So the beginning of the year. We began the new year at Kit's with Ben and Sarah for a nice start to the year.

We took the first two weeks of January off, so three weeks all up, but during the first two weeks our house was a revolving door of people wanting to use the pool. I do enjoy having people over, but we needed a break!! I think in that two weeks we socialised every single day which was completely exhausting. Later I was able to do a deep clean of most of the kitchen, and organised the garage.

Somehow we managed to go overseas twice this year. In April we made an impromptu trip to Wellington, New Zealand for a lonnng weekend for our tenth wedding anniversary. We only arranged it a few weeks in advance (taking Wello's lead of going to New Zealand just because (actually he did it for status points haha)), and got one of the very last direct Canberra to Wellington flights on Singapore Airlines. In December we avoided the family Christmas obligations and headed to the northern hemisphere. We had a couple of days in Japan before heading to Southampton to board the Queen Mary 2 for a transatlantic crossing and Caribbean cruise. Christmas and New Year were on board the ship in the North Atlantic. I went up to Sydney in January for the mum/uncles post-Christmas chatchup, where we went to Pandora's in Rouse Hill for lunch and sat in Ken and Jeanine's spa all afternoon; and again in June for Mum and Uncle Ken's birthdays, and we went and saw Vivid Sydney which was pretty cool. I went to Junee in May and we went and saw the Bricktastic Lego exhibition, which was awesome because no crowds, and we went to the circus as well. I went to Melbourne in June for work, and again with the sweetie in August for Kit's graduation.

Work was pretty stressful this year. The work itself was fine (I completed a massive cleanup project in around a year, much less than my estimate of two years) and my supervisor is great, but we switched to hot-desking which is all kinds of stressful for me. Not to mention that "activity based working" means we should be sitting with the people we work with, but because there's not enough seats that's often not the case. I get in relatively early (thanks sweetie!) so at least I get *some* consistency. We had a Ball in March which was very .. blue! and a lot of fun. Our work bar closed in June and we had an amazing final night. We got a new one, but it's half the size and not as practical. One of the first nights in the new bar was a whiskey night which was good. I organised a trivia night for March, but it was cancelled at the last minute due to lack of interest. Tried again in May and this time it was a packed house, and the last one in the old bar. We won the first one in the new bar in October, but the organisers said as incentive to win, the second place winners should run it. Let's hope they do or I'll be running another one!

Healthwise I've been pretty good. Just had a cold in May and another in July. Other than that it was just a lot of insomnia. A lot a LOT of insomnia. Omigosh sometimes I was convinced it was going to kill me.

Once again we had a *very* social year. As I mentioned earlier we had a lot of visitors in the first week of January. David came to stay a few times. He came in January and fixed some taps in the bathroom, and later in January to see about the Railway Historical Society and whether or not they'd try and reopen. He came with Leanne in February, to stay after the Airport Open Day (that I never managed to get tickets for), again in April, September and October with Kat. Always great having him here. Chrissie got bigger and bigger with Beavis and I got to see a couple of ultrasounds. She had a quite small but quite cute Nathan at the end of February. Visited them a little but not nearly often enough. Didn't help that Chris was completely exhausted from lack of sleep. Aunty Di and Uncle Graham came down a couple of times and we did fondue with them at Chrissie's in April and October. Had lunch a few times with her as well which was nice. Chris also gave me a kick up the butt in July and helped me grout half the shower. We caught up quite a few times with the extended N-Gang, going to either EffanC's, R&F's, Scotts for pizza, and beef cheecks at our place in July. We saw quite a lot of Kit and Pete during the year. It was sooooo nice having cool neighbours you could pop down to for a quiet drink. Pete is into games, so played a few with him (Kit played begrudgingly) - including Travel Trivial Pursuit, Cards Against Humanity, and Kismet. We went out to the George for Kit's birthday in May, had Ben over for roast in March, and had BBQ at Serena's for her birthday in October. Kit and Pete had a farewell party at the beginning of November (much drama ensued) but we still got to see them every weekend until they left. Helped pack their truck at the beginning of December, and they moved down the coast the same weekend we went overseas. We met up with Damien and Amanda at the Dickson Dumpling House in April, and Stu had a wargame with Damien in July, followed by dinner at Laziza House. Jenn came over in February with various Tequilas she'd bought on her trip to Mexico. Hao came up for work in May, so caught up with him at Alice's. Had our annual Hanami lunch with Nat and Andrew in late September. Stu's dad came over for dinner sans Ruth in January. Scott and Kerry came down at the end of June on the way to the snow and we had the whole family over for dinner. Had Wello's 40th at Casey Jones in October, and went over to @CLBradley's in November for BBQ for his birthday.

We didn't do as much club stuff this year. The event dinners are getting out of control with so many people going, and Stu has to go out once a month for committee meetings, which leaves us with no enthusiasm to go out at other times. We did go a couple of times, including a nice night in November with only six of us out there. We did an epic Burns Night in January, with two huge pork roasts, a huge haggis, tatties, neeps, peas, carrots and cranachan, for about forty five people. We did another round of two huge roast pork roasts and veggies for Christmas in July, and something like fifty people came. We were going to help with the Christmas party, but Stu got a migraine just before we were going to head out. During the committee meeting in August I regrouted the shed's kitchen splashback, because I could scrape out the old stuff with a fingernail, and I had the last of the grout from our bathroom that I thought I could use up. Only went to a couple of swim nights.

Pets. For years we've only ever had fish in this house. In February Chrissie was heavily pregnant and overstressed and the stress of Stumpy not eating was too much for her (Stumpy being a lovely blue tongue lizard). Kit had had Stumpy since he was born in her last place (I remember when they first moved in seeing the tank in the spare room, thinking at the time it was fish). Stumpy spent many years living in Kit's garage generally being neglected. So a couple of years ago Kit gave him to Chris and Zac. He fattened up nicely. But as I said, Chrissie couldn't deal, and asked if I'd take him. Well our front entrance way was still full of clutter that had been there for like five years that I'd been wanting to get rid of. So she took the majority of the stuff to sell on Gumtree one day, and we got Stumpy. He didn't eat at all for the first six months we had him. Didn't help that I didn't have lights through the early part, and then it was winter. So he sat doing not much for the whole time. Then later in the year (I'd been increasing the amount of heat/light to match the seasons) he suddenly started eating. It's been lovely having him. Stu really likes him and gives him lots of cuddles.

On the fish front. I got five new black neon tetras in January for the two foot, and some harlequin rasboras in May. I got a little sucking catfish to keep the algae at bay in Chrissie's little tank. We went to Serkan's for killifish study group meetings in March and August. Stu has been trying to breed killifish, with mixed success. He gets all enthusiastic for spurts, then they get neglected for weeks at a time. The other drama was the epic stress caused by dodgy Aqua One LED fish tank lights. All three, plus one I'd already had replaced died in the space of a couple of months. In the end got all my money back and went back to fluoros. Confirming my hatred for all things Aqua One.

Lego, jigsaws, and other hobbies. In January, Vic came down from Sydney with an entire bootfull of his kids' Lego he wanted to sell. It wasn't sorted so I spent months sorting it and checking each and every damned piece for FAKE Lego. Had to stop working downstairs in April when it got too cold, but didn't really do too much at the end of the year - I was too busy getting ready for our holiday. I'd bought some nice Willow storage tubs to replace all the cardboard boxes I have for storage, and they got pressed into service holding sorted Lego. I really want to get rid of it all to get the space back (and my storage tubs back!), but need to do something about the computer I'm using down there - it doesn't have enough grunt to keep five word docs open at a time containing the parts lists for the sets. I did a LOT of jigsaws this year, including several sections of the Disney behemoth. Another reason I want the space back downstairs...! Didn't do much else hobbywise. Spent a lot of time fighting with Apple. I downloaded Image::ExifTool and used a perl script to rename the files based on Date taken instead of Date modified which I've been doing all these years with all my other photos. I processed, labelled and blogged all the photos from our New Zealand holiday within two months, then I went back and labelled all the photos from our East Asia holiday and got that blogged by the end of the year.

For some reason I always mention the weather. We had the extremes this year. We had a dust storm in March. In fact all through March the max temperature was around 30C almost every day. It was freaky hot. Then throughout July it was crazy cold. We got so much ice on the pool it was ridiculous. One time it was 14mm thick in places! Maybe the super thick ice was the beginning of the end for the pool - I did consider that all that ice can't be good for all the joints.

New toys! My iPhone 5 got more and more annoying. For some months the lock button was really sticky. It either wouldn't work at all, or would spend the whole time in the lock position, so the phone would think you were trying to turn it off. I waited til the Apple announcements in September to see if they'd release a small form factor phone, but alas none came. So I bit the bullet and got a HUGE XS. The new phone and iOS STILL screws around with the date modified on my files. Pissed off at that. But the camera is very nice. Especially the HDR capabilities. My old phone feels like such a sweet little phone when I pick it up (I've kept it around because it has a bunch of apps that won't run on the new one). Also before our holiday I decide to replace the seven year old Asus Eee PC. It was always under-powered (what is it with Asus and not enough memory?) and spent most of its life swapping to disk and not actually doing anything. It was pretty much unusable and frustrating, so got a little Lenovo net book which was just great to travel with.

A few house sagas this year. The first being the leaky shower. It took me forever to finish scraping off the old sealant and scraping back the old grout. And then it sat there for months doing nothing. Eventually Chrissie gave me a kick up the bum and helped me grout half the shower, and I finished it a week or two later in July, followed by the sealant in August. Took a little over a year to get that shower back into use, but it doesn't seem to leak anymore. I also attacked the cloudiness on the shower glass but NOTHING worked - not bathroom cleaner, not vinegar, not diluted CLR, not straight CLR, not straight CLR left there on the glass for weeks on end. I gave up the idea of ever having that glass clear again. We came home from New Zealand to find the power had gone off in the house and had been off for four days. We lost some fish in the cold (the rummy nose tetras), and I chucked out a bag of stuff from the fridge just in case, but the freezer didn't defrost completely (still had a couple of whiskey balls in tact) so didn't chuck anything out from there. Then there was the epic stress over the blown hot water release valve. It had died *just before* it was one year old, but I didn't call them for ages because I'm allergic to the phone. When I did call them it sounded like they were going to charge me, but when the dude turned up he was all "is that all?" and replaced it for me on the spot (and left me a spare to boot). Fortunately Rheem didn't charge me for their second defect in its first year. Then there was the circuit breaker that caught fire, taking out all our power points. Fortunately we got it fixed the same day, and used the lack of computer to do a lot of cleaning and organising. And finally the pool. Maybe all the ice over winter stretched all the seals to breaking point. But we had a leak that I don't know how old it was and we couldn't see how much damage had been done to the structural wall. The pool turned out to be around thirty years old! So even though it broke my heart we (I) decided to drain it and say goodbye. We did have a win - Pete replaced the laserlite sheeting on our back pergola, as well as the front piece of wood that had been positioned right under the old sheeting and had gotten rotten.

We ate out a little this year but not too much. Went to Iori with EffanC, Yat Bun Tong a few times (Stu likes the dumplings), with Damien and Amanda we went to Dickson Dumpling House and Laziza House, went with EffanC and Scott to Pialligo Estate for a "Meet the Maker" dinner with wines by Shaw and Smith in April which was delicious, Happys with the sweetie, Malaysian Chapter a couple of times with the N-Gang, The George for Kit's and my birthdays, Lake George Hotel in Bungendore with EffanC - disappointed with the pork belly, Tipsy Bull in Braddon for Stu's birthday which was great, and Sushi Bay sushi train with the sweetie. Went to Chong Co a couple of times. Probably others I didn't mention.

Didn't have too much blog-worthy food. A guilty pleasure was nachos - simply corn chips topped with cheese and baked for five or so minutes. Did Lorraine Elliot's Asian Style Beef Cheeks a couple of times (is it possible for something to have *too much* flavour?), and had a go at Sizzler cheese toast!! OMFG!!! SO GOOD!!! I'd make it all the time if given half a chance...

Theatre/Shows/exhibitions
* Bricktastic in Junee which was great and no crowds of kids
* Circus in Junee which had exotic animals to my surprise, but convinced their no photography rule is simply to not have anyone get it on video if they fall off stuff or get eaten by lions
* Ben Law and Jenny Phang at Library Up Late which was interesting
* *Didn't* see Cartier, but did wander around a bit of the National Gallery with Cath
* Brickman Lego exhibition by Ryan McNaught with Neil which was also awesome and also no crowds of kids (sensing a theme here?)

Movies
* The Last Jedi
* Bohemian Rhapsody

Movies on TV
* Well lots but I'm not going to list them all
* Lord of the Rings series (in advance of going there)
* Kevin Smith movies
* Harry Potter series
* Star Trek series
* Pixar series. Saw what we could of these on DVD and Netflix, then saw most of the rest on various plane trips at the end of the year. The only one I didn't see (and have never seen) is Coco.

TV
* Star Trek Discovery (season 1)
* The Good Place (season 2)
* Pride and Prejudice (BBC series borrowed off @CLBradley)
* A lot of Dad's war documentaries up until April, and then again from October
* One episode of Altered Carbon
* Homeland (season 6)
* Star Trek Enterprise
* Addams Family (maybe season 2, would need to check)
* Anthony Bourdain's The Layover
* Back in Time for Dinner
* David Attenborough's Natural Curiosities
* Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown
* Rake (season 5, not as good as previous seasons, too over the top)
* The Good Place (season 3)
* Death in Paradise (seasons 1 and 2)

Books
* Prey, by Michael Crichton
* The Giant Book of Science Fiction Stories
* Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
* The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank by Willy Lindwer

Other stuff

* Got NBN!!!!!!! In January - haven't complained about our internet since. 12x faster than before!
* Stopped by Cataract Dam on the way home from Sydney in January
* Took my car to the wreckers. Realised six months later I'd left my RTA etag in it, so called the wreckers but my car was crushed. There goes $40. Also realised, when I went to charge Kit's car in December, that I'd forgotten the battery trickle charger attachment that had been mounted in the engine bay.
* Climbed Black Mountain from Bindoubi Street with Cath, Fiona and their friend Heather
* Saw the Canberra Balloon Fiesta
* Filled with rage at the tax office that refuse to send paper bills, so how the hell am I meant to know how much I owe them??
* Was super happy with the awesome customer service from Willow when I found one of the lids I'd bought was cracked. Saddedened at the appalling experience from ebay
* reCAPTCHA died, but have been puttering along without it since May, and doesn't seem to be getting comment spam these days anyway
* Watched Flying High twice this year
* Tried taking recycling bottles to Return-It, but (after they forced me to register all my personal details) they RIPPED ME OFF and never put any money in my account. Return-It is a SCAM!!  I've been collecting the bottles but I've never been back - I give them to David whenever he comes to stay and he takes them to NSW where they have a PROPER system, or take them out to the club where someone else takes them to NSW or I think the new one in ACT where you get a receipt on the spot.
* Went to Frank Bradley's funeral, on my birthday. Tried to go to Stanley's in Bruce for dinner but it's closed Tuesdays so ended up at The George.
* Got a green bin!!
* Ate some of Kit's chickens
* Stu chopped a foot of hair off just before we went away at the end of the year

We finished the year at nine o'clock in the morning, North Atlantic time.  Stu was in bed and I was eating breakfast.  And yet, even in the middle of the North Atlantic, I could still watch the Sydney fireworks live :)

So where were we?  Oh yes, yet another week has passed..

Wednesday morning we hopped a flight to Melbourne for Kit's graduation.  

!!!

Her parents were overseas so couldn't make it, so we filled in.  

Wait, let me backtrack a minute.  On Tuesday morning the sweetie messaged me to say his ballot for a points upgrade to business class had gone through.  So I'm like.. friggen great.. now I could lose my left-side-of-the-plane window seat.  So I tried to check in online.  I was able to choose seats on the left side of the plane (yayy!!) but the screen hung after the declaration of dangerous goods.  I tried to reload the page but it just said I couldn't check in online.  Thinking it was me stuffing up the webpage loading I tried to call Qantas to reset the error.  None of the options on the phone menu matched anything I wanted so I just ###### in an attempt to talk to a human.  Well it did put me in a queue.  For the next forty five minutes.  In the end I tried the online webchat, and got through to a human pretty quickly.  They said because of our upgrade we couldn't check in online.  Well why didn't you fricken say that on the error on the webpage you buttplugs!!!!  Why make me waste fifty minutes on hold (before I evenutally hung up after talking to webchat person)?!?

Anyway.

So we got to the airport somewhat early, and sure enough did get the seats I requested which was a relief.  Had breakfast in the business lounge which is somewhat nicer than regular Qantas club, and I had bacon, eggs and mushrooms for breakfast and a croissant.

Ok so business class.  Never flown it before.  Ok the service was bit nicer/quicker.  They offered us still or sparkling water before take off.  And we got actual metal cutlery and didn't have to peel a cover off our quiche.  But the seats, while wider and more legroom, were more reclined than usual, and I couldn't actually reach the floor, even with my slight heels.  So somewhat uncomfortable.  I'd much rather business class on a long haul flight so I can lay down flat(ish).  It is somewhat more quieter in front of the engines though.

So on a Canberra to Melbourne flight you really want the left side of the plane.  You typically take off to the north from Canberra airport, then curl around to the west then south west over north Canberra.  Which means.. I can see my house from here!  Had a great view of Canberra, everything I hoped for.  At least that part of the flight was pretty awesome.

And then to Melbourne.

We got tickets for the Sky Bus, because it's like half to two thirds the price of taking taxis, and went pretty close to our hotel.  Funnily enough, we booked into Travelodge Docklands, where I've stayed twice in the past year for work.  When booking the hotel I asked for a room on the east end of the building, because it has a much nicer view.  But, like just about every other customer service experience I've had in the past couple of weeks, it was terrible, and they ignored my request, and we ended up on the west end of the building with a lovely view of the Channel 9 building.  Thanks Travelodge.  NOT!

We couldn't actually checkin when we arrived at 12pm, so dumped our stuff and headed over to the Convention Centre for the graduation.  We met up with Kit and Pete, and then we went to the pub across the way with Pete while Kit got a gown etc.  She met up with us just before it started and then left again.  We finished our drinks but even though we were only slightly later than the suggested time, the auditorium was almost completely full, and we had to sit way over on the side and couldn't sit with Pete, he was two rows in front.  The graduation ceremony was .. well it was a graduation ceremony.  Hadn't been to one since my own in 1996.  Was somewhat like I remembered.

Afterwards there was some pretty average "refreshments".  Kit got her degree framed and bought her stage photo, then we queued for the studio photos.  For like an hour.  We were getting pretty tired by then.  And they were all stoopidly fussy about anyone taking their own photos, which I thought was COMPLETELY ridiculous.  There was no way we were going to queue for an hour and then not buy any of their photos.  STUPIDITY, GFP!! I didn't even bother, but Pete got told off for trying to get a quick snap.  I hate that sort of attitude, GFP, JUST SAYIN!!

Afterwards we walked Kit and Pete back to their apartment and had a couple of quiet drinks (Kit's back was killing her and the sweetie was super exhausted so we didn't go out).  Then walked all the way back to our hotel, where we had thins and aero for dinner and watched the end of War Games.

In the morning...  well other than breakfast in the hotel which was ok .. but .. 

Second Qantas drama in a row.  I tried to check in to the flight but we had been "upgraded" to exit row seats.  Which are like THE WORST SEATS ON THE PLANE.  Right over the wing, you can't see a damned thing.  This is an epic DOWNGRADE for me.  And I couldn't change the seats online.  Once again, we had to go to the airport to deal with it.  I told the sweetie he could keep the seat if he wanted, but he said he'd sit with me.  So I explained my situation to the checkin dude who was all cool and gave us seats further back.  Although row 22 which is still a bit close to the wing.  Not like the seats I actually reserved when I booked.  Completely pissed off with Qantas over all the drama they caused me.  The flight wasn't even full, and we could have had seats further back.  At least the sweetie didn't have to sit in the middle.

So work, drinks, etc.

Friday morning was optometrist appointment.  Honestly Specsavers are *completely* unorganised.  I first went two years ago and got a full eye check and new glasses.  They said they'd like to get a baseline for potential glaucoma (family history and all), and scheduled me in for a checkup in a year's time.  So last year I got the reminder notice, and booked an appointment.  When I got there the staff were all like.. "why are you here?  You just had a checkup..? and I'm like .. um, because you told me to.  They eventually figured out I was just there for the glaucoma tests.  Again they said come back in a year.  So I got my reminder recently and booked in an appointment, making it quite clear that it was just for the glaucoma tests.  So I get one of the tests, but then the one of the optometrists comes out and he's like "why are you here?" and I then had to explain the situation AGAIN, IN FRONT OF EVERYONE IN THE STORE!!  Don't these guys understand *anything* about patient confidentiality???  I was actually pretty annoyed with the guy.  Specsavers please get your act together!

For lunch Neil and I were planning "grease" at KFC, but the queue was a bit long, so he suggested Grill'd, which usually involves sharing wine.  Then hot chocolate at Max Brennar.  Whoops ;)

Last Sunday night we watched Star Trek Beyond, which I could barely remember anything about it was that.. memorable..  So I decided we should watch all the Star Trek movies from the beginning.  So on Friday night we watched The Motionless, sorry, Motion Picture.  Honestly nothing happens.  They get called on to intercept a thing.  So they do.  And that's all they do for the next two and a quarter hours.  Although I can imagine that trekkies after a ten year break would have wet themselves over seeing the Enterprise on the big screen.

Saturday was out to the club for yet another whole day wasted, this time for the AGM.  

Oh I should mention, since we got back, after Pete's sister left on Friday, I was feeding Kit's animals.  On Saturday morning I went out and collected twenty one eggs!!!  So Saturday night we used nine of them to cook a frittata for dinner.  Fun times.

Then we watched Khaaaaaaan.  

Today was just a quiet day doing all the things, although not all the things, cause I don't have time for all the things.  Did do some food shopping and cooked a lamb roast for dinner. 

And then we watched The Search for Spock.  There's a bunch of funny quotes, but the one that transported me back at least twenty five to thirty years was "Up your shaft" which Scotty mutters to the turbolift.  I first saw this movie in probably about 1990 with Chrissie.  I can't remember anymore if we hired it or if it was on tv, or if we watched it at her place (I think we did) or mine.  But I do remember we both absolutely cacked ourselves over that line.

And so ends another week.

Had a pretty quiet weekend.  Just plodding through the todo list and jigsaw.  Finished season six of Homeland (Quinn can't really be dead can he???).

Sunday evening headed down to Melbourne again for work. Took off to the south so the view from my left-side window was just of Queanbeyan, and nothing exciting from the northern approach to Melbourne.  Had dinner with Daniel, Ray and Tony at Platform 28.  

Then two days of discussions and some planning, although not as many decisions made as we would have liked.

This was pretty random.  I was just brushing my hair on the last morning and a hot air balloon drifted overhead..

Then home again.  Again I failed, due to a left-side seat on the plane but an approach all the way around Canberra and in from the north.  If I'd been on the other side I would have seen all the lights all the way around.  Le sigh.

Have finished labelling to the end of day two of New Zealand photos.  Getting there.. oh so slowly!

When I travel I like to have a book that I know I'll enjoy reading.  If you have to wait around airports, or your aircraft entertainment system is being a poo, or you're in hotels waiting for the sweetie to wake up, it's good to have something easy and entertaining to read.

For this trip I chose to take Prey, by Michael Crichton.  I picked my copy up at a Bookcrossing meetup, but it hadn't been registered.  I read it in 2005 and enjoyed it so much I decided to keep it.  I didn't read it as fast as I did last time (I had to make sure I didn't read the whole thing before the trip was over!), but enjoyed it just as much (and the good thing about dementia is I'd forgotten most of it so could enjoy it all over again).

Wednesday night I ran another trivia night.  This was the one we were meant to run in March but had to cancel due to lack of interest.  This time we had twelve tables, so turned out to be a pretty good night.

On Thursday night I went down to Kit's after dinner, and we ended up playing a travel version of Trivial Pursuit which was a bit of fun (you can "buzz in" to have a go at answering the question if the person getting the question doesn't answer it right).  I won the first game fairly quickly but took a lot longer to win the second game because they kept stealing my cards :)

Wow this has certainly been a busy year, and a very very social one. I left writing up the friends and family section til last because it just seemed to go on forever and ever!

Our year began at home, with Ben and EffanC over for nibbles and a small party. Annie and the family came over the next day for chaos and Turkish food. Saw Scott and Kerry and the kids on the first day back at work before they went home.

We had one holiday this year - a cruise on the Queen Mary 2 out of Hong Kong (with a couple of days in Macau beforehand). I was super excited about it, and it lived up to expectations. Although I felt like we didn't quite belong there, on account of not being retired highly paid executives. We never made it to Queensland this year - things were just too *complicated*. I did do two day trips to Sydney to inspect my flat. And there was a work trip to Melbourne for two days.

At work I swapped teams after not quite fitting in with the old team (I'm too dumb for that team!). Still doing much the same work, but with different technology. The project I joined had been going for about two years, and I figure I have about two years of work to clean up the mess that has been made! I had a little bit of weekend work doing upgrades to various things and monitoring of some events. The majority of my new section is in Melbourne, so we went down in September for a two-day planning session. The highlight of the trip was the amazing flight down, and catching up with David twice. We ran a trivia night in March. Unfortunately the winning table weren't going to be around to run the next one, so we asked the second-place getters if they'd do it. They said yes, but never did it. So I'll probably run another one in February or March. We had a whiskey night in June which was a bit of fun. I went with the sweetie to SplunkLive! and I'm *still* bitter that a big data company couldn't get the distribution of tshirt sizes right. We had a DAIS video night in August, as it had been way too long since the last one. Finally, I ran our annual floor barbeque at the lake for forty people and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

I was pretty healthy this year. I had a bit of a cold in February, and then another one picked up on the Queen Mary 2 (it was going around the entire ship), but after that I didn't get any more colds all year. The other thing we got on the way home from our holiday was a bout of gastro, which hit Stu just after we got home, and me a day or so later (although I seemed to only get a fairly mild case of it). I went to the dentist after one year instead of twenty and will probably keep going regularly now. I did battle with insomnia quite a few times during the year. Usually for no apparent reason, although it tended to be associated with a sore spine and/or a brain that wouldn't shut up. I rage-quit on Stu's bed earlier in the year and more often than not sleep in the spare room. That room has the bed Yvonne gave me in 2005 which has a much firmer mattress than Stu's. I don't get a sore spine *as much* in that bed, and my restless legs don't play up nearly as much there either (don't know why that is - different fabrics??). We've been meaning to go shopping for a new king size bed, but we just haven't gotten around to it yet.

We saw a lot of F&C (EffanC) this year which was really nice. Went to their place a number times and had them over here as well. Also saw Scott with them a few times. We saw quite a lot of Kit, with various combinations of Serena, Ben, Sarah, Anita and Pete. David came to stay in January, April, August and December, and Mum came to visit in February and August. Only saw a little bit of Annie the family - they came over for a Turkish feast in January, we went to their place for dinner in March, had them over here in April, their place for cake for Noah's birthday, and them here for Christmas dessert. Saw even less of Potty and the family - seeing them at the beginning of the year before they went home, Kerry brought over sick kids in July, then everyone came at Christmas (twice). We met Chrissie's new boyfriend in January, and by July they were living together with a baby on the way. I've gotten to go to a few of the ultrasounds which has been pretty cool. They came over for our first hanami party, and we had Zac come and stay in December so Chris and Mike could celebrate their anniversary. Nat and Andrew came over for our second hanami party, but sadly that was the only time we saw them all year. We had Damien and Amanda over for dinner in May, and went with them to Olive at Hawker in July, and saw just Damien for drinks in August. James and Rachel came down for a cake decorating course in May and they stayed with us which was nice. James also came down for work in November and we caught up for dinner at Bella Vista. We met up with Jenn at Chong Co in January, and had Jenn and Nick over in June for dinner. Jenn was getting set for a foodie trip to Mexico, which she went on later in the year and we got copies of her travelogue which was pretty cool. Had dinner with Luc and Cynthia and the boys when they came down in January, had @Chrispycon and Anne over for dinner in June, went to a barbeque at @CLBradley's in June, had dinner with Luc when he was down for work in September, and went over to Lachie's for darts (which I was crap at) and Jenga (which I didn't lose at) in November.

At "the club" we went to a couple of swim nights, and several socials at the club. One of them we did pea and ham soup, and another we did Christmas in July for forty people.

Pretty quiet year for the fish. I got some more danios for the two foot, and a couple of bristlenose catfish for my big tank and the two foot. We did get another tank from Chrissie as well which is quite a nice little tank. In the big angel tank is the angel, two big (probably female) danios, a cory, the bristlenose I bought, and a big bristlenose I got off Chris. In the upstairs two foot there's five danios, four rummy nose tetras and a bristlenose. In the little tank from Chris are her two clown loaches. They're really too big for that tank but haven't decided where to put them yet. It could really use a bristlenose as well, as the tank gets direct sunlight so there's lots of algae starting to grow. Downstairs there's four danios and the platy I got off Chris two years ago. Stu has two guppies in the little tank on his desk, and heaps of fish in his four foot. We bought expensive LED lights for two of the tanks instead of regular fluoros, but one of them died after only eight months which is very disappointing. Hoping the other one we bought doesn't die as quickly.

I didn't get any new Lego this year, although I did get a Nanoblocks Empire State Building for Christmas. I did a bunch of jigsaws throughout the year including a very cool 3D one of the Sydney Opera House. I finally assembled the 24000 piece "Life" jigsaw, because I figured I *had* to before I could get going on the 40320 piece "Memorable Moments" Disney jigsaw! I had fun with papercraft as well, making some Villarceau circles, completing a geodesic dodecahedron and two geodesic octahedra (or hexahedra), making a four frequency geodesic icosahedron which is pretty spectacular (and I had this hanging from the roof at work for a while which is probably how they noticed ceiling cat), and an icosidodecahedron and a geodesic icosidodecahedron.

For some reason I always mention the weather in my year in review posts. This year seemed quite cold in winter, but the pool only froze over a couple of times. We had hail and snow on the same day in August which was pretty exciting. October seemed like a very cold month, and as per usual December had its fair share of cold days as well. Not that I'm complaining, I'd prefer it to be cold than hot. Our evaporative cooler works very well, although I swear last summer was the most humid summer in Canberra ever (the evaporative cooler doesn't work very well when it's humid). This summer we've used it a little and it's quite lovely. I'm even noticing a temperature inversion now - often it's cooler upstairs than downstairs! But the best part is being able to use it on fan only to simply bring cool air into the house once it's cooler outside than in. In the past it could be quite cool outside, but still hot inside simply because the air is so still and there's no crossflow ventilation. Having the fan bring it in is wonderful.

At the end of last year I was considering getting a backpack vacuum cleaner because I *hate* dragging a barrel vacuum cleaner around. David suggested we get a cordless one instead. I was a bit reluctant because they are essentially glorified dustbusters, and all the ones we saw had rollers that just tangle up hair. But we ended up getting one anyway. It sat unused for probably six months, but I've finally gotten into the habit of doing a room or two per day, and now the house is actually getting fully vacuumed every week. Amazing! Our Cisco switch died while we were on holidays in March. And we never did get the NAS working again with it - it's still going through a little old 100Mb switch. Our home internet has always been bad here, and getting steadily worse. When we got back from holidays it was completely unusable. We called Internode to have a look. They got Telstra to have a look, and confirmed a problem with the line something like 400m away. They fixed this and things did improve somewhat, but our internet is still painfully slow (2Mb down). Netflix seems to buffer relatively well but Stan is abysmal. We're hoping NBN will improve things a little, but given that our node is like a kilometre away I doubt it's going to be amazing. My blog and hosting/email was offline for a few days while we were on holidays. Possibly a DOS, but don't know if it was ever explained. Then Vic sold everything off and retired. I'm wondering how long it takes them to figure out this hosting is a freebie and either shut it down or make me start paying for it. I really really need to move this blog off, but it's such a huge beast it's going to be very difficult. Even backing up the site via FTP takes a couple of days. I might have more luck tarring up the whole thing into one file which would transfer more quickly and efficiently, but I'm hampered by not having any shell access. And I couldn't find the perl script I used to have which lets you run commands interactively via the website (yes I know - super dangerous, which is why it's not online, and hence I can't find it). We had dramas with our dvd players. The video on my old dvd recorder kept dropping out, and it was getting worse. The PS3 dvd part stopped working years ago. I even had issues with my old Toshiba. So in the end we spent $80 on a new player that will play everything including media on usb stick. The remote is faulty - any time you press a button it fires off the action multiple times. But we got it working with our Harmony remote, so in the end didn't bother to swap it (especially since JB HiFi price matched it with Big W). The old Android of Stu's that I used for Ingress got so old that the Play Store wouldn't work anymore, which meant I couldn't update Ingress, so the thing essentially became a brick. Maybe I could still use it as a media player, since my phone doesn't have space for that sort of thing. I upgraded my five year old iPhone to 10.3.3 without any dramas. It's faster after unlocking than iOS 9 was which is pretty cool.

Around the house, we discovered our shower was leaking, probably from old cracked grout in the corner. We scraped it back (mostly) but still haven't regrouted/siliconed. It's on the todo list for our staycation! The snifter valve exploded on our hot water system, but I still haven't gotten around to calling up Aquamax. It's on the todo list for our staycation! We had a heap of pool dramas this year. At the beginning of the year there was way too much stabiliser (sunscreen) which meant the chlorine didn't work at all. Got that under control with a bunch of water changes (dear Adelaide: you're welcome), but then this summer the pool has been unbuffered and unstable and keeps going green, even with adding plenty of chlorine. Sad times. Possibly the pH has been too high, so have adjusted that, vacuumed the last batch of algae to waste, raised the total alkalinity and added a bunch of chlorine and *hopefully* it'll settle down now. The tenants of my flat in Sydney moved out after seven years, and the place needed to be fully renovated, costing me something like $16000 :( Did two trips to see the before and after. Good news is it's getting a lot more rent now that it's all shiny again.

We didn't eat out too much this year, and when we did it was generally when meeting up with other people. We did go to Bella Vista a few times - for our anniversary, for my birthday, and when James came to visit. We only went to Dumpling Inn a couple of times because they were closed for much of the year. Both times were with Chris, Mike and Zac. We also tried The Scholar in Dickson with them, but I wasn't impressed with the very slow service. Also wasn't impressed with Chinese Inn at Kippax where we went for Sarah's birthday. Went to Hero Sushi in the city a couple of times, the first experience a lot better than the second. Went to Malaysian Chapter with Cath and Scott for Stu's birthday, and Chong Co with Jenn. Only had brunch out a couple of times this year, once at Market St Eats at Belconnen markets and once at Gus' Place. We often have lunch at Saigon Streetfood when doing our food shopping, or sometimes Ali Baba or more recently Alaska Seafood. We did get to try out a few new places too - The Courtyard Restaurant at Mercure with Luc and Cynthia when they were in town, Olive at Hawker with Damien and Amanda, and Black Fire in Braddon with Luc. We tried out Mills and Grills pizzas this year which are pretty good, and Stu loves the karaage chicken pizza from Pizza Capers. And finally I went with Neil to the Brokenwood Wine dinner at Monster Kitchen and Bar in Hotel Hotel.

I tried a few new recipes this year. Lemon ginger chicken from a Coles magazine was very nice, beef cheeks from Not Quite Nigella was also pretty good, and Jamie's five ingredient Asian fishcakes were simple but nice. Stu cooked Scotch eggs a couple of times, and pork larb a few times. I had a go at fondue, but didn't follow a recipe so the cheese split. Chrissie gave me a book of fondue recipes, and I got a proper fondue set, but we've yet to have another go at it. Kit and Serena's gardens provided an excess of produce that we happily used up, and we got to eat some young roosters that Kit had raised and processed. I made Anzac biscuits on Anzac Day, caramel slice at least three times, a mint rocky road and a cheesecake.

Didn't see any theatre or shows or exhibitions this year.

The only movie we saw at a cinema was Silence - in Hong Kong!

Stu likes to watch tv while we eat dinner. I feel like being forced to sit in one place for three quarters of an hour is pretty stressful, especially on weekday evenings. Having said that, some shows are better than others and with some shows it didn't feel so much of a burden.

• Sherlock - season four
• Fuller House - season two
• Star Trek: The Original Series - finishing up what we started last year
• Star Trek: Voyager - the entire thing, which took most of the year and was the most stressful to have to watch
• Homeland - season five
• Black Adder Goes Forth - borrowed off Annie years ago but hadn't gotten around to finishing, watched this on my computer
• Monty Python - season four - borrowed off DC years ago but hadn't gotten around to finishing, watched this on my computer
• Air Crash Investigations - various episodes watched online while doing other things on my computer
• Australian Survivor - season two of the current incarnation - the only commercial tv we watched all year
• Fuller House - season three (in two parts)
• Dad's documentaries - stuff he'd taped off tv over the years. I've been working my way through them while I do jigsaws downstairs in the summer months
• The Good Place - season one and the first half of season two
• Rake - season four

Books Read

• Tales of Two Cities, various short stories
• Bones Never Lie, by Kathy Reichs
• Uncle John's 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader
• The Barefoot Investor, by Scott Pape
• ET: The Book of the Green Planet, by William Kotzwinkle
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nets, by Ken Kesey
• No Place to Hide, by Glenn Greenwald

Other stuff

• Kit had baby bunnies but Vicki killed them by "playing" with them
• Neil won Ali Baba's "Chance to win $1000000" - but that's all it was - a chance to win. He didn't actually win the $1000000.
• Went to the Multicultural Festival with Chrissie for beer and meat (and potatoes) on a stick, while remembering Dad from three years earlier
• Had to do some actual clothes shopping for formal and other nice clothes for the cruise. Material Pleasures was awful, City Chic was much more successful, then again so was Vinnies and it was a lot cheaper
• Went to the farmers markets in April but I find it too stressful and it's too early for Stu so we don't really like going
• Stopped going to Coles at Jamison for the most part, because Jamison couldn't be arsed putting in enough trolley return bays around the car park
• Made a classic 80s space guy costume for Kit's 30th birthday party
• Had a brief play with IMosaic
• Setup a blog for the Queen Mary 2 with photos of the ship
• Went to Shepherd's Lookout and down to the river with Kit
• Paid off our mortgage
• Went to Hall Markets with Kit and Pete
• Got access to my old CIA mailbox and downloaded seven years of mail
• Setup a blog to compare Canberra between 1986 and 2016, sent it to the RiotACT but they didn't link to it. Johnboy would have.  Just sayin'.
• Had to be official photographer for Roz's 60th at The Abbey which I found very stressful
• Saw some of Kit's chicks hatching
• Kit had more baby bunnies but they died, we don't know why
• Had my democracy sausage photo feature in Atlas Obscura 
• Got long service leave
• Accidentally bought Twisties that make your tongue turn blue. I couldn't eat them. Ewww. Stu said it wasn't the only thing that turned blue..!

Way back in January, a guy at work sent me a link to some nets for making Villarceau Circles.  So I made a couple of the 16 piece ones.  One day I should try the 24 piece one.

Tonight the sweetie and I celebrated our anniversary and went to Bella Vista for dinner.  We had a lovely evening and talked about life and travel and finances and *stuff*.  Love you sweetie :)

For entree, I had Quaglia e Prosciutto - "San Danielle" prosciutto wrapped semi-boned quail, filled with a parmesan and mortadella farce, roasted, and served on a warm smoked pepper and spinach salad with pan jus.

Stu had Cestino di Pollo - chicken pieces sauteed with bacon, and mushrooms in a mild chilli and seeded mustard sauce, tossed through garlic rice and served in a crispy breadbasket.

For mains I had Panciale di Maiale - pulled pork neck slow roasted with rosemary and garlic, coated panko crumbed and fried to crispiness served with a creamy asparagas and scallop brandy sauce, and grilled mushrooms.  Not sure what I was expecting for this, but this wasn't it.  It was delicious though!!

Stu had Pesce del Giorno - grilled NT barramundi fillet set on bacon and caramelised onion potato mash and asparagus, and prawn cutlets

As always, an amazing meal.

So 2016. Not too bad a year for me personally. But memorable for a spate of celebrity deaths (two I'd seen in real life - David Bowie and Carrie Fisher) and two overseas trips.

My first trip of the year was by myself to Sydney to see mum and the uncles/aunties for a Christmas party in early January where I cooked a big baked dinner for everyone. Also saw two Lego exhibitions on the same day while I was up there. Came home from that trip to a pool party in full swing. In January we did a two week trip to Hong Kong (to see Chris and Anne one last time there before they came home) and Singapore. The weather was the biggest downer of the trip - grey and rainy in Hong Kong, and unbearably humid in Singapore. In April we went to Sydney again for my cousin Ben's wedding. Later in April I went to Europe for six weeks with mum. The first two weeks was for a "reformation tour" of sites pertaining to the protestant reformation. That was a really interesting trip and a good group of people. Had a couple of days in Salzburg before heading up to Scandanavia for a three week tour. We saw some amazing things on that tour, but the size of the group (forty people) made it incredibly draining for me. In June mum and I went down to Junee to visit David and celebrate mum's 70th birthday. We only went down to the coast once this year in July. And we did our yearly trip to Queensland, but in November, which was a lot later in the year than I wanted to (Stu had uni work making it to hard to go any earlier). Fortunately the weather wasn't *too* hot and humid.

At work my most interesting work was some firewall migrations. Our first attempt in the test environment though was a bit of a disaster. It took the cleverer network guys about a month to solve a super weird MTU issue in the switch infrastructure they were plugged into. After that, the migrations went very smoothly. I also did an authentication system migration which also went well. So the first half of the year I was pretty busy and the work was interesting. In the second half of the year though I had to deal with the proxies again which drains my will to live. Is there actually such a thing as a *good* proxy? I'm beginning to think not. They caused me a lot of stress this year, including *three* failed attempts to upgrade them to the lastest version. Other than that I was feeling way too dumb to be in the team I'm in. But things picked up towards the end of the year with another firewall migration that went pretty smoothly and a stocktake, which is kind of my super power.

Socially at work I ran another trivia night in March which was packed. We won the next trivia night in June, but luckily the second place getters agreed to run the next one. Which we then won in September, so now I have to run the next one. Had a Gatsby ball in June, although I didn't get with the theme. Had a whiskey night in July. And for our section Christmas party (with various hangers on) I organised a bbq for nearly 40 people.

Healthwise I've been ok. I find lying down uncomfortable due to my deformed spine, which results in a lot of insomnia due to not being comfortable. Early in the year I did some proactive stuff that I'd been putting off forever - I got my skin checked, went to the dentist for the first time in twenty years and got new glasses. I got a minor cold in July, and a more severe one in November.

We've had a super social year this year. We've continued our visits to "the club", going to events and committee meetings in February, March, June, did a Christmas in July, October, twice in November (one of them we fed seventy-plus people) and December. My best friend from high school Chris moved down to Canberra at the end of last year so we've seen quite a bit of her - either dinners here, there, or out, or just going for walks (she lives in stumbling distance which is super handy!). We've also spent a lot of time with Kit, and also Ben and Serena - mostly just hanging out in the courtyard, but the occasional parties, meals as well, and even a p0ker night. Ben moved into a new place earlier in the year and we had a small housewarming there. I did an impromptu hanami party with Chris, Kit and Serena, and another one a week later with Nat and Andrew and the sweetie. Unfortunately that was the only time we saw Nat and Andrew all year. We've seen quite a bit of EffanC and Scott this year as well which as been nice - alternating between our places and enjoying champagne or a local equivalent. We had games nights at Mishi's in July and August. Also caught up with Damien and Amanda at the Dumpling Inn, and Damien and Tom at the Durham on a trivia night. Managed to see Ding twice this year, although the second time was a lot more chaotic with a heap of people in the house. Luc came to stay a night in March, Stu's ex colleague Jenn came for dinner, and we had an afternoon tea at Chris and Glenda's.

Dave and Kat came to stay with us five times this year which was great - in February, April, August, November and December. Mum stayed in June and December. Kerry and the kids dropped in in April, and Potty and Jake came to stay a night on the way to the snow and ended up staying for several nights. Didn't see much of Annie's family, only saw them a couple of times. Graham and Pam came to stay in April as well, and we went to the Dumpling Inn for dinner. Uncle Colin dropped in to say hi in December.

Various people came to swim in the pool in the summer months. For Christmas we did roast pork for Mum, Dave, Kat, Chris and Zac.

In the fish tanks I had four baby angels at the beginning of the year but three of them died. One of them survived, and it shares the AR-620T tank with four huge danios and a cory catfish. The two foot tank was a disaster at the end of last year with toxic black algae. I moved the fish downstairs over summer and cleaned it out completely. The black algae did start to come back, but with a bunch of plants, snails and a siamensis the tank has stabilised nicely and looks really good. The two remaining black neon tetras died this year - but they'd had a good run - I'd had them for ten years!! Amazing for such small fish. I bought some danios to be dither fish for the rummy nose tetras which worked really well - you can see them and their colour a lot better now. So in the upstairs two foot I have the five rummy nose tetras, five danios and a siamensis. Downstairs I had four of Chris's platies that I looked after while she moved house, but three of them died so there's only one left now. It shares the tank with four danios. Stu also has a tiny tank with a betta and some really small fish, and his four foot which got overrun with algae for a while but it's settled down a bit now.

I did a 5000 piece jigsaw this year which was good, but the quality of it was shocking. Did other jigsaws as well, but not as many this year. I've been doing a lot of nonograms online ever since the GCHQ Christmas puzzle last year. And just a couple of days ago I rediscovered Loops of Zen. I didn't buy any Lego this year, but I did spend a couple of months sorting out all of Zac's Lego.

The weather was *hot* this year. Summer seemed to last *forever* this year - global warming anyone? Made good use of the pool, but suffered in the heat. Had a lot of heat-induced insomnia and generally felt miserable for months. We got some hail in January. The pool only froze over twice this year in late June. It actually snowed one morning in July, but then a week later had the warmest overnight July temperature in recorded history. The El Niño finished up and it rained *a lot* over winter and spring.

We did a lot of stuff with the house this year. We got all the guttering replaced (while I was overseas). No more flooding of the garage after heavy rain! We got gutter guards in one corner where the oak tree is, but probably should have gotten them along the back as well, as one end still clogs up from that tree. Our twenty five year old hot water system died in the middle of winter, luckily a plumber could come the same day to replace it. The same plumber came a month or so later to clear out the sewer pipes which had been blocked by roots. We put evaporative cooling in which has been amazing for the most part, except this whole Christmas break which feels like the humidest week in Canberra ever! And we got a solar blanket for the pool (basically glorified bubble wrap) which has made a small difference to the temperature, but also has added bonuses of keeping most of the light out so algae doesn't grow as much, and keeps most of the leaves and bugs out as well.

I got a bit frustrated with technology this year. Had to fight with Logitech's Harmony remote software again. In the end never got it working with our tv. Upgraded my computer to Windows 10, which actually went ok, but had some drama with Windows Defender, and got sick of it rebooting without permission whenever it feels like it. I thought I'd bricked my iPhone because the battery got so dead it wouldn't turn on, even after charging overnight. Warming it up fixed it. Did this several more times over the next few months before finally replacing the battery in late November. I would like to get an iPhone 7, but I want one as small as I have now. Still having issues with the scanner, but still haven't gotten around to testing it on another computer to see if it's the computer or the scanner. And this blog got moved to new hardware by my hosting company so it's a lot more responsive now.

The Dumpling Inn was still our most visited restaurant this year. We went for Chrissie's birthday, again with Pam and Graham, again with Chrissie, with Chris and mum in June, and Damien and Amanda in July. I finally got to go to Smoque in Civic, fortunately, because it closed down later in the year. I went with Neil to a degustation dinner at Sage which was awesome. We went to Shogun for Ben's birthday, The Hungry Buddha with EffanC and Scott, and Casey Jones with Annie and the family for my birthday. With the sweetie we had dessert at Max Brenner in Civic, went to Chong Co, and tried Jamie's Italian and Pappa Rich. Generally we didn't eat out as much this year - trying to save a bit of money. Although we still had a lot of pizza! And bacon and cheese loaded fries from Maccas. omfg sooo good! Sadly the last time I tried to get some they didn't have them anymore :(

I didn't do a whole lot of creative cooking this year. I did make some cream cheese bacon balls which are so evil they're amazing. I made "epic" stuffed zucchini. I made some cheese and spinach pastries with some pastry inherited from Kerry before they moved which turned out pretty well. I did a zucchini lasagna. And a I tried a couple of different breakfast casseroles - one pretty evil and I made it a few times, and one I wasn't too fussed about.

Theatre/Shows/Exhibitions:
* Art of the Brick Exhibition in Sydney
* Sydney Icons in Lego in Sydney
* The Proclaimers

Movies:
* Sherlock - The Abominable Bride
* The Big Short
* Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
* Independence Day: Resurgence
* Finding Dory
* Star Trek: Beyond
* Rogue One

TV:
* Finished the last seasons of House
* Season 1 of Fuller House
* Documentaries on Netflix
* First four seasons of Homeland
* Most of Star Trek: the Original Series
* Australian Survivor
* Start of season 2 of Fuller House

Books:
* The Tower by Richard Martin Stern
* The Hindenburg Disaster by Jeff Rovin
* Raise the Titanic! by Clive Cussler
* Grey Mountain by John Grisham
* Penguin Bloom by Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive

Other Stuff:
* Started off year with an impromptu neighbourhood party at Kit's
* Didn't dance on Lachie's table
* Saddened by deaths of David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Prince, Gene Wilder, Kenny Baker, George Michael, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, and the end of the world as we know it, ie, the US presidential election results.
* Went to the Mint open day
* Went to Canberra's new Ikea for first time
* Went to the Canberra Show with Chrissie
* Watched Das Rheingold with the sweetie, but still haven't gotten around to watching the rest of it
* Saw the Canberra balloon fiesta - twice
* Digitised my USA 2000 blog, although still haven't added photos to it
* Did the Granite Tors walk with Kit, nearly trod on a brown snake
* Ben and Stu fixed up the festoon lights out the back (only took seven and a half years to get around to doing!)
* Went to the Canberra Airport open day
* Installed Windows 10 on my travel laptop and my main computer
* Scanned ten of mum's photo albums
* Voted twice, but only got one #democracysausage
* Went out to Cotter Dam in August to see it overflowing, and went back again a week or two later to get it with better lighting
* Did a flying visit to Sydney in August to drop Stu off at the airport early Sunday morning, and saw the Sea Cliff Bridge on the way home
* Chrissie brought up her steam cleaner and made the bathroom all sparkly
* Saw James Turrell's Skyspace at the Art Gallery
* Kept myself busy in September with a massive photo project
* Popped into the War Memorial for an hour to look at the newly done WWI memorial halls
* Saw the first flight from Singapore to Canberra land, and the first flight from Canberra to Wellington depart
* Went to Costco for the second time. I think Coles and Aldi are actually cheaper.
* Did a massive photoshoot around Canberra to compare thirty years ago til now
* Photographed the super moon
* Spent several days over the break cleaning out cupboards

Wednesday Luc was in town, so we went for a drink after work, then back to our place for dinner (duck stir fry) and chatting.  Mostly chatting about travel.

Woke up at about 3am Thursday morning.  And never got back to sleep.  Stoopid brain just would. not. shut. up.  Super frustrating.  Took Luc to the airport then went and saw the balloons again (sadly no sun again).  Although the sun was out for the drive home, which made for a super pretty drive under all the balloons (which of course I couldn't document - doh!).

So Thursday was zombie day.  Good thing Lachie was busy doing other stuff, I don't think I would have been able to concentrate on the other stuff we're doing.

Also finished drafting the trivia night questions so the weekend will be spent researching, prettyifying and copying and pasting.

Last night slept for around nine hours, so feel a lot better today.