone will care about *any* of my photos .. or mum and dad's .. Speaking of which, I scanned three of mum's photo albums, and so far nearly a thousand of dad's photos this year.  All of my own scanned photos (from my own cameras) are all now digitised, labelled and renamed to include the date, roll and frame number.  I haven't filed those into folders yet though.

Weatherwise, the pool didn't fully freeze over much, but did form some beautiful ice flakes a couple of times.  It snowed once in September.  We've already had some quite hot days this summer, and I'm somewhat worried about the fish over January in this El Niño year.  I'll be doing a bit of fish tank rearranging to try and minimise casualties.

New food/recipies I tried this year included honey mustard chicken, made with actual ingredients, not out of a jar (except the mustard); duck breast fillets which are expensive but yummy; chicken kievs made from scratch, which were nice enough, but lacking the *salt* of the pre-prepared stuff (why does everything that tastes good have to have so much salt and fat???); a failed attempt at a lemon meringue pie, which was still tasty, just very goopy; various recipes trying to use up a kilo of white beans, the best being a cassoulet (salt and fat anyone?); a chocolate cake to celebrate Neil working at the same place for forty years - I haven't baked a cake in years!; a couple of things using wombok out of our garden (well, a planter box, to keep it out of reach of snails); and gingerbread cookies.

Didn't eat out as much this year.  We went to Kinh Do a couple of times.  Tried the degustation menu at Mezzalira which was pretty awesome.  Discovered Italian thick white hot chocolate in a hug mug at Max Brenner.  Finally got back to the Dumpling Inn after it had been closed for like a year.  Had dinner with Stu's dad at The District in Crace which was pretty good.  We tried the Wig & Pen at its new premesis, but it lacked the atmosphere of the old place.  Also tried its offshoot - Bentspoke which was nice enough.

Shows:
* Of Mice and Men

Movies:
* The Imitation Game
* The Theory of Everything
* Citizenfour
* x+y
* Cinderella
* Jurassic World
* Spectre
* Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens

Books (I really stopped reading because I pretty much never catch the bus anymore, and tend to just play on my phone before bed):
* Conqueror of Darkness by Phyllis Garlick
* Letters to Karen by Charlie W. Shedd
* Pollyanna by Elanor H. Porter
* Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Other stuff:
* Started the new year at the club but weren't very inspired by the whole evening and struggled to stay awake til midnight
* Started doing the FridayQ again for a while. Stopped when I got stumped and never took it back up again :( 
* Spent the summer watching Dad's documentaries while doing jigsaws and the like
* Finally fixed up our wedding photo book and had it reprinted
* Watched all three seasons of Veronica Mars
* Went to Costco for the first time
* Wandered around Mount Stromlo with the sweetie
* Almost quit Candy Crush in February, but took it up again.  Am currently within seven levels of the end (until they move the goalposts)
* Accidentally siphoned a huge amount of water out of the pool. Twice.
* Japanese culture night with Stu's Japanese class, which he has since stopped going to
* Came second in a work trivia night
* Went to the Balloon Fiesta on Canberra Day
* Got Netflix
* Scotch Malt Whisky Society tastings in March and in June
* Watched all three seasons of Rake
* Got Israel trip photos from three years ago online
* Finished scanning all my analogue photos
* Lost our really cool number plate and had to get a new set
* Watched all of Sherlock
* Got frustrated that you can't buy quality denim anymore for ladies' jeans
* Been with the sweetie for ten years!!
* Saw Nick Davies (investigative journalist who exposed the News of the World phone hacking scandal) at the Library
* Went to Whisky Live
* Chris and Zac came to visit in July. Went to the curry festival and went ice skating in Garema Place
* Cleaned out the "winter" hobby room in July, although didn't actually use the room
* Whisky night at work in July
* Cooked a Christmas in July feast the club - including four kilos of pork and two kilos of turkey, which all got eaten
* Watched all the Harry Potter movies
* Played through all the working maps I have for Unreal Tournament
* Celebrated turning 21 again, and recreated a photo taken on my 21st birthday
* Won a work trivia night. Busy planning the next one.
* Started a new blog for my Australian holidays, but haven't added much to it yet
* Saw "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson at the library
* Freecycled a bit of stuff, but still a lot more to go
* The watch I got for graduation died, and Mister Minit in Belconnon could not fix it, even after replacing the movement three times. Still pissed about it.
* Stu bought a battery-operated whipper snipper and a hedge trimmer and spent many evenings attacking the weeds
* Upgraded my phone from 6.1.4 to 9.1. There's a couple of things I like about the new OS (most especially the logical numbering of the photo directories when you attach the phone to your computer, photo sorting in general, as well as being able to manage attachments in SMSes), but mostly things are uglier and clunkier and it makes my phone chug, especially after unlocking the screen.
* Went to an Ingress First Saturday event
* Saw First Dog on the Moon at the Library
* Did a first aid course. Apparently now I'm qualified.
* Went Go-Karting for a vendor event
* Wore a dress to a wedding
* Hosted family Christmas lunch here
* Hosted a Christmas day lunch here
* Used the holiday break to do some thorough cleaning of the garage and fridge

So there goes 2015.  Have a happy and safe 2016!

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4. "Of course," he muttered. "That would have been too easy. Anakin, where are you?"
2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can, What can you touch? The wall
3. Before you started this survey, what were you doing? Eating breakfast, and reading Dave2's version of this
4. What is the last thing you watched on TV? Sherlock
5. Without looking, guess what time it is 8:15am
6. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time? 8:25am
7. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? The water spray in the fish tank
8. When did you last step outside? What were you doing? Last night, coming home from EffanC's
9. Did you dream last night? Probably
10. Do you remember your dreams? Sometimes
11. When did you last laugh? Last night
12. Do you remember why / at what? Chatting with friends
13. What is on the walls of the room you are in? Paint
14. Seen anything weird lately? A girl who walks down three flights of stairs to use the girls bathroom on our floor
15. What do you think of this quiz? Not too bad so far
16. What is the last film you saw? Guardians of the Galaxy
17. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? Germany
18. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy? An aeroplane
19. Tell me something about you that most people don't know. Um
20. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do? Outlaw stoopid people
21. Do you like to dance? Sure
22. Would you ever consider living abroad? Yes
23. Does your name make any interesting anagrams? Probably
24. Who made the last incoming call on your phone? My neighbour.  She was a bit drunk.  OK a lot drunk.
25. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? A form to change my name with an organisation
26. Last time you swam in a pool? Last Friday night
27. Type of music you like most? Classical soundtracks (eg anything by John Williams).  Or rock.
28. Type of music you dislike most? Hip hop/rap crap
29. Are you listening to music right now? No
30. What color is your bedroom carpet? Beige with brown flecks
31. If you could change something about your home, without worry about expense or mess, what would you do? Seal in the laundry and put a toilet in downstairs
32. What was the last thing you bought? Lunch yesterday
33. Have you ever ridden on a motorbike? Yes - when I was about seven, at our neighbour's place
34. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving? Yes
35. Do you have a garden? Yes
36. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem? Yes.  Actually I'll qualify that - I'm a bit fuzzy on the second verse (which never gets sung) and don't know the other verses (which aren't official anyway)
37. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? What day is it?
38. If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? I dunno.  Maybe David Bowie
39. Who sent the last text message you received? My neighbour
40. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Gosh I dunno.  Bunnings?  Harvey Norman?  Ikea?
41. What time is bed time? 11pm lights out
42. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant? No
43. How many tattoos do you have? None
44. If you don't have any, have you ever thought of getting one? No
45. What did you do for your last birthday? Drank lots of whiskey then had dinner at Bella Vista
46. Do you carry a donor card? Yes
47. Who was the last person you ate dinner with? The sweetie and EffanC
48. Is the glass half empty or half full? Depends on the direction it's going.  If you're drinking a glass of something, then at the half way point it's half empty.  If you're filling a glass, then at the half way point it's half full.
49. What's the farthest-away place you've been? Scotland
50. When's the last time you ate a homegrown tomato? Month or two ago - some of Kit's
51. Have you ever won a trophy? Yes - for swimming when we were kids
52. Are you a good cook? Not really.  Stu is much better, but he rarely ever cooks :(
53. Do you know how to pump your own gas? Yes.  Who wouldn't??
54. If you could meet any one person (from history or currently alive), who would it be? Jesus
55. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to school? Yes
56. Do you touch-type? Yes
57. What's under your bed? Dust
58. Do you believe in love at first sight? Maybe
59. Think fast, what do you like right now? Our heater
60. Where were you on Valentine's day? Gungahlin for supplies, then out to the club
61. What time do you get up? Usually between 6:45 and 7am
62. What was the name of your first pet? Bluey
63. Who is the second to last person to call you? EffanC
64. Is there anything going on this weekend? Tidying the house.  Trying to get rid of stuff
65. How are you feeling right now? Not too bad
66. What do you think about the most? Um. Work maybe.  
67. What time do you get up in the morning?
68. If you had A Big Win in the Lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? Dunno.  I'd probably be questioning the authenticity of it on account of I don't buy lottery tickets.
69. Who would you tell first? Stu obviously
70. What is the last movie that you saw at the cinema? Cinderella
71. Do you sing in the shower? Not really
72. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? 
73. What do you do most when you are bored? Read rss feeds
74. What do you do for a living? Solve people's problems
75. Do you love your job? Some of it
76. What did you want to be when you grew up? Pilot
77. If you could have any job, what would you want to do/be? Pilot.  Actually probably not.  Flying for myself would be fun, but I couldn't handle the stress of flying other people.  Getting paid to travel the world would be good.
78. Which came first the chicken or the egg? One of them
79. How many keys on your key ring? I dunno.  Lemme go look.  Six.
80. Where would you retire to? Probably here
81. What kind of car do you drive? Ford Laser
82. What are your best physical features? My hair
83. What are your best characteristics? Attention to detail
84. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation where would you go? Europe? America? Antarctica? Cruise around the Mediterranean? St Maarten?
85. What kind of books do you like to read? Science fiction, adventure
86. Where would you want to retire to? 
87. What is your favorite time of the day? Sunset
88. Where did you grow up? Sydney
89. How far away from your birthplace do you live now? 285km
90. What are you reading now? I'm in between books
91. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Morning
92. Can you touch your nose with your tongue? Yes
93. Can you close your eyes and raise your eyebrows? Yes
94. Do you have pets? We have fish
95. How many rings before you answer the phone? Um, as long as it takes to answer?
96. What is your best childhood memory? Maybe our trip to America in 1983
97. What are some of the different jobs that you have had in your life? Pie packer, shop assistant, ISP call centre, desktop support, systems administrator
98. Any new and exciting things that you would like to share? Um, not off the top of my head
99. What is most important in life? um, friends/family/God
100. What Inspires You? Good music

Friday, September 3rd 2004...

FQ Topic: Funny

FQ1: What's something you find humorous, but probably shouldn't?
Stoopid people doing stoopid things

FQ2: What's something that others find funny, but you don't?
There's Something About Mary.  Stoopidest. Movie. Ever.  I barely raised a smile the whole way through it, yet the rest of the cinema was cacking itself.

FQ3: What actor/comedian/personality always makes you laugh? What movie? What book?
um.  I dunno.. maybe Robin Williams?  
movie - Flying High!
book - maybe something by Roald Dahl.

FQ STAND-UP: Tell us a joke or funny story.
This was always my dad's favourite joke.  Because I've heard it so often it's the only joke I really remember.  This is a brief version cause I couldn't be bothered embellishing it :)

So there's this little old lady who's lonely and goes into a pet store to buy a budgie to talk to.  But when she gets it home the budgie starts swearing its head off.  The little old lady takes it back to the pet store because she can't have a swearing budgie in the house.  But the pet store guy goes, "whenever it swears, just put it in the freezer for ten seconds - not to long otherwise it'll freeze".  So she does this.  As soon as the budgie starts swearing, she takes it and puts it in the freezer, counts up to ten, then takes out it.  The budgie is shivering and asks "If I got ten seconds for swearing, what did the chook do??"

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!

6.4.14

Not a regular follower of news, I had no idea the Canberra Airport Open Day was on until I drove past the sign to it on Friday night when I was heading out to the club.

But it was dilemma, because I needed to be in Sydney by 2pm.  So I decided I'd make a flying visit (arf arf) and go for just an hour and try to get onto one plane.

Coming from the Queanbeyan side of the airport was an epic win.  I turned straight into the carpark and only had to wait a minute or so to get in.  Traffic from the north was backed up for who knows how long.

I parked and hurried up to the gate just after opening.  I headed straight down to the 717 as I'd never been in one of those before, and there didn't look to be much of a queue.  As it turns out, they were still securing the plane so noone was allowed near it yet.  I was there less than a minute when they opened it up and I was in the second group of people to go through it!  Win!

Got to set in the pilot's seat too :)  I asked the copilot whether it is "ok" to poke my head into the cockpit after flights as we're getting off, and he said generally it is, so might have to do that some time :)

Then I walked up and down the line of planes taking photos and generally marvelling at being up close to planes :)

The crowds!!  It was super super busy this year.  Definitely getting more and more popular.

So then I headed for Sydney.  The traffic around the airport was INSANE.  Every approach to the airport was completely choked.  Traffic on Majura Road was banked all the way back to Mount Majura - probably nearly ten kilometres north of the open day entrance.  Hopefully the airlines were a little lenient with late arriving people to the airport...

So over Christmas/New Year/January I had all of Jake's Lego to sort out and check for completeness.  

First step was sorting out what was there.  I left things assembled that looked like they belonged to a set, then sorted the rest of the pieces into tubs - bricks, plates, technic bits, wings, round bricks/plates, minifig gear, minifig weapons, wheels, misc bits, etc etc etc.  I also separated out any "old" greys and browns from the new style colours so as not to mix them up.  This all took several days.

Then I started building things.  I started with smaller sets, thinking that I'd be more likely to complete them, and then only bigger sets would be missing pieces.  This sort of worked, but Lego makes so many different sorts of pieces that even smaller sets could be missing odd pieces.  So the building took several weeks, and when complete, it took up our entire dining table!

Impressive, huh!  Seventy-eight sets, and four games (not shown).  Twenty Star Wars sets, sixteen town sets, and a smattering of just about every other series of Lego (ok, so not really).

Then I dismantled it all, double checking as I went against Bricklink to make sure sets were complete, and photographing everything as well.  Any missing parts were documented to be bought online if need be.

I returned it all in three goes - two lots of complete sets, and the last lot of incomplete sets.

So yeah, a super fun couple of months getting to play with heaps of Lego that I didn't have to pay for :)

Average day today.  Weird network problems that have been there for ages suddenly went away today.  I suspect it was because it knew I was looking at it.  Stoopid network.

Quiet night tonight.  Watched some Sherlock with the sweetie and worked on a paint-by-numbers while watching Airport 75.  Very dated movie.  The sexual harrassment in the workplace was so overt .. they'd never get away with that sort of thing now.  And it seems like they make all these efforts to make things "real", including the pilots running through checklists, but then show a head-on collision with a light plane making just a small hole in the cockpit and a gentle breeze afterwards.  The explosive decompression in the first Airport was a lot better.  Still, I wasn't watching it for that, I was watching it for the super cool footage of a 747 flying through the Rocky Mountains.  They must have had a lot of fun filming that!

• Being stressed about having your blood taken makes your veins tense up and makes it that much harder to have your blood taken (three holes later .. )
• There's a Chilean flag flying outside our building
• There was a Mars Rover in the mall
• Took a couple of hundred photos of colleagues playing touch footy.  Clocked my camera in the process
• Had a lovely bbq at @CLBradley's tonight

Thirty years ago this month our family took a five week holiday to the USA.  It was the first of four "flying" holidays that the were the most memorable and exciting of my childhood.

So I created a blog for it :)  

I took a combination of my parents' photos and added some of my own memories.

It took me ages to scan all mum's photos at 600 dpi.  But I've decided my scanner is retarded.  Mum's photos are a bit age-coloured, but not as bad as the scans make it out.  I think its colour balance is way off, scanning way too much yellow :(  

Dad's slides were scanned thirteen years ago by Dad on a flat bed scanner that wasn't really designed for slide scanning - the pictures are very pixelated.  But when you resize them to a max 500 pixels you'd never notice and generally the colour is a lot better in those.  Unfortunately with Dad's photos, he put everything in theme and "show" order, which meant things weren't in chronological order, which made it super annoying to try and fit into the nice chronological order that my brain likes!  Spent ages and ages trying to figure out where to put his photos so they were in the right order!

And I might have spent entirely too long trying to find the *exact* locations of some of the photos.  I may as well have geotagged the whole lot and be done with it! heh

Also, Movable Type is completely retarded, and it won't save the blog to a nice chronological order of entries.  So you'll just have to start at the beginning and click your way through. If you even care.  I'm suspecting that noone apart from my brother and mother will.  The rest will end up as Google Image Search fodder.  (Not to mention the blog using the butt ugly "Rainier" theme which came with Movable Type 5.2.  I really hate it but don't have the energy to fuss with it).

If anyone cares, here it is:

http://kazza.id.au/usa_1983/1983/04/day-1---sydney-to-los-angeles.html

..Oh, and the guys and work didn't believe it was me in all the pictures - they couldn't believe I could have been so skinny as a kid!

The ISS was due to jettison its Dragon module tonight (around now in fact), so with a -2.2 magnitude flyover I decided to record it from here..  and got a lovely shot of it flying between the Southern Cross and the pointers.

In other news, Dad came through his operation ok, but we won't know for a few days what the prognosis is...