We've been to Queensland since my last blog entry.  I'll get some posts up soon.  I was going to do it tonight, but spent the *entire* evening sorting out photos (from the trip and beforehand).  I couldn't geotag stuff though because Geosetter just freezes up whenever I try to do anything with it.  Super frustrating.

You'd think that direct flights from Canberra to Brisbane and back would more or less be along the same line.  You'd be wrong.

And I don't think I ever blogged this .. this was a holding pattern we got put in on our trip in 2012.

I was quite a latecomer to Penguin the Magpie's Instagram, by which time Penguin had all grown up and there weren't many photos anymore.  And I didn't know any of the back story of Sam.  But I did see the "ads" for the book and thought it might be nice to have a look at.  Then at dinner with EffanC the other week we were talking about it, and I went and bought it the next day.  Beautiful photos, and a touching story that made me cry.

Yeah so sorry for the photo spam.  Yeah no I'm not.

Chris and Zac came up tonight to look at all the Lego laid out.  I still need to properly document it before pulling it all apart again.  But with that all done, I suddenly found myself with some free time which I've been using to get some photos onto the blog.  Because Movable Type is so painful for uploading photos I decided to not add them as assets, but do what I normally do for holiday photos - just upload them to the directory and use my perl scripts to generate the html.  Made it a lot quicker, hence why I did so many at once.

Hanging out for Thursday .. it's been a .. well .. a week ..

In early April I went with David and Kat to the airport open day.  The trick to avoid the worst of the queues is to pick one plane that you want to see, and go see that as soon as it opens.  This year we decided on the Qantas 737 done up in retro livery.  Then we did the tarmac tour, and then just wandered around all the planes before having to race home to meet Graham and Pam who had come to stay.

I might have taken nearly eight hundred photos.  Oops.

Waiting to get into the cockpit of the 737

737 cockpit

737 cockpit

737 throttle controls

Qantas 737 VH-VXQ

David on the 737

Aircraft on the taxi way (Virgin Australia 737 VH-YIO and Qantas 737 VH-XZO)

Aircraft on the taxi way (Virgin Australia 737 VH-YIO)

Aircraft on the taxi way (Virgin Australia 737 VH-YIO)

Aircraft on the taxi way (Virgin Australia ATR-72 VH-FVP)

Aircraft on the taxi way (Virgin Australia ATR-72 VH-FVP)

Qantas kangaroo

Little blue stunt plane

Qantas jet in a hangar (717-2BL VH-YQW)

Crossing runway 35

Firestation at Fairbairn

Wind sock

Canberra's weather station

RAAF rescue helicopter (VH-VAB)

Air Force 1? :) (A36-001)

Air Force 2? :) (A36-002)

Prime Minister's jet

Canberra air traffic control tower

Canberra air traffic control tower

Eurocopter EC120B VH-VCC

Kangaroo sculptures

Aérospatiale AS 350B2 VH-LVM

Cessna 550 Citation II (VH-FYP)

Agusta A109E (VH-RUA)

The red baron?

Retro Roo II Qantas 737 VH-VXQ

Qantas 737 VH-VXQ

Virgin 737 VH-VUR

RAAF Roulettes

RAAF Roulettes

RAAF Roulettes

RAAF Roulettes

RAAF Roulettes

RAAF Roulettes

RAAF Roulettes

RAAF Roulettes

RAAF Roulettes

American Chamption VH-DAY

Yak 52 (VH-YVK)

1989 Nanchang CJ-6A (VH-NND)

1989 Nanchang CJ-6A (VH-NND)

Connie (VH-EAG)

Connie's engines

Connie leaks a lot of oil so they catch it in drink bottles

Or it just seeps down the sides

Or they use big blue tubs to catch it all

Connie (VH-EAG)

Connie's nose gear

I wouldn't stand there if I were you

Catalina (VH-PBZ)

Old air force C47 Dakota (VH-EAF)

Old air force Caribou engine (VH-VBA)

Alenia C27J Spartan (A34-001)

Red baron (1979 Pitts S-2A Special VH-FFF)

A roulette plane (A23-012)

Me and David next to the Catalina

Butterfly on stilts

David taking photos over the fence

Waaaay back in January, immediately after seeing Nathan Sawaya's Art of the Brick, I took a train (it was free. and it was hot.) from Central to Circular Quay, had a quick bite to eat, hacked some portals and went to the Museum of Sydney to see Sydney Icons in Lego, by Ryan McNaught.  It was a bit of a strange exhibition in that as well as the Lego displays (which were awesome), there was thousands of Lego bricks to play with. So while each session was an hour, most of the kids took a quick look at the displays then started playing with the Lego.  I just tried to get photos, which sometimes proved difficult with lots of kids heads in the way.  

Museum of Sydney

Opera House in Lego

Opera House in Lego

Front of Opera House

Steps of the Opera House

Interior of the Opera House

Darth Vader and Chancellor Palpatine attend a show at the Opera House

Endeavour and Opera House

HMS Endeavour in Lego

Sydney Harbour Bridge in Lego

Sydney Harbour Bridge in Lego

Harbour Bridge deck

Bridge climbers

Reckon that's Paul Hogan painting the Harbour Bridge?

Accident in the Harbour Tunnel

Pacific Aria in Lego

Pacific Aria in Lego

Pacific Aria cutaway

Pacific Aria cutaway

Pacific Aria cutaway

Pacific Aria cutaway

Pacific Aria cutaway

Jack and Rose and some random on the prow of the Pacific Aria

Galley of the Pacific Aria

Partying on the Pacific Aria

Swimming on the Pacific Aria

Someone having a shower on the Pacific Aria

Sydney Harbour yachts

Sydney Harbour yachts

Luna Park in Lego

Luna Park in Lego

Luna Park in Lego

Luna Park in Lego

Luna Park in Lego

Luna Park in Lego

Channel 7 helicopter

Bricks!

Nothing much of note to report lately.  

Had a weekend at the club for one of the long weekends.  Stu worked on his assignment and Heather, Lynn and I cleaned out the office.  It looks sooo much better now!

Had a bit of a walk last week to try and get the step count up.  Saw cool skies and fairy rings of flowers and swanlings.

Had a dinner with the sweetie at Pappa Rich in town last week which was nice enough.

Popped into Kit's when we got home.  Chloe was there with her new iPhone 7 which does take pretty good low light photos

Last weekend had a dinner at EffanC's and Scott came too and we just chatted all evening which was nice.

Other than that, I finished sorting Lego and picking out pieces for all the sets.  Now I'm putting them all together.  Fun times.

So aside from a plane blog entry, I haven't blogged in two weeks.  Whoops.

Monday two weeks ago I took a six hour lunch and finished a photo project that I'll get online soon.

The next Wednesday we won another damned trivia night.  Even without DC's help.  So will run the next one, which could very well be the last.

The Friday that week I went to Chrissie's for dinner.  She cooked a really nice pumpkin, gnochhi and sage dish, and for once we actually watched a movie (usually we talk about watching a movie but then just end up chatting all evening).  So watched Independence Day.

Saturday Chrissie brought up her steam cleaner to attack the bathroom.  

I'm too short to see this so never actually knew how bad it had gotten

So I made lunch (as you do).  I cooked up a bit of a hanami lunch - teriyaki chicken wings, tuna sushi and okonomiyaki.  There was heaps of food and Serena had been planning to have lunch with Kit so invited both of them up as well.

This was my first ever attempt at sushi!  It turned out pretty well

Chrissie finished up in the bathroom later in the afternoon, and Zac mowed the lawn.

On Sunday I went to pick up the sweetie from the airport.  And sorted Zac's Lego which Chrissie had brought up.

Monday I wore new jeans to work.  But backing up a little.  I am thoroughly sick and tired of paying a fortune for Jeanswest jeans that only last a year.  And I hate that you can't get decent quality demin in girls jeans anymore.  Why don't they make girls jeans in *real* demin and not that thin crappy stuff that is the only thing you can get now??  #hate  Even at 40% off, Jeanswest jeans are still pretty expensive.  So I thought screw this, and tried somewhere cheaper.  I tried Target first, but there was only like one style of jeans there that weren't already ripped to shreds.  wtf??  What idiot fashion designer thought that would ever be fashionable??  At least the idiots that wear jeans like that will look back at photos of themselves and wonder what in the world they were thinking.  Suckers.  So nothing at Target so tried Kmart.  Found some clearance jeans that were $7.  Each.  And they were more comfortable that the Jeanswest jeans as they have a slightly higher cut.  The next day I took them to get tailored and they were having a special - $10 jeans hemming.  So for $68 I got four pairs of jeans in the right size.  Normally that would be the cost of *one* pair of jeans.  So even if these cheap ones only last a quarter as long, I'll still be ahead.

Thursday we went down to see the two day old chickies!

Friday the sweetie and I went into town for dinner.  We ended up at Jamie's Italian, which I'd never actually been to before.  The service was pretty slow but the food was delicious.

This crispy squid was crunchy and delicious

These polenta chips weren't bad, but quite heavy.  Nothing like the awesomeness of the polenta chips we had at Pandanus on Lord Howe Island in 2007.

Stu's Pumpkin Panzerotti.  I only got the smallest of mouthfuls and then got distracted by the waiter, shoulda had a bit more.

This spaghetti carbonara was sooo tasty.  It's making me hungry just looking at it.

Salted caramel and chocolate sundae

After dinner (it was getting a bit late), Stu took me around to finish off the night shots for my photo project.

Saturday we had Nat and Andrew over for hanami lunch take two.  Same menu basically, although sushi options modified slightly for the fussy eaters :P

Okonomiyaki (Lisa's recipe)

We chatted all afternoon and then put on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which was fun.

In the evening the sweetie and I watched The Silence of the Lambs, which I hadn't seen in years and Stu had never seen.

Sunday was more food shopping, and more Lego sorting, with a roast dinner thrown in as well.

Also yesterday we realised that our sewage pipes were blocked.

Oh crap.

Literally.

So called Six Star Hot Water this morning and the same dude who replaced our hot water system came out and brought an eel.  He dug through a big clump of roots and everything started flowing again.  He said we could spend $5-10k getting it all dug up and fixed, or just spend the few hundred dollars every couple of years to get it cleared with an eel.  So we'll probably end up doing that.

Other than that, today was just Lego sorting.  In fact I only left the house to go hack a portal.  Step count will be a bit sad today.

Oh, and I blogged.  Finally.

So it feels like I haven't been home in days.

Saturday work most of the day, a bit of touristing, and dinner was salmon at Chrissie's.  Today out all day on a massive photo project which involved thirteen locations, 261 photos and 14000+ steps.  So tonight I collapsed with a couple of beers, some chicken kiev, and a bit of Survivor.

Oh, it rained a little bit on Friday night.

This jetty usually has about 15cm of air *under* it

This duck was enjoying the newly expanded Lake Ginninderra

So were these swans

Ginninderra creek is usually about a metre wide at this point

Yesterday it was more like twenty

Scrivener had one gate open today

On Wednesday night Neil and I went to Sage for a super nice dinner hosted by Brokenwood wines.  A night of delicious food and a *lot* of wine ensued.  All the food was amazing, I'd like to go back again some time.  We happened to be seated next to a lovely couple from Nicholls (Vicki and Stuart) who (after it got way past last bus time) gave us a lift home.

This was cured salmon.  I typically prefer cooked salmon, but this was *awesome*.  And that yellow thing?  A slice of lemon that had been baked (or fried?) and was crunchy and sour and delicious.  A wonderful opening course.

This was pork belly with cauliflower and some odd prawn-chip style popcorn stuff??  (I really wish we'd had a menu so I could tell you what everything was!)  The only problem with this dish for me is that all that pork?  It's just a lump of fat :(  There was no meat at all :(:(  I ended up doing a bit of a swapsie with Neil so I could get some meat.

This was lamb I believe.  Lovely and tender.

They also brought out some sides of a creamy mashed potato and salad which were just lovely, but I didn't get photos.

A couple of cheeses to end the night.  I loved the creamy one.

To go with the cheeses.

So I bricked my phone last week.  

For some months my phone battery has been having *issues*.  Mostly turning off when it still had reported charge left on the battery.  You'd connect it to power and it would instantly come back with like 30% or 40% or even the nearly 100% one time.  Alternatively it would drop right down to 1% and then stay there for hours.

So last week it had been at 1% for hours then finally died.  But when I plugged it in, it didn't come good.  It just sat there saying the battery was flat.

I left it charging overnight, but sadly in the morning it was doing just that, and wouldn't turn on.

Uh oh.

So I thought I'd bite the bullet and get a new battery for it that day.  Except I needed the phone in the morning for work.  So I tried doing what I'd seen suggested in various places on the internet - warm the battery up.  I stuck the phone behind a storage unit power supply and left it warming up for five minutes.  Plugged it in and it worked!  Turned on with 82% battery.  Go fricken figure.  

It did the same thing twice more last week and I was able to resurrect it, but it's clearly time to either 1) get a new battery or 2) get a new phone.

Getting a new battery is certainly cheaper - @CLBradley recently got a new one for his daughter's phone for $55 and it's been fine ever since.  But I have been struggling for a while with this phone.  It's been *full* in forever, and I have constantly delete photos to clear space.  I certainly don't have room for music.  Also it's struggled ever since going from IOS 6 to IOS 9.  It's just laggy and annoying and a better processor would be a plus.  There's also the dilemma of whether to buy it outright or get locked into a contract.  I've been complaining about Optus' crappy service for years, but at least it only costs me $30/month for 1.5GB data (which I only use about half of that a month) *and* I get a second sim (actually you can have up to 5 sims on one plan) for nothing.

So in the end I decided a new phone would be in order.  The old one is nearly four years old after all.

But now for the next dilemma.  What to get.

For ages I was never interested in the 6 because they were so much bigger.  Being a girl I get jeans with completely useless girly pockets which are barely big enough to hold the current phone.  Anything bigger just wouldn't fit in my pockets.  Then Apple brought out the 6 SE which was the same size as my current phone.  So if I was going to get a new phone, that was likely what I'd get.  Even with the battery issues of cramming all that stuff into a smaller space with a smaller battery (so I heard).

Except.

The iPhone 7 is due out in the not too distant future.  I could try and hold out long enough for that.

But.

I could wait all that time and find they don't have a small version anyway.  So I'd have waited all that time and then not been able to get what I wanted.

Although it could mean getting a 6 SE a bit cheaper..

It's all too hard, so I'll probably end up doing nothing except complaining about my phone dying all the time.