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Well I'm quite convinced that if I stopped blogging and tweeting noone would even notice, much less care. My last tweet was a week ago and only two people commented - my brother and a friend who doesn't have a twitter account. I considered stopping blogging/tweeting altogether. I considered going somewhere else and starting again or going totally private. But I have to keep coming back to the only real reason I blog - it's just too good a diary not to. The years before I started blogging are almost like the dark ages, where I don't really know what I was doing from day to day. I love the chronicle, and going back to find out when I did things. And all the photos. And occasionally reading a random month or search results and reading stuff I'd completely forgotten about. Twitter is a supplement to the blog, and records stuff that doesn't seem blogworthy enough for a whole post. It's crap as an online archive, but regular backups mean I still have an offline record. So as much as I'd like to wait around for someone to miss me, I doubt that'll happen any time soon, and not blogging is hurting me more than anyone else.

So we got back from Japan and the UK on Saturday morning. Managed to survive most of the day before collapsing at 4pm for a couple of hours. Slept ok Saturday night and was basically fine on Sunday. Although did stay up waaaayyy too late on Sunday night. Whoops. Monday was more recovery from Sunday than from jetlag heh.

The holiday was decent enough. The biggest downer was the weather. It was grey most of the time. Rainy a lot. Very little sunlight. Which is pretty depressing as a photographer. And Legoland was closed the last two days we were there, which is when we were planning to go. I, of course, was devastated. It was supposed to be one good thing to finish the trip off on, and instead it was the biggest let down. It really soured my mood about the whole trip and harder to think of the highlights. Which included our first day in London, Harry Potter filming locations, some lovely cathedrals and Scotland. We also missed quite a few things I wanted to see because we didn't have the time. And the things we did see were rushed. But I'm not planning to go back any time soon (except maybe to Edinburgh, and Legoland if I can face it) as there's too many other places in the world to see. I took around 12000 photos (haven't got an exact count yet). I still haven't seen most of them.

Our weeping cherry tree was nice enough to wait til late September to flower this year. It made me very happy to come home and see it in full bloom.

In the afternoon there was a cool rainbow

Tonight there were storms south of us, and Mt Ainslie was all black, the sky was dark, but it was sunny on the foreground. Made for some cool lighting conditions.

Although this spider freaked me out by coming up next to me while I was taking photos out the window.

I spent some time on the weekend building this model of Tower Bridge I picked up in London. It was quite fun to build, but not really a puzzle, as all the pieces are numbered and there's instructions. But a pretty cool result.

And even cooler? An email from Lego on the weekend with a Lego version!!

This of course I must have. The Lego version doesn't have the other piers on the ends, so I'll probably get some extra bricks off BrickLink and make up my own.

For reference, the real thing -

So it was back to work today. I had planned to spend an easy day getting back into things, reading emails etc. And mostly that's what I did. Took til around mid afternoon to get through five weeks of emails. I did get given two projects, both of which are fairly urgent. One will be significantly easier than the other though. And also got caught up in *problems* which are just painful and suck time like you have it to spare.

Epic win of the day was an incorrect shelf price at Toys R Us, which meant I got the Toy Story garbage truck in Lego (RRP $99.99 and $109.99 normally at Toys R Us) for $65.99 !! Epic win!! Only one more Toy Story set to go now. And the new Imperial Shuttle. And the new Diagon Alley. And the Eiffel Tower.

With daylight savings, and a beautiful warm afternoon/evening, it felt like summer. Had a walk, dusting done and two episodes of Survivor watched before 8pm. And the sweetie cooked dinner :)

A couple of photos from the old camera

Just a few photos that were floating around waiting to be blogged..

3mm thick ice on the pool

The breakfast gang

Mt Rogers view

Kookaburra on a lamp post

Galahs having a shower in the rain

Firsts

So we went into town yesterday to have brunch, get Stu a haircut, buy me some replacement ratchet straps for my roller blades.

And we accidently bought ourselves new toys.

That is to say, we had intended to get Stu a video camera. I hadn't quite intended to buy a camera for myself. That is, I'd been thinking about it, but hadn't fully decided what to get. So it wasn't as fully researched as I'd have liked it to have been.

So the new toy. A Canon 500D with an 18-135mm lens (28-200mm equivalent) - which is pretty much what I had with the Sony. The idea of having to continually change lenses while travelling still puts me right off - one of the big reasons I went with the Sony last time. So this lens is a decent compromise.

If anything the focus is a little soft, but still possibly clearer than the Sony. Certainly the colours are better and less chromatic aberration. I gave it a bit of a workout today at the Lego Brick Expo at Woden. Generally did fairly well.

One disadvantage of using a real viewfinder is that it doesn't give you a guestimate of the exposure. With the Sony you could get a pretty good idea of how the photo would turn out even before you took it. No such luxury with the Canon (except maybe with the live view thingie).. gonna be a bit of trial and error methinks.

The image stablising is pretty nifty though and seems to work fairly well.

So this is the fifth real camera I have owned.

My first was a Ricoh film camera I got for Christmas in 1991. It was a great little camera and took quite decent pictures. Unfortunately it was stolen along with my bag in 1996, along with half a roll of undeveloped film that included such events as my birthday outing to Phantom of the Opera.

My second camera was a Hyundai. Yes I know. I was in an altered mental state the day I bought it, having been told off by someone previously. So I wasn't thinking clearly and was sucked in by the sales guy on the day. Stoopid stoopid stoopid. This camera was very average, but I used it up until I got my first digital camera. Pretty sure the first photo on it was of my brand new second hand (and first) car. Ended up giving it away on Freecycle some years ago.

My third camera was my first digital camera - an Olympus C-900 zoom. My Uncle Graham bought it for me in Singapore for ~$1500. This was a fantastic camera. 1.3 megapix, 3x optical zoom. I used it for five years and was totally happy with it. The main problem with it was not having any control over exposure settings, so it didn't do well with the colouring in sunsets etc. Loved this camera, still have it stored away.

My fourth camera was my Sony DSC-F828. OK I really *really* loved this camera. ~58500 photos taken on it. Three overseas holidays. 8 megapix, which was ahead of its time (I got it in 2004 and it was several years before 8mp camera became the norm). One of the best features of this camera was its ability to bend the camera body, which made taking photos from waist height, and over the head, extremelly easy. I am going to miss that sorely. Really the only reason I'm upgrading at all is for better photos in low light.

Technically "random camera" is Stu's camera. I bought it for him for Christmas in 2005. It's also a great little camera, that's pretty easy to hold onto and take photos of "random" stuff when just walking around - it was used in Japan a lot this way.

Not sure if the iPhone counts as a camera, but I do take quite a lot of photos on it (it somehow seems more socially acceptable to pull out a phone than a thumping big black camera).

And finally the 500D. Still only about a third of the way through reading the manual. Still have a lot to figure out how it actually works and how I can get the best results out of it....

Queensland, July 2010

Thursday morning (1st July) we had a bit of a sleep in. An hour before we had to leave I thought I'd better pack heh. Left on time and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare.

We had an Embraer E190 which is one of the smallest commercial jets flying. Two seats each side of the aisle. And surrounded by screaming kids. Yay. So a very noisy trip. And no music to listen to either - no headphone sockets. There was cloud cover over Eastern Australia so didn't have much of a view so ended up just reading the Virgin Blue magazine which kept me occupied the whole trip.

Our Embraer E-190

This sticky tape on the wing tip was a little disturbing

Canberra

Interior of the E-190

Brisbane

Brisbane Air Traffic Control Tower

Arrived just before 2pm and went and picked up our hire care. Took the scenic route through Brisbane so we could drive past Stu's old flat. There's so many new bridges and tunnels here now it was a little bit freaky!

New overpass being built near the airport

Stu's old flat

Go Between Bridge - opening the next Monday

Got to Chay and David's around 3pm and then we chatted for ages before going on a booze run. Had beer and ordered pizza and ended up watching V for Vendetta. Then the others went to bed and David and I stayed up til a bit after 1am Singstarring.

Friday had a huge sleep in (10:30!!) and got to up to find we'd kept everyone awake :( Decided to go out for coffee and shopping. Went down to the lake for coffee and other drinks. Then went to the Orion shopping centre. I got a couple of Singstars for $20 each. One of these days we'll have to get a Playstation... Had a look in BigW at Lego prices and wandered round looking at other things too. Had a sushi snack. Looked in the Reject Shop. Then did some food shopping in Woollies. Got home at 15:45 oops :)

Boats being raced on the lake

Kailyn on a mall ride

Feeding the guinea pigs

So David and Daemon cooked a roast chicken for dinner which was highly nom. Started watching The Backup Plan but lost interest in that and ended up just playing Mario Kart and then some Singstar til midnight.

Miss Mog

Saturday had another reasonable sleep in. Went out with Chay to a few garage sales so she could look for books, but they were all pretty crap. Mostly clothes.

Feeding the guinea pigs again

Played through the 50cc Mario Kart cups to unlock all the locked ones for them then played a few rounds with the kids.

Chay made a fantastic lasagna for dinner - better than any of the lasagnas I've ever made.

Then we went out and saw Toy Story 3 which was pretty awesome but a bit dark for a G rating I thought. Came back then played some Buzz. First the general one which I was an epic loser at, then the music one which I was still a bit crap at but at least the scores were a lot closer. Then the others went to bed and David and I stayed up and did a couple of ten-course Mario Kart cups.

Sunday we got up at a more normal time, dropped Kailyn off at a friend's place and the four of us grown-ups went to breakfast at Ascot Provisions (Stu got random breath tested on the way which was a bit.. random). I tried the "breakfast pizza" because its toppings of cheese kransky, hashbrowns, cheese, egg and onion relish intrigued me. It was pretty good actually :)

Clem 7 Tunnel

Breakfast pizza at Ascot provisions

Next we headed to South Bank. Went on a bit if a scenic tour if Brisbane cause we didn't have a real GPS but even if we did, so much has changed recently it probably wouldn't have worked anyway. So we got there and managed to find parking in one of the parking stations. Unfortunately it's a flat rate $15 which is a bit rude if you only plan to be there for a couple of hours :(

Victoria Bridge, Brisbane

Brisvegas!

Anyway, wandered our way past a Scottish festival and up to the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) to see the Ron Mueck exhibition. It was pretty awesome, I'll post pics in a separate post.

Kurilpa Bridge

Scottish Festival

We were all pretty tired and peopled out at this point so headed for home (via a short detour past The Jazzy Cat Cafe where I first met Stu five years ago but it wasn't there anymore!)

David and I went and picked up Kailyn and then to Coles for supplies. Came back and reheated the leftover lasagne with some pan bread and we made up a salad too. Watched Merlin and then Waynes World (party time, excellent) which the kids didn't appreciate nearly enough ;) Played some Mario Kart then some Singstar Eighties.

We dressed up Wallace in Kailyn's clothes

Monday morning Chay cooked up a pretty awesome breakfast of bacon, tomatoes and cheese, spaghetti and toast. Then we played a little Mario Kart before packing up our stuff and saying goodbye.

Gateway Bridge(s) (didn't realise a second one had opened earlier this year)

Returned the rental car to the airport then caught the first of two planes of the afternoon. Was a bit bummed that our seats were over the wing (I couldn't get anything further back - looks like a young sporting team had already booked out most of the back of the plane). Then someone from my old job said "Karen" and then just stared at me. Most awkward. I of course was a bit thrown, and she wasn't any help reminding me who she was. Hrmmmmm. People. They suck sometimes.

Qantas 767

View of a wing, and the Brisbane River

Gold Coast

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney CBD

Had a snack in the Qantas Lounge in Sydney but the creamy sauce I put on my salad was actually really really hot horseradish. Hurt my mouth :( Sigh.

Last plane home was a 737 and we were right near the back, but it was too dark for photos. And the flight was so short that they'd only just come round with snacks/drinks before we had to put up our tray tables. Oops. In the end I brought the little bottle of wine home unopened.

These beetroot chips were cool, but they make your poo purple - which is pretty darned freaky!

So had a really nice trip. It was very relaxing and *warm*!! Winter is definitely the time to visit Brisbane! Really not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow though.. The stress is a little bit ridiculous at the moment....

Boring boring

Haven't done any real photo sorting in weeks. I started pulling out photos for the Queensland trip but didn't get very far through it.

Very quiet weekend. Did shopping Saturday morning and work Saturday arvo. Cooked a roast chicken for dinner. Did a whole lot of nothing on Sunday. Did got for a nice walk. Stu cooked dinner.

Tonight I read news feeds and closed browser windows. Which meant I didn't actually get any UK planning done :(

Other than that I got nothing.

Other than this photo of clouds rolling over Mt Ainslie, taken several weeks ago.

Mogo

The parents headed off this morning, their plan being to go to Mogo Zoo. Looks like they had a much better day for it than we did last time we went. Here's some of Stu's photos of our day at Mogo Zoo, as promised six months ago...

Lions

Red Panda

Meerkat

Duck

White tigers

Giraffe

Zebra

Parents part 2

This morning the parents headed off to church so I did some UK planning and Stu did some sleeping and some uni work.

Lunch was an instant meal of an instant pasta sauce, a tin of tuna, tomato and peas and corn.

Looked through the parents UK photos from last year.

Then set the dinner on to cook.

And played lots of Wii.

Ate dinner.

Played more Wii.

Now it's bed time yes?

I got nothing

Between dinner, Masterchef and Lie to Me, and a bit of UK planning, I still haven't sorted out photos from the weekend ..

Andrew birthday

Friday night we went out for dinner for Andrew's birthday. Went to La Piazza in Erindale. The food was decent enough (I had some really yummy lamb shanks and Stu had an impressive looking pizza) but the service was pretty abysmal. Took forever for them to take our order and food was very slow coming as well.

Then we went back to their place for games and dessert. We played a bit of Mario Kart while Nat baked a cake. Then some Hungry Hungry Hippos (!) then some Big Boggle. All were lots of fun. Pity mum gave our Hungry Hungry Hippos away hehe (I think the one made thirty years ago was a lot better built). And I'd never played 5x5 Boggle before - I thought it only came in 4x4!

Then we had cake while miss monster Suki looked on

Then we went off to download photos, and when we came out, Suki had eaten the icing off the half of the cake that was left - epic tragedy! (and this was after Nat had to make a new cake after Suki had nibbled all the muffins she had made previously .. little monster of a cat hehe)

Frankfurt

Fiona got back from her Europe trip the other day, and finally got the rest of her photos online (which I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the been-theres in :) ).

I squealed over this photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/phonakins/4726479801/in/set-72157624203111858/ quite simply because I'd seen it.. well.. sort of. Actually we never did get to see much of Frankfurt in person, however we did see it at Legoland...

Look at the detail! Look how accurate it is! (Look at the cross-hatching of that middle building - there's a bit of asymmetry on the second-top floor, which is actually like that in real life!!)

Very squee :)

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