The drive down was pretty cool.  Gorgeous clouds and even a huge double rainbow.

Did a jigsaw on Friday night, another one of the mystery jigsaws with no picture on the box, and a puzzle to solve (which we failed at - the bomb would have gone off!)

Saturday morning had a nice sunrise.

Saw this interesting pigeon which we weren't 100% sure of identity.

Squirrel!

Went for a walk to get the papers, and took a heap of photos.

Vacuumed out the spa and found a chunk of glass from the thermometer.  Hopefully we got it all.

Dinner was a delivery of pizza from the Sandy Foot.  A small Zorba and a medium ham and pineapple.  We finished them both.

Today we went to Bateman's Bay to get some tubing for the bath-tub spa, which was full of crud cause it doesn't get filtered.  So got that and drained that spa out.

Were a bit later leaving that usual, because I wanted to finish this 1000-piece jigsaw of Neuschwantstein.  So basically finished it, photographed it, then pulled it apart again.  All those hours and hours effort and noone got to really enjoy it heh.

The drive up the Clyde was quite pretty cause the clouds were right down on the mountains.

And that was that.  

Driving back gives you plenty of time to ponder life.  I've decided I spend way too much time on the computer/internet just mucking around, and other things around the house and my hobbies just aren't getting done.  So going to try a forced break from the computer for a while in the evenings to get stuff done.  Will see how we go.. 

The sweetie cooked dinner tonight, so got my news feeds read early, and scanned another eighty photos mostly from 1993.

That album had another St Clements bushwalk to the National Park, Rock by Megalite concert, a trip to Barrington Tops Guest House, a Sydney Harbour cruise, Easter Camp 93, and a trip to the zoo with my mum.  

The Barrington Tops trip was really cool.  I wouldn't mind going back there again one day.

February 1993 saw me rearrange my room again.  The previous arrangement had the biggest open area in front of my desk and bed, but in plain view of the door.  This became problematic because whenever I had any mess on the floor, it was clearly visible to anyone walking past.  So I swapped the desk and bed, leaving the biggest area nicely hidden behind the bed.  It stayed in basically this configuration until I moved out of home in 2000, although a big bookshelf was added, I got a new desk for my first computer(s), and I had a budgie on the drawers on the right for five years..  It's weird because it felt like I didn't have it that way for very long, yet it was probably that way for the longest of any room configuration.  I guess that's what happens when you get old and time speeds up heh.

I was also determined tonight to get the Jackstone right.  So watched this video again and figured out which step I'd missed.  So it turned out relatively well.  Although I did manage to get grease on my fingers from somewhere, maybe the scissors, and ended up with a couple of grease spots on it :/

Phewf!

Talk about a productive evening :)

Tonight's scanning job was the album that had photos from my first camera, the Ricoh, I got for Christmas 1991.  The album had most of the first two rolls from that camera, and included such events as Easter Camp, a trip up Sydney Tower and the Harbour Bridge Pylon, the Harbour Tunnel walk, a St Clements bushwalk to Ruined Castle and some photos of my room before and after one of the rearranges I did.  It was also the year I was dating my first boyfriend so there's quite a few pictures of him throughout (and all the flowers he sent me that year)..

My models, as of 1992

The Bismarck at Scarborough Park.  This was a regular thing in Sydney but I only ever went once.

Cousin Itt.  I had a couple of better versions when my hair was a bit longer.

Joyce Jacobs aka Esme Watson from A Country Practice.  She came to just a doll/teddy bear competition at my old primary school.

People lining up for the Harbour Tunnel Walk

Darling Harbour from Sydney Tower

Before a rearrange, late 1992

  After a rearrange, late 1992
 
Yasi is finally petering out...

But there was only fifty-odd of all those.  The real work today was the hundred and forty or so photos of our Victoria and South Australia trip that we took Hao along for (that summer Hao and I managed five states in about five days..  We definitely managed to wear Hao out that trip - he wasn't used to the fast pace my parents keep heh).  

It was the first big holiday I'd been on with my own camera (which I got for Christmas in 1991) so I took plenty of my own photos.  This is just a small sample of them.

Ettamogah Pub, Albury

Great Ocean Road entrance (I believe this was destroyed in bush fires some years back?)

The Twelve Apostles

Elephant Rock (or Mutton Bird Island, or The Camel) 

London Bridge

Sunset over Victor Harbour

Dolphins in front of the ferry to Kangaroo Island

My dad took this super cool pic of a pelican on Kangaroo Island

Sea Lion pup that crawled right up to us

"Fish Hook" at Kelly Hill Caves

The Remarkable Rocks

Change came through Canberra tonight which brought relief in temperatures. 

But poor fricken Queensland.  No sooner do they get past the worst of the floods when they get hit with cyclone Yasi!  At least they're about to be .. it's still off the coast at the moment..

But that image gives you no idea of the scale of this thing.  Check it out if it was superimposed on other parts of the world:

Gah!

Hold on tight Queensland!  We're thinking of you..

Very very simple.  Two lamb shanks.  An onion, some cloves of garlic, a couple of potatoes, a tin of chopped tomatoes, a tub of tomato paste and some Worcestershire sauce.  Turn slow cooker onto low and come back six hours later (I did turn them a couple of times).  Carefully remove from the cooker so as not to lose any of the meat :)  Probably should have cooked some greens as well, oh well.

Stu's Devilled Lamb Shanks

Very rich and tasty, probably better suited to a winter's night than a summer one, but hey :)

Other than that, I had a relatively productive day, trying mainly to avoid the heat.  Got news feeds under control again, some of the house tidied, bathroom cabinet cleaned out and sorted out a bunch more photos to scan next.

I also had my first go at geotagging some photos against a GPS track, but will save that for another post :)

Spent this evening scanning another 67 photos from (mostly) 1991.  Last year of high school, so a few of the last weeks of school.  Lots of memories there.  I tried emailing Chris (Crust) on her last birthday earlier this week but got no response, so no idea if the email address works (I got it a year or so ago) or if she just doesn't like me anymore heh (I'm terrible at keeping contact with people).  Oh crap, that reminds me, I never wrote to Linenoise! Gah!

And also the study camp where I met my first boyfriend Mark, and our high school formal.  

And a few other bits and pieces.  Including some experimental photos my brother took, probably in mid-late 1991, of the stars and other long exposure experiments.

And a picture of my collection of models in 1992, with considerably less dust on them than they do now..

So I scanned photos for a good chunk of the day.  Got two more "evil" photo albums scanned.  One was photos from around 1989-1990.  

The other one was all my photos from the CRA National Science Summer School.  It was sponsored by CRA in 1991 so that's how we were all encouraged to talk about.  And now it's called the National Science Youth Forum.  It was a pretty awesome couple of weeks.  At the time I was most interested in Physics because that was my favourite subject at school.  So I was put into a physics stream.  But after seeing the sorts of things real-life physicists did all day (sit around big machines and crunch numbers) I was a little turned off it.  So it was a big influence on me choosing to do biology at uni.

A couple of other points of note from summer school:

* I stayed up all night for the first time while there (on the last night where it's expected that everyone stay up all night)

* I had my first ever proper kiss there.  Charles lived in WA and I've never seen him again (or even correspond)

* I met Hao there, who later became my second boyfriend.  He lived in Melbourne.  Long distance relationships suck. 

* Hao and I got an awesome tour of the Qantas hangars in Sydney from someone who went to the summer school and later worked for Qantas

* I don't keep in contact with anyone from there anymore

* There was graffiti about one the staff members (previous students) on a toilet wall in the library at UNSW.  I thought that was pretty funny.

I was thinking today I should wander by UC - I've not been back on campus in the twenty years since, and now I'm literally just up the road from it.

The other fun thing I found was a postcard of Canberra that I got at the time.  One of the small pics on it was a picture of Black Mountain - complete with both the old and the new towers!

And Potty and family came over this arvo for a swim which was nice. 

Unfortunately I don't have any photos in my to-be-blogged folder either.

So this is going to be the boringest post ever.  Well maybe not ever.  I've had some boring posts in the past.  Your challenge: find one! mwooahhahaha

I've been blogging for eight years.  2891 entries.  

!!

Even I don't have the stamina to re-read the whole thing.  It'd take weeks!  I tried at one point, cause I thought it would be a good idea to censor my biggest rants, especially about friends and family (parents).  I think I got about a year and a half in before I ran out of steam.  

My mother on the other hand is obsessive enough to read the whole thing if she found it again (she found it once by accident, don't know if she's been back since).  Since she has the internet at home now it's likely to happen sooner rather than later.  Well mum, be warned, there's a rant or two about you floating around.  You have been warned.

Wow.  I somehow managed to stretch a nothing post into a several paragraphs!  

Happy Invasion Australia day for tomorrow.. if anyone wants to come round for a swim, the puddle will be free (preferably in the afternoon when the sun is a bit off the pool).