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

Friday: Scotch Malt Whiskey Society tasting.  A lovely evening of nice whiskeys and great friends.

Saturday: went out to the club.  Chilled out, had a nice dinner by C&G, a bit of fun with cards (I might have won the plastic spoons - not the wooden spoons that the loser got :) ) and a lazy Sunday morning.

Sunday: not a lot.

We've watched three episodes so far of Rake on Netflix.  Netflix does seem to be working well, despite our crappy internet.  And I think the sweetie likes Rake heh.  

Busy couple of days at work.  

The housework is sliding a bit.

But I did also finish re-geotagging my Hong Kong and Taipei photos.  I can't actually remember even doing it last year.  But I must have.  Surely??  I think I'm getting dementia. :(

Didn't get to do this last Friday on account of being down at the coast

Friday, August 13th 2004...   (it was Friday the 13th last Friday too)

FQ Topic: Ego

FQ1: What is an activity that you can do better than anybody else you know?
Documentation

FQ2: What is a subject where you are smarter than anybody else you know?
hrmm don't know about that one.  In my last job I often found myself in a position where there were no other "experts" in my team so I was on my own trying to solve problems.  This job is quite a bit different because there's so many people in IT that there's almost always people around that know more than me, which is great because I'm pretty dumb.  But I suppose there's a few geeky, "kids" things, like Lego or Harry Potter that I probably know more about than any of my adult friends.

FQ3: What is a trait you possess that makes you superior to lesser humans?
Attention to detail, meticulousness, ok anal retentiveness.  Good for some things, like doco or paint-by-numbers, but is probably annoying to a lot of people (especially the ones that don't meet my high standards ;) )

FQ FICTION: Which of your many stellar accomplishments should be recorded in the history books? (Can't think of one? Make it up!).
Gosh.  Um.  Too hard... 

Compare with last time ...

So 2014. We survived.

Probably the most significant event of the year was that my Dad died in February. Mum handled it fairly well, as she'd gotten used to the idea over the course of nearly a year. And in the end it was a relief of sorts, knowing that he was out of his misery and in a much better place. I continued doing trips to Sydney to help clear out the garage of all dad's stuff. We took many car loads to metal recycling and made a couple of hundred dollars out of it. We also freecycled quite a lot of stuff. In October mum got accepted into a retirement village and the next two months became a whirlwind of trips to Sydney, a trip to Hong Kong and Taipei, a trivia night that I had to prepare and run, a work ball I had to prepare for as well as life in general to be lived. I only just survived til December 16, then was able to collapse in a heap. It was pretty sad saying goodbye to the family home of forty two years.

So I actually had three big holidays this year. The first mum and I decided to go on when it was pretty obvious dad wasn't going to last much longer. That was for two weeks in Turkey. That was a pretty awesome trip and we saw heaps of amazing stuff. Then I did another trip with my mum in September. That was an Outback Spirit tour from Cairns to Brisbane via Mt Isa and Longreach. It was a good trip, but hideously expensive - as expensive as the Turkey trip, but didn't include international airfares, fancy hotels every night or restaurant quality meals for every meal. At the end of that trip we spent nearly a week with Chay and David which was a lovely chance to chillax after being go go go for two weeks. And the last big trip was to Hong Kong and Taipei for two weeks. I was in the middle of chaos at the time, so Stu did all the planning for it. That was a pretty good trip too, although we did struggle at times to find the best balance of going and seeing things and doing nothing and relaxing. Other than that, we went with DC to his coast house in January, to Bermagui in March, and also stayed at the coast briefly to go to Scott and Kerry's combined 40th.

Had an ok year at work. Spent a good amount of time "cleaning" - decommissioning old services and doing massive cleanups of firewall rules. Also got chucked in the deep end on a couple of projects that required extra assistance, so they were a bit stressful at times.

Healthwise I was pretty good this year. I got a cold during the Turkey trip (a pretty nasty flu thing had been going around the whole tour group so I got off pretty lightly). And it seems I got a cold probably at the movies the other night as yesterday I started sniffling. Other than that I've been pretty healthy.

We've spent heaps of time with our "whiskey" friends this year which has been awesome. But we've not seen nearly enough of Nat and Andrew as I'd have liked. We had a few games nights at Mishi's in January, August and December, with lunch at Damien's in December. My Sydney visits meant lunches (Peking duck!!!) with @StuartCRyan which was awesome, but sadly that won't be happening anymore. We saw Josh and Ally a couple of times, and Gaelian and Stef as well. A Sydney trip for George's 40th. A fair bit of drinking with the neighbours and playing with the animals. Various people came to stay over the year including the little brother, Chris and Zac, and Marc and Jo a couple of times. We're continuing to enjoy our visits to "the club" and went to many of the social events on during the year.

Pretty quiet year for the fish. All the zebra danios in the angel tank have finally died. I got five rummy nosed tetras for the two foot, and they're lovely little fish and drew out the black neon tetras which otherwise just spent their life hiding up the back of the tank. A couple of the duboisis died, which threw off the dominance balance, so one of them became dominant and picked off the rest of them one by one, so he's the only one left in that tank now with a sucking cat fish. Most of the kribs and multis downstairs are gone now too. Really would like to get rid of a lot of our fishtanks and crap ..

I didn't buy any Lego this year, but throughout January I got to play with all of Jake's Lego - around eighty sets of it! Building and dismantling and checking for missing pieces, and documenting. Sooo much fun! Also dismantled the Star Destroyer which had been out for four years!

Continued doing a lot of jigsaws at home during the summer, and some at work, although not anymore there which is a shame. I finally finished the 24000 piece "Life" jigsaw, but still haven't gotten around to taking it to work to document it all laid out. Not much else in the way of hobbies, other than part of a paint-by-numbers which I got for last break but still haven't finished.

January had a run of very hot days which required lots of icing the fish tanks to keep them cool. But the rest of the year was surprisingly mild. Winter had some very cold nights, but the pool only partly froze over a couple of times. We've had some very hot days too, but again generally it's been fairly mild. In fact this whole Christmas break has been *lovely*. Because of all the travel and chaos, the pool was a mess until just before Christmas, but because it hasn't been super hot since then, we haven't gone in yet.

Tried a surprising number of new recipes during the year - almost one a month by the look of it.
* two different lasagnas - both awesome
* black forest slice - needs some modification
* Boeuf Bourguignon inspired by Julie and Julia
* Coq au vin
* various vegetables
* breakfast raclette - trying to perfect a recipe
* white chocolate caramel slice
* duck breast
* harissa roast chicken
* zucchini and cheese fritters

We ate out a bit. I didn't think all that often, but still a fair amount. Our favourites are still Dumpling Inn and Pulp Kitchen. Bella Vista as well, although only once this year (maybe twice?). Went to Grazing a couple of times and it was awesome both times. Went to Ace Sushi a couple of times when doing shopping at the markets, but it's pretty average. Revisted Asian Cafe, Wig and Pen, Iori. New this year included:
* Grazing - awesome
* Ellacure - not fussed
* Edgar's - ok
* Bellucci's - pretty good
* Mocan and Green Grout - interesting
* A Baker - good
* Kinh Do - good
* Beijing House - meh

At work, other than the mall, tried out Altitude Cafe (meh), got thoroughly pissed off at Samiuz, went to Sanurs for an after party dinner, 2 Yummy a couple of times for after drinks dinners, and Outback Jacks a couple of times for team lunches/dinners (quite impressed with their feasts). Probably lots of other places too undocumented.

In Sydney our regular for Peking Duck was Super Bowl, and Tako Tuesdays were at Sushi and Grill on York Street for takoyaki - not fresh, but better than other places I'd tried, and it was just downstairs from work.

Also found a couple of speakeasys. The Baxter Inn in Sydney which is awesome. Went there by myself first up, then later with Luc and again later with Neil. Went to Molly with the sweetie as well.

Movies:
* The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
* The Lego Movie (x2)
* Lucy
* The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Books:
* Deadly Décisions, by Kathy Reichs
* The Earthsea Quartet, by Ursula LaGuin
* The Delinquents, by Criena Rohan
* Fatal Voyage, by Kathy Reichs
* Animal Farm, by George Orwell
* *batteries not included, by Wayland Drew
* Palomino, by Danielle Steel
* Star Wars Episode I, by Terry Brooks
* Dewey, by Vicki Myron
* A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle
* Thunder Dog, by Michael Hingson
* Star Wars Episode II, by R.A. Salvatore

Other Stuff:
* Multicultural Festival aka meat on a stick day!
* Hall Markets for first time
* Mapping Our World exhibition at the National Library
* Balloon Fiesta in March
* Inherited Dad's camera
* Inspected the Sentinel apartments in Belconnen
* Inspected my flat in Sydney. Got depressed over deadbeat tenants who don't take care of other people's property
* Won another work trivia night. Ran the next one
* Airport open day - flying visit as could only spend an hour there
* Went to the War Memorial but was disappointed the WWI exhibition was closed for renovations
* Whiskey Live - 44 whiskeys oh my!
* Stu's Japanese classes cultural nights twice
* Poultry show at epic
* Had to buy a new lens because I'd smashed my other one in Turkey. Bought the same one
* Drama with cooling problems with my car. Found a new mechanic who I think might have fixed it
* Had to buy a new dishwasher as the last one burnt out
* Fired up Stu's old Android and started playing Ingress. Got a sim for it seven weeks later but the damage to my iPhone battery was done.
* Took a random day off and cleaned half the garage
* Zone 3 with work
* Bought Stu a new car on a very good finance deal - cheaper than our mortgage!
* BBQs at @CLBradley's. On one of them I borrowed Frozen and have been slightly obsessed with it ever since
* Chucked out years of receipts
* Birthday dinner of Chinese takeaway in Sydney
* Whiskey tasting night on my birthday, Bella vista for dinner
* Skiing in August
* Chickens and duckies next door (and lizards and frogs and cats and dogs)
* Total lunar eclipse
* Pulled off a semi-convincing Queen Elsa at our work Halloween Ball
* Mum tried to electrocute herself but thankfully failed
* Carols service at Como Church

So that's 2014 done! I know some of my readers have had a tough year (especially my brother). Hope things improve in 2015.

Happy new year!

15-17.8.14

Friday night (after several disasters at their end) Marc and Jo arrived in town for the weekend.  We chatted til quite late.

Saturday morning we went into town for some breakfast at Mocan and Green Grout.

And we also had got some tapioca and persimon.  The tapioca was nice but the persimon was a little tough.

I took a *lot* of photos of this dog trying to get one of him with his tongue out.  I got a few.

There was also a honeyeater that needed documenting

Then we went down to the lake to document more birds

Then we went for a drive up Mt Ainslie

There were more birds :)

Marc and Jo went off to visit some other friends so we came home and chilled out, then went and did some food shopping.

We cooked up a *lot* of mushrooms (and had some leftover cause we bought too many) for Marc's strog

It was delicious!!

We put on Frozen after dinner while we chatted, then Rocky Horror.

In the morning Marc and I cooked up a storm for breakfast while various spouses dozed.  Bacon, eggs, hash browns, onions and mushrooms - yumm!

Then chillaxed and didn't do anything exciting.  They left later in the afternoon on Sunday.

Also today ... significant day ..

I've been blogging for eleven years today .. happy blogiversary to me!

Also today marks the twentieth anniversary of the bushfires that tore through Como and Jannali in 1994, destroying our church and many of our friends' homes.

And it's David Bowie's birthday.

So 2013. Busy year!

We saw in 2013 with a small pool party at our place with Nat and Andrew and also Steve for a while.

  
We did a bit of travelling this year.

In January we went up the coast to South West Rocks to a school reunion of sorts for Stu and to visit Stu's dad. We drove up and down the coast, swam, visited Trial Bay Gaol, and caught up with Fiona and Margie on the way home.

We only managed to get to the coast once this year, in May. It was somewhat of a disaster with the spa being too cold on Friday night and too hot on Saturday night and a few other things that made it all a bit unpleasant (except for during the day on Saturday which was pretty good). Almost went again later in the year but had to go to Sydney and otherwise we've just been too busy.

We went to Queensland in July for a lovely long weekend to visit Chay and David.

At the end of July we flew up to Sydney for my Dad's 70th and one of my 40th parties (see below).

In October we decided at the last minute to go to Hong Kong for a week at the end of October. It was a great week, even if a little too humid. It's the most spontaneous holiday I've ever taken. I didn't do too much planning for it, because the more I researched, the more things I found of interest to see. So I stopped researching altogether and we took it as it came.

  
At work I had a mostly good year. I started off the year cleaning and pretty much cleaned all year. I started with the knowledge base articles for our team, then moved onto the log transfer system, then the load balancers. I also rehashed an old domino database for documentation which brought back a lot of memories of my last job. For the rest of the time it mostly felt like I was the "goto" person for any and all problems that came along. We were partly restructured, but the powers that be didn't really have a clear idea of what they wanted, so things didn't change as much as we originally thought they would. I made Stu drag out his tuxedo again for the work ball which was a lot of fun.

Healthwise I felt like I was sick the whole first half of the year - with colds in January, March, April, May and June. So that was pretty horrible. Not flus though, just annoying colds. Got another one the night before we went to Hong Kong too - yay :( But have been ok otherwise.

  
We had a super busy social year this year. In fact it was so busy that we went from May to September without having a free Saturday night. As a consequence our Buffy and Angel watching was almost non-existent. There were plenty of visits to/from Annie and Potty and the families. Various people came over for dinner and/or swims at the beginning of the year. Nat and Andrew came over a few times, as well as Andrew by himself when Nat was travelling. There were various after works drinks with my colleagues and Stu's and family and friends. Various Singstar/Mario Kart nights were had. Several BBQs at @CLBradley's. Several games nights at Mishi's. Had a video night at our place with work people. We visited people for lunches/dinners such as Matt and Helen, Andrew and Jen, Chris and Geoff, Josh and Ally, Windy and Nanette etc. We saw Daniel and Fi a few times when they came down. Several people came to stay including David and Yvonne, Ken and Jeanine, Fiona a couple of times and Stu's old school friend Tom. I met up with @StuartCRyan a few times in Sydney (we met in real life for the first time at my birthday). I also went to visit David in Junee.

Speaking of birthdays, I turned forty this year. To celebrate I had *three* great parties - one in Sydney, a big one at home the Saturday before my birthday, then a big lunch at work on my birthday followed by a nice dinner and seeing Phantom of the Opera. I was certainly in a different place mentally for my fortieth. During the whole run-up to my thirtieth I was very depressed, and my actual birthday was pretty meh. Such a different story this year though.

  
In sadder news, my Nana died of old age earlier in the year. And then I found out at the funeral that I have another cousin that I'd never heard about before!

Also in sad news, my father got diagnosed with a brain tumour in March. He had surgery immediately (and they had to cancel a holiday to New Zealand), followed by chemo and radiotherapy. Unfortunately it didn't really help, and he was hospitalised in July because he kept falling over and wasn't able to walk properly. He's been getting progressively worse and has been in a nursing home since September. In August I started going up to Sydney fairly regularly to see Dad and help Mum with the mammoth task of clearing out the garage and workshop. We've mostly been sorting things so far as I don't want to get rid of things until Dad goes. Fortunately I've been able to work out of the Sydney office so not having to take leave at the moment.

  
We've been enjoying a lot of visits to our little social club. We camped there over the Australia day long weekend, and the new tent survived a storm and massive downpour fairly well. But then a caravan came up for sale, so we bought it! We went to most of the club nights during the year, and plenty of other times as well. It's Stu's little get-away-from-the-world place and he thoroughly enjoys it.

With work people or the sweetie, tried out a few new restaurants. Continued going to Black Pepper for brunches and also Pulp Kitchen a few times. Went to Dumpling Inn a few times and Bella Vista as well. Didn't try too many desserts this year, although did make a Mars Bar slice and a peppermint rocky road, as well as an apple crumble and caramel slice that we tried at the club.

  
We bought another four baby angels for the angel tank. One died but the other three survived, so now have four angels and about seven danios in that tank. We got a lovely little betta for the macquarium, but he never thrived and died in six weeks. So thinking I'll probably give the macquarium away. The four foot still has a school of duboisis, two multies, a lelupi and a J.transcriptus. There's three multis downstairs, but after breeding once, the single baby I saw disappeared and haven't seen any since. There's still three or four quite old kribs downstairs as well.

Not much Lego action this year. I did get a cute little plane from Fiona, and a small City set from Ric for my birthday. I went with Nat and Andrew to Brick Expo, but was very frustrated with the crowds. I dismantled the Millennium Falcon which had been out for four years! Also over the Christmas break got to sort out and build all of Jake's lego which has been fun.

I did a lot of jigsaws this year. Mostly downstairs until downstairs got too cold. Mostly little ones, but also another section of the huge "Life" puzzle. Gave up on the skies of two jigsaws because their quality was just too poor.

I celebrated my tenth blogiversary this year. To mark the occasion I upgraded to Movable Type 5. But got very frustrated with the fact that I now cannot SSH to my host. Also with Movable Type which is *very* buggy. Next year my domain is up for renewal and I'm thinking about moving my domain to a new host with a new blogging platform. But the whole idea is pretty scary, so we'll see about that...

Shows

• The only show I saw this year was The Phantom of the Opera on my birthday.

Movies
Not many movies this year either...

• The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey
• Star Trek - Into Darkness
• Garden of Words and Ghost in the Shell: Arise

Books

• Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein
• Polgara the Sorceress by David and Leigh Eddings
• Careful, he might hear you, by Sumner Locke Elliott
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs
• A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
• I Hate You - Don't Leave Me by Jerold Kreisman and Hal Straus
• The Naked Husband by Mark D'Arbanville
• Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs
• Airport by Arthur Hailey
• Body of Evidence by Patricia Cornwall

Other stuff

• Had a full day at the War Memorial with Ken and Jeanine
• Had a jigsaw race with Nat
• Found my first geocache with Nat and Andrew
• Saw a Roller Derby bout
• Mum got her first mobile phone
• Had a random day off work to tidy up all the fish tank stuff in the garage
• Went for some walks around Palmerville with the sweetie
• Spotted the ISS a few times and waved to @Cmdr_Hadfield. Wasn't quite the same when he came back to earth.
• Went to the balloon fiesta on Canberra Day
• Watched the last couple of episodes and finale of House, which considering the timing with dad was pretty sad
• Took Stu's car for a drive up Mount Ainslie and got covered in lady bugs
• Our PS3 stopped playing DVD disks. Bluray is still ok though.  We considered getting a PS4 but the device isn't backwards compatible with old games.
• Went out to Captain's Flat on our fifth wedding anniversary
• Finished a cross stitch I got for Christmas in 1992
• Went up Black Mountain Tower
• Voted in ABC Classic FM's top 100 music in the movies, and most of my votes were in the top two hundred
• Did a blog for our trip to America in 1983
• Gave up reading Boing Boing, Life Hacker and Neatorama, Dooce and Dilbert
• Got extremely pissed off when Google Reader shut down. Destroyed my faith in Google.
• Looked at Comma Feed, Feedly and The Old Reader. Stuck with The Old Reader.  The Old Reader subsequently crashed from all the extra load of departing Google users, but was able to get funding to run on better hosting and has been fine ever since.
• Got more of my photos onto the RiotACT
• Cancelled Aussie Farmers Direct orders
• Had a look around Wintercon at EPIC
• Stu had a few car dramas that Melba Motors didn't fix
• I had a LOT of car dramas that Melba Motors didn't fix
• Saw the Skywhale
• Played through Diablo with the sweetie.  On easy mode.  Sue me.
• Did proper karaoke for the first time ever (and I've been to Japan four times!)
• Went to a Christmas Carols service at Como

So that's the end of 2013.  New Year's Eve will be spent out at the club with food and booze and friends and fairy lights and fireworks :)

So for my birthday, I cooked us cheese kranskys for breakfast.  As you do :)

Spent the morning battling with kerberos.  Bah.

For lunch a huge group of us went to Bella Vista.  We got the banquet.  I'd have liked to have ordered off the menu, but with twenty people that was going to be too impractical.  So we just ate lots of pasta :)  (five pastas, two of which went undocumented, and a few other things as well)

After lunch, a smaller group of us kicked on to the Lighthouse.  Where we might have stayed all afternoon :)

Then I hopped on a bus and went into town for the next event - dinner at Ardeche.

I had "Escalope de veau avec moutarde et creme" - veal in a creamy mustard sauce which was *amazing*.  So tender and tasty.  Loved it!

And then we went to the theatre!  To see Phantom of the Opera! When I first saw this advertised and saw that it would be running on my birthday, I knew I *had* to go see it.  You see on my birthday in 1996 I went with another group of friends to see it in Sydney.  I wanted to repeat it seventeen years later, and so I did :)

The show was amazing.  Really well done.  Thoroughly enjoyed it, as did the rest of our little group.  Although it was hard for me to resist singing along ;)  And my legs didn't get restless!  Hurrah!

Got home pretty late, and didn't get to bed til after it wasn't my birthday anymore.

Thanks to everyone who came along to my various birthday celebrations.  It was brilliant, and I had a wonderful time at all my parties :)   **hugs** :):)

My Dad turned 70 on Sunday.

So we trundled up to Sydney.

And I figured if I was going to be in Sydney, I'd try and catch up with some of my Sydney friends for part one of my birthday bash.

Stu wanted to fly (to get points so he can get Virgin lounge access).  So we spent obscene amounts of money on flights and a hotel.

But let me backtrack a minute.

I'd decided that we should go to the Löwenbräu Keller, as it was central for everyone, it had pork, and it had beer.  I thought that we could have a lunch, and people could stop in for a drink afterwards if they weren't able to make it to the lunch.  Except when I made the tentative booking they said that they were a restaurant and everyone had to be dining.  This they underlined.  Well actually they said that everyone who made a reservation had to be dining.  And they wanted a $20 deposit for everyone.  And we had to order off one of the very restrictive set menus.  So that was my drama last week.  Anyways.  I got my RSVPs and made the final booking and paid the deposit, and fortunately on the day everyone showed up who said they would, and no surprises.  But more on lunch later.

So Saturday morning we got up and got ready and headed to the airport.  And after complaining a couple of weeks ago about Stu getting to fly in one of Virgin Australia's ATR 72-600s, I got to go in one :)

Took off to the north, with a view of Canberra and the new Majura Parkway, but a lot of fog around still (delays all over the place because of heavy fog in the morning, and was a bit stressed that our plane would be late or cancelled).

Actually to say was a bit stressed was putting it very mildly.  I was totally stressed out all morning - about the lunch, who would/wouldn't turn up, the restaurant being bumheads, getting to the airport on time, the plane being on time and on and on.  Was feeling quite queasy until we got to the airport and our plane was going to be on time .. 

But carrying on ..

Because it's such a little plane, they don't have the full food service where they sell food/drinks.  Instead they have complimentary drinks and snackages for everyone!  So that was pretty nice of them.

Flew almost right over the top of River Island (it was on the other side of the plane)

Then up over Campbelltown and in from the south-west.

M7-M5 junction

Holsworthy

Look Mum I can see your house from here.. and mine (under the clouds).  Looking into the sun, so not much more in the way of good shots for the rest of the flight.

Bate Bay looking very blue

So off the plane and onto the Airport Train.  I've never actually taken this train before.  Reason being: it's a complete rip off!  $31 for the two of us to get to the city.  Absolutely ridiculous.  And of course, there was trackwork, so we had to change trains at Central.  At least there *was* a train to Circular Quay - when Stu went a couple of weeks ago, there were no trains at all in the CBD.

Carnival Spirit

Walked up to our hotel, and were able to check in.  Fairly basic hotel room, but very nice and a pretty decent view.

Then we wandered down to the Lowenbrau, and even though we were fifteen minutes early, we were only *just* the first ones there heh.

No good photos of Marc/Ryan and none at all of Emma/Charlotte.. doh!

So everyone arrived and they brought out meat.  So. Much. Meat.  This times four!

We got the "Schmankerlplatter" which was $39.50 and the cheapest of the options we were forced into having by the Lowenbrau.  I was really annoyed by this, as it meant people couldn't go for a lighter lunch if they wanted to.  One thing's for sure - I'll *never* be booking to go to the Lowenbrau again.  If opportunity arose I'd still go there, but I'd never organise an event there again.

*Fortunately* they were happy to package up all the leftovers, and Stuart R and my brother took them home.  So at least a quarter of all that food didn't end up going to waste.

And the pork was pretty damned good.  And there was other meat too.  For those that wanted it ;)

So after lunch, since the Lowenbrau were being buttheads about not wanting people to drop by casually, we headed up to the Argyle for drinks.  Fiona, Stu, Chris, Daniel&Fi and me and the sweetie went, and were joined by Fran, Jake, Ric, David and Yvonne.  Where we stayed til early evening :)

The Argyle's unisex bathroom.  The funky pods at the far end are the urinals!

So all in all it was actually a wonderful afternoon.  I hadn't seen Chris in twenty years, and I'd never even met Stuart R (except online, and he had actually thought I was a boy which gave everyone a good laugh ;) ).  And all sorts of lengths of friendships in between.  The only sad part was not having enough time to catch up with everyone for as long as I'd have liked.  Oh well.. will have to make more effort on future trips!  And convince people to come visit ;)

Stumbled back to the hotel.

Picked up some snackages on the way back to the hotel, thinking we might get hungry later on.  But we never did.  Too much meat!

However the hotel had put out a little bit of cake and a macaron for my birthday - how sweet of them :) (when they asked at checkin if I was up for a special occasion I said I was :) )

Enjoyed the view briefly before collapsing into (a very soft) bed.

Ten years ago this month I was in the countdown to my 30th birthday.  And I was pretty depressed about it.  You see for a Christian not to be married by the age of thirty meant there was obviously something wrong with you.  I truly believed that.  I *knew* there was something wrong with me. (me).  I was in a lot darker place back then.  I felt like I had very few friends.  Although I think mostly it was the hormones (but that's a story for another blog post).

But then I met Stu in 2005 and generally I've been better.  Things still piss me off, and I still get depressed, but I'm not *lonely*.

And in contrast to ten years ago where I was dreading my birthday, this year I'm pretty excited about it.