Results matching “Weekend”

Lump

I was a big fat lump this weekend.  Only physical activity was weeding the garden/pavers.

Other than that.  Geotagging.  Lots of it.  It's fricken *hard* without a GPS track :(
Also a bit of baking, and planning for Dave2's visit.

And last night went to a "games night" at Mishi's, but after sitting around and nibbling and talking, we ended up just nibbling and talking and didn't end up playing any games. 

Superb blue fairy wren
Superb blue fairy wren

Cherry bee

So yesterday was less than 2000 steps: the furthest I walked was just outside to photograph the house and flowers.

The cherry blossoms are about to burst.  I thought it would be cool to have another Hanami party this year - who wants to come? :)
Cherry buds
Purple bell things
Purple bells

The rest of the weekend (apart from a trip up Mount Taylor) was spent geotagging photos.  Do you have *any idea* how hard it is to accurately geotag photos taken from trains??

So it was a year ago last night that we took off for the UK.  Our first day was a bit of a waste of a day, flying all night, then arriving in the morning and catching a train to Osaka.  Extremely hot, so didn't do much, just had some lunch before checking in, then a rest, then heading out again for dinner and having a fun time in Nanba, Osaka.  I've updated the blog entry with some pictures here.
Keep fit challenge of the weekend: Mount Taylor!

Crimson rosellas nesting in bird boxes
Nest boxes
Mount Taylor Walking Track sign
Mount Taylor reserve sign
Galah
Galah
Pea!
Pea!
Trig station at the top of Mount Taylor
Trig station
Trig Station silhouette
Trig station sillouette
Tuggeranong
Tuggeranong

Magpie having a bird bath in a dog-watering bowl
Magpie having a bath in a dog watering bowl
That same magpie
Magpie
And again - magpie jump!
Magpie jump
Back again for another bath
Magpie having a bath in a dog watering bowl
Canberra from Mount Taylor
Canberra from Mount Taylor
Mount Stromlo from Mount Taylor
Mount Stromlo from Mount Taylor
Chris could probably tell me what this is..
Bird of prey
Wattle!
Wattle
Wattle

Since the weekend I've been keeping my news feeds under control.  A typical day takes about 20 minutes to read all the news feeds for (it was a lot longer before I culled lots and lots).  Which doesn't sound like a lot until you miss a day or two, then it adds up very quickly.  So got today's feeds read and spent the rest of the evening geotagging.  Well sort of.  Finding photos taken over Japan, Russian and Germany and tagging them in Google Earth.

Just for fun, here's some pool freezage we had on July 30 - the best we've had this winter.  Solid enough to hold up the bird seed container easily.

Freezage
When I came back an hour or so later, it had refrozen!

Refreeze
Had to smash through the ice on the bucket of water - and the crystals forming underneath the surface were amazing!

Bucket crystals
Bucket crystals

Syd-uh-nee!

Went on a quick trip to Sydney on the weekend.  Mainly to see a John Williams concert, and chuck in a family and friends visit too.

The drive was quite pretty - all the wattles along the way are out in bloom at the moment.  Unfortunately I was driving on the way up and it was too dark on the way back, so you'll have to take my word for it ;)

I realised I've probably *never* taken a photo on Como station before...!

Como station
In the city, an A380 flew overhead.

A380
A380 and Sydney Harbour Bridge
And then onto the Opera House for the concert.

Heaps of people came dressed up. There were lots of Jedis and Leias and Supermen (and a Superwoman) and wizards.

Stormtroopers
The Opera House itself is a pretty funky place for photography.

Sydney Opera House interior
Sydney Opera House interior
Sydney Opera House interior
Sydney Opera House interior
Sydney Opera House interior
Sydney Opera House
So the concert.  Fantastic!!!  It was really really cool.  Unfortunately we had pretty crappy seats.  Right near the front, which gave us an awesome view of the first violinists and the harp and a few of the cellists, but other than that - nothing :(  Couldn't see any of the brass or woodwind or percussion *at all* :(:(:(  So that was pretty frustrating and disappointing.  Note to self: don't get seats there again.

Sydney Opera House interior

Shaun Micallef came out between each piece for a bit of light entertainment which was kinda fun.  Didn't get any photos of him unfortunately, even though we had an awesome view.. you know.. being so close and all!  And near the end, Darth Vader and some stormtroopers came onto the stage.  That's the second concert in recent months I've been to with Stormtroopers.  Pretty cool :)

ACT I 
Olympic Fanfare 
Theme from Lost in Space 
Theme from Jaws 
Highlights from Close Encounters of the Third Kind 
Adventures on Earth - Concert suite from E.T. (The Extra-Terrestrial) 
Theme from Schindler's List 
The Raiders March from Raiders of the Lost Ark 
Theme from Jurassic Park 
Theme from Superman 

ACT II 
March from 1941 
Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter 
Sayuri's Theme from Memoirs of a Geisha 
Main Title from Star Wars 
Imperial March from Star Wars 
Princess Leia's Theme from Star Wars 
Cantina Band Theme from Star Wars 
Throne Room and End Titles from Star Wars 

So yeah.  Thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was far too short too - only two hours.. for once I could have sat still for hours just enjoying it heh.

Anyways.

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Manly ferry

So hopped on a train home, and D&Y came over and we all went out to the Tradies for dinner.

Lamb shank
And they played with Yvonne's polaroid

Polaroid playing
Sunday morning we had a bit of a sleep in.

I took a photo of the "Pigs and Chickens" bathroom tiles for posterity.

Pigs and Chickens bathroom tiles
We headed out to Miranda Fair next, so Stu could get a nice cup of tea, and to get my birthday present.  Stu got me a birthday cake too :):)

Cupcake
Then went home, packed up all our stuff and headed out to lunch - met up with James and George and Liz and Luc and all the kids and had Sizzler.  Ate too much as always.  In fact I completely skipped dinner last night and didn't even wake up hungry in the middle of the night heh.

Then home to Canberra.  The end.

And did confirm that my mother does indeed read this blog.  *sigh*  hi mum....  now you won't have to ask questions all the time when you talk to me, cause you get it all here?  m,kay?

This whole lack of Internet at home thing is getting really old! Basically two whole weeks now except for a short while last weekend. My news feed reading is back to being completely out of control. Blog is two weeks out of date. I dread to think how much data I've used on my phone this month (actually probably not that much because Optus' reception is so crappy all over Canberra that I can't even get data half the time). Someone from Telstra will be out to look at the line tomorrow. Here's hoping they actually fix it...

Yesterday was a lame all day at work :(  Load testing, finding problems, fixing problems, finding more problems, fixing more problems, finding yet more problems, but all having had enough to not properly deal with them.  Blah.  The money's good, but it kills me not getting a full weekend :(

This morning was up at a very uncivilised hour (that is a shock coming from me ;) ) to get to Scope at Mt Stromlo by 9am.  Coppins Crossing road was closed for a cycling event, but we didn't see the sign til it was too late, and ended up having to continue 5km out of the way before we could turn around legally, and then back again to go the other way.  Epic grunt.  So ended up arriving ten minutes late.  And nearly got blown off the mountain by the wind - it was insane!!

Mt Stromlo and rainbow

So we went to Scope to meet up with Fiona (aka @phonakins aka The Little Lioness) and Rish, Lisa (aka @bakebikeblog aka Bake Bike Blog) and Chris (aka @chrispycon), who turned out to be an ex colleague of Stu's from Queensland!  It was a great little twitter/blogger meetup.  We talked about various topics, mostly things like Canberra life, food, travel etc.  

Lisa and Fiona
Chrispycon

I had their eggs benedict which was pretty decent
Scope's Eggs Benedict

Scope has a fantastic location, it'd be nice to go back in weather that was good enough to sit outside and enjoy the view.  And plenty of gluten-free options which made Fiona and Lisa very happy :)Scope interior

Scope interior
Cotter Dam from Mt Stromlo

Popped into town to pick up Stu's car which had been there since Friday night, then did our food shopping, then came home.

Having a busy afternoon catching up with stuff.

I separated the jigsaw into its six identical 999-piece sections and stacked them up so they don't take up as much space, to give me room for other things I want to do.

Jigsaw split up
Jigsaw stacked
Jigsaw stacked
Planning a roast dinner tonight, and hopefully an early night!
Thursday

Managed to squeeze in one beer at drinks before being picked up.  Made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.  Had already checked in, so just needed to drop off bags, but no automatic machines that I could see at Canberra airport for plebs, so went to counters to drop off bags.  Went into the Qantas lounge for drinks and snackages.

Qantas club snacks

Then Stu got a notification on his phone that flight was delayed.  Oh well, more snackages.  And delayed again.  Flight was nearly two hours late by the time we got away :(  Got a beef stroganoff of some description for dinner on the plane.

People please, stand back from the luggage carousels so other people can see the bags going past and actually get to the carousel to pick up their bag!!  Sheesh!!

Rude people

Because the flight was so late, the car rental place was closed.  So had to walk all the way back into the terminal to pick up the keys, and back out again.  At that time of night it wasn't much fun.  And their computer system was down as well.  Hurrah.

Finally got the car and headed off, thinking we'd use the toll roads and get there a bit quicker.  

Big mistake.

Traffic jam on the M1

Night roadworks on the M1 meant we were stopped for long periods of time in several places along the motorway :(:( 

We had a hybrid car, so the stop start traffic was kinda quiet and fuel efficient.
Hybrid
Finally arrived - very very late - but still ended up talking til around 2am before going to bed.

Friday

Mog

Latish on Friday morning we headed down to Springfield Lake for brunch.  Although someone misheard it as Bugger Lake and so that's what it then became known as :)

I had a reasonable caesar salad, although all the pieces were in separate sections..

Caesar salad at Springfield Lake

Boat racing on Springfield Lake

Dropped into the Springfield aquarium and got a new heater for the aquarium, and Chay got a good deal on some plants on logs and a big sunken ship.

Fish tank

Headed out again after setting up the fish tank and went to a few different aquariums looking for fish.  We ended up getting eight ghost mollies, six male guppies, four sucking catfish and a betta.

Ghost mollies

Dinner was lots of Pizza Capers pizza.  Then we played Buzz (they have some different Buzzes we don't have, must go looking for them) and SingStar.  

Saturday

Saturday morning is garage sale time!  Mainly looking for books for Chay's business, but picked up a few other bits and pieces as well.  Got some sushi for lunch and saw Batman on a segway!!  

Batman Segway

Headed back out again in the afternoon and ended up getting some female guppies, and another betta for K (who had picked up a small fish tank at one of the garage sales that morning).

K's fish

K playing her saxophone

Dinner was chicken pies with mac&cheese - yumm!

After dinner we attempted to watch Seven Samurai but I was restless (so was Chay, who couldn't actually sit there) and then David had to go drop some stuff off at Chay's mum's, so we gave up.  Sorry sweetie, I'll watch it with you one day..

So played Buzz again, and more Singstar.  Not as late that night, and I set some pretty insane scores (9720 for Where the Wild Roses Grow, 9727 for Come As You Are and a whopping 9837 for Heaven is a Place on Earth!!).  Helped being mostly sober I suppose heh.

Singstar score

Sunday

Headed out to our favourite Brisbane cafe for brunch - Ascot Provisions.  Driving around I was actually surprised how everything had recovered from the floods.  In a lot of places you'd really never know there'd ever been any flooding there at all.  Amazing stuff.

I had the big breakfast.  They're still doing the mini cheese kranskys (I preferred the bigger ones they used to do).

Ascot Provisions big breakfast

Saw some interesting things on the drive back.

A staircase to nowhere..
Staircase to nowhere

Brisbane CBD from the Story Bridge
Brisbane CBD

And a human aquarium.  This is a swimming pool at the top of a building opposite the Gabba, with windows so you can see into it!
Human aquarium

Dropped into Hardly Normal to look for Buzz games (didn't find any, but did find this sign)
Harvey Norman sign

Did some more shopping at Orion.  Found a couple of Buzzes.  Also did some food shopping for dinner.  

Jungle cat

Dinner was a super awesome roast pork and veggies with an amazing apple sauce.  I swear David can cook about ten times as well as I can :/  I did my (fake) violet crumble cheesecake for dessert.

Night three of Buzz (the new ones) and Singstar.

Monday

Much of Monday was just chilling out, watching Big Bang Theory, reading news feeds etc.  Did a Bunnings run to get some new runners for the front sliding door.  Then packed up and left.

Again made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.  Which was a good thing, because all the new works around the airport terminals, and a truck going down the wrong way towards us in the lane we were trying to drive down, meant we missed the sign to the rental car return (because the truck was in the way).  Second loop around we went to a different part of the parking (luckily didn't get charged for the long stay carpark).  But we did see the sign this time (after it was too late to change).  Third time around we finally got it right.  Lame lame lame.  Returned the car ok and used the electronic bag drop gizmos for the first time.  Took a lot longer than handing them to a human, but I imagine it'd get a lot quicker once you got the hang of what you need to do.

So the plane was delayed.  Again.  What else is new.  We had an hour wait in Sydney on the way back, but as the plane got later and later it was looking like we wouldn't make the connection.  So they got us onto the preceeding flight, but even that was going to be cutting it fine.  They brought out a beef teriyaki for dinner.  We got a lovely view of Sydney as we flew past it, then flew waaaayyyyyy out to sea before finally swinging around and landing from the south on 34R.  We finally arrived at the terminal pretty much as the other plane was due to leave. Fortunately it was only four gates down, and several other people were transferring too.  So we raced down and got on the plane at the very last minute - they closed the doors a couple of minutes later.  I was thinking there was no way our bags possibly could have made it..

Flight to Canberra was pretty quick and uneventful.  Took off from Sydney to the west and straight on down, approaching Canberra from the south in very windy conditions.  But the landing was a lot smoother than I thought it would be, considering how much we were getting buffeted.

Had to walk out onto the tarmac (love it when that happens :) ) - where we'd just gone from beautiful t-shirt weather to suddenly cold and wet and windy.  Craziness.

Went inside and then waited to see if our bags had made it.  Which, miracle of miracles, they did!!  Was very impressed with Qantas making *that* happen :)

So got home very late and pretty much just crashed.

Had a lovely few days.  A nice relaxing weekend, good company, fun times and even read plenty of my very behind news feeds.

Same time next year guys :)
.. keep going most of a week without blogging that is?  Far out I'm a slacker..!

So a couple of miscellaneous pics from the week..

Some vertical balancing.. I call it Vertical Art
Vertical art
Another foggy cobweb.  I really have trouble getting sharp photos of these things :(
Foggy cobweb
Saturday we went into town for breakfast and to take photos of the Diamant Hotel after the fire.

Diamant Hotel Fire
Diamant Hotel Fire
Diamant Hotel Fire
And in the evening we went out for a (sort of) surprise birthday party for Andrew at Mecca Bah.  I was feeling anxious leading up to going out because I knew I wouldn't know the majority of people there and I'd more than likely have to talk to lots of strangers.  Sure enough, that's what happened.  But the sweetie was able to keep up some conversation, and a little wine certainly didn't go astray!  The food at the restaurant was really good, but almost completely inaccessible - none of the dishes came with any kind of serving implements (we ended up asking for some), and the pide wasn't cut (one of them came with a regular dinner knife, but not all of them even had that!).  It was also crazy expensive for the banquet ($42.90 per person).  Still, we really did enjoy the food, when we could get at it!

Koopa Andrew
Have spent a lot of the past week on the jigsaw.  Made pretty good progress too.  Here's a couple of pics comparing last Sunday night with tonight.  I've basically done the majority of the animals in the middle this week.

Jigsaw
Jigsaw
Cooked a super awesome roast pork with potato bake tonight.  Massive amount of crackling that turned out really well, unfortunately at the expense of the meat which was a little dry.  

And suddenly the weekend is over and it's back to the grindstone tomorrow...