Sunday.  25th.  Stoopidly hot day.  I should have taken some screenshots when it got even hotter later in the week..

So we turned the oven on and cooked a cauliflower bake and other veggies. As you do. Then watched Kangaroo Island (2024 movie).

Monday.  Nice quiet day. With an epic lunch at the Burns Club Star Buffet with David and Kellie (they'd come up for the drone show). Whoops.  

I started to feel full about half way through this

And by this point I was feeling like Mr Creosote but still had dessert to get through..  They totally should have After-Dinner-Mints because that would just be funny.

No dinner required so Stu got himself a pizza. Then we watched Inside Job, a documentary on the 2008 GFC.  Made in 2010 yet we still hadn't seen it.

Tuesday.  Went to bed nice and early (while the first drone show was on that I missed out on on account of it was all too hard and I wanted to go to sleep), but awake from 4:11. Mostly finished up the AD rules I've been working on for months, then started in earnest on a cleanup of some desktop objects. My headset dropped out right in the middle of a meeting which was annoying.  Stu cooked some little school whiting with Japanese cucumber salad for dinner, then we put on some MacGyver, which we haven't watched since 2019.

Wednesday.  Slept okish. More work on the desktop and ldap rules. Stoopidly hot - like 42. And the building aircon didn't work half the morning. #grunt. 

Had lunch at Rashays for the first time since their $5 lunch specials in 2019. 

Rashay's Schnitty and Chips weekday lunch special with creamy mushroom sauce $16.95

Nearly killed Neil giving him a lift home.. eep!!!!! Mince and salad for dinner then MacGyver.  My headset seems to have a dicky connection - if you hold the mute/volume button cables in the middle just right you can get audio, otherwise nothing.  Annoying.

Thursday.  Took hours to get to sleep and restless half the night. Sigh. Probably the weather - way too hot even with the cooler going. LDAP rules and testing for a change. Good drinks. Made three pizzas for dinner - a pepperoni and feta, an olive and capers and a mushroom.  Then MacGyver.

Stu got out his epic mouse mat in the last week or so and put out some of his ships..

Friday.  Slept okish til about 5:15. Spent pretty much all day doing a huge cleanup of objects for our desktops. It was crazy. Five different firewalls and dozens of objects on each. Mental. Stu lent/gave me another headset but it's very heavy. Kievs for dinner then MacGyver.

Saturday.  Hot and restless. So not great sleep. Fairly quiet day. Did go out to drop off a baking dish to Annie and do our food shopping. Like mad dogs or Englishmen.

And with all that new fresh food in the house we got Chong Co for dinner. hrmmm.

Then watched The Boy and the Heron which was.. weird.. even for Ghibli standards. It was stoopid hot today, even with the cooler going hard it's still hot in the house. Well ok 24.4, but that's hot for me!!

Sunday.  Slept relatively well considering the heat. Another quiet day of fish and photo stuff and not having time for music because I spent most of the afternoon cooking keto breakfasts for the next week. hrmm.  Oh, that's the first use of a Coles baking dish I got for free a few years ago, but pressed into service after I cracked our last baking dish putting a frozen turkey roll into a hot oven..

Sunday.  11th.  Leftover lasagna for dinner, and Stu cooked one of the zucchinis Cath brought over to have with it. Then Beyond Paradise 2.6 (last episode of season 2). Then geotagged Mum's Kangaroo Island and Adelaide photos.

Monday.  Slept okish, but awake early. Achieved a few bits and pieces at work. Leftover Christmas party sausages and salad for dinner, then watched the Beyond Paradise end of 2024 Christmas special.

Tuesday.  Awake from 3:30 for ages hurrah. Made some progress on the proxies but came across more issues, one of which I thought I solved last year but the behaviour has changed.. hrmm. Leftover lasagna and salad for dinner then Beyond Paradise 3.1.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok until about 5:20. Spent all day working on a rework of a bunch of rules for Dave5. Stu cooked a very yummy miso mackerel and Japanese cucumber salad for dinner.

Beyond Paradise 3.2. Didn't turn my computer on at all in the evening because of all the storms rolling through.

Thursday.  Slept mostly ok until about 5:20. Lots of AD comms work planning, thinking about load balancer stuffs and talking to Wardie about All The Things (but mostly how much Microsoft sux). Sneaky drinks in our usual spot with a good turnout and even some randoms! Made pizzas for dinner and then Beyond Paradise 3.3.

Friday.  Slept mostly ok until some time after 5, although may have gotten a little more sleep. Did some change paperwork in the morning and was all set to setup a heap of firewall rules when the interruptions started. In the end that got completely abandoned and I did the load balancing stuff. Stu sliced some of Cath's zucchini and I made up a lasagna out of the leftover sauces from last weekend. Beyond Paradise 3.4.

Saturday.  Slept okish I think.

In the morning I heard a large plane fly over and went to flight trackers to find out what it was.  It was an A330 from Ho Chi Minh City to Sydney, but it had done a big diversion down south.  Then I went and looked at a few other planes.  Then a few more.  It was chaos!!  A whole heap of flights to Sydney were in holding patterns waiting for clearance to land.  Turns out there was a shortage of Air Traffic Controllers on Friday and Saturday and it was a mess!! (yes I have over 66 thousand photos and screen shots on my phone).  

Fairly quiet day, just a bit of house stuff and photo stuff and Lego stuff and a fairly painless food shop. Kievs for dinner (missed out last night!) then watched a making-of special of Stranger Things season 5.

Also the last two days have been EPIC windy.  Really crazy.

Sunday.  Slept okish. Another quiet day.

At 12:22 my computer BSOD!!! Although event logs said it crashed at 12:08. Hrmmm. Then raged at Windoze because I went over to another desktop, clicked to open Explorer (it's pinned to my task bar).. and it opened ON MY ORIGINAL DESKTOP. TWICE!!! How is it that windoze 11 is so unbelievably BAD???  And this week's random explorer behaviour - windows forgot settings on one of my folders, and Chrome stopped sorting by reverse date order and defaulted back to alphabetical.  I hate windows So. Much.

Sunday.  4th.  Managed to get the end of last year's photos posted before a storm came through that was a little too close so I shut down my computer (and it BSODed as I was doing it #grunt). Then had to sit around doing nothing much for an hour because my dotz were packed up, Lego was done, jigsaws were all done. So I did some kitchen stuff. Hurray. Dinner was nachos. We are going to get healthy soon, I promise.. haha. 

Watched the Death in Paradise 2025 Christmas special. Then I went to bed. 20:30 is bed time right? Weird going to bed while it's still light though.

Monday.  Slept fairly well. Back at work full time. Sigh. Went back to some decommissioning tickets that have been banking up for the past few months. Went into work at lunch to drop off most of the Christmas party stuffs, then had lunch with Neil at Kingsley's (the mall is feral over the school holidays). Finished the leftover tuna bake for dinner then watched Beyond Paradise 2.1.

Tuesday.  Went to bed at normal time but then didn't get to sleep for HOURS. Sigh. And awake from well before 6 again. Zombie day. Again. Was putting away more Christmas decorations and couldn't find a string of fairy lights. I remember taking them off the lounge where they were, but now I can't find them to put them away. Sigh. Edit: found them, I was confusing them with another string/box. This is what happens when your brain is zombie tired. Lots more decom prep work today. Even did a bit of playing with Powershell/APIs. Dug out some sausages leftover from the Christmas party to have for dinner with some very old pork jelly and very old sauces. One of them might give us food poisoning, we shall see. Beyond Paradise 2.2.

Wednesday.  Slept okish. Disjointed day at work.

We may have gone to Grease Monkey at lunch.  That's like three times in like a month.. whoops..

More Christmas party sausages for dinner and Beyond Paradise 2.3.

Thursday.  Spent most of the day deleting stuff which was nice, trying to clear out a backlog of decommissions going back til last September. Drinks at the Labor Club, Dominos for dinner then Beyond Paradise 2.4.

The 8th of January is always the day I remember the Como-Jannali bushfires (32 years ago), my blogiversary (23 years this year!!) and David Bowie's birthday (he would have been 79).  This year smoke from the Victorian bushfires made for a very red sunrise and sunset...

Friday.  

Didn't achieve much in the morning but did some more deletions in the afternoon and some certificate replacements as well. It's been stoopidly hot this week (37C today), and yet we still turned the oven on for #kievfridays. Whoops.

Saturday.  Slept okish I think. Spent pretty much the whole day cleaning the house and cooking. hrmm. Had EffanC over for cheese and champagne and dinner. The lasagna ended up being a bit overdone as noone was really ready for dinner when it was ready, so turned the oven down and let it sit for longer. Still fairly good though. A lovely catchup.

I forgot to get a photo before cutting it up

Sunday.  Fairly late night but of course I still woke up at 6:00. Filled the green bin in the morning and did some house stuff and spent entirely way too much time geotagging Dad's photos of Kangaroo Island.

Found this on the weekend too! WTF!?

On 1-November-2025 Thryv who manage White Pages directories, have removed Residential listing from the White Pages website.
To search for a residential listing your options are:
Collect a copy of the White Pages from your local Australia Post Office or order online at www.directoryselect.com.au for a copy to be delivered to your home.
Contact Directory Assistance on phone 1223
Please note that the search functionality for White Pages Business and Government is not changing.

Still not ready for being back at work full time...

Sunday.  30th.  

Stu finished cooking some potatoes from the club as well as some of the bread and we had that with leftover turkey and veggies. Stranger Things 4.5.

Monday.  December! Minimun 8.7, maximum 18, 2 predicted overnight! Welcome to summer! Took ages to get to sleep again. Then awake from 4:30 and never got back to sleep.

Busy day being NEIL for a while, then catching up on chats and emails then clearing the ticket queue.

Cracked open this year's beer advent calendar after work.  Which isn't any sort of official one.  Since I couldn't go to work drinks for months, Neil saved all the Beer of the Weeks for me.  I had almost enough to fill an advent calendar box (I still had the box from last year's Plonk advent calendar).  And I've been collecting them now that I'm going back to drinks.  I also asked @aquila to pick me up the Bridge Road Brewers Christmas beers, so this photo doesn't show the box as full, but I'll have more beers than will fit :)

Did some music after work, dinner, Stranger Things 4.6, geotagging holiday photos. The house is a disaster. I still haven't finished putting up Christmas decorations. I still haven't fully unpacked or put all my washing away. Need. More. TIME!!!!

This star light is probably 24 years old.  This year one of the lights has finally blown in it.  I do have one spare bulb but I'd have to pull everything out of the cupboard again to get at it.. next year.. 

Tuesday.  Took a while to get to sleep, awake at 4 but got back to sleep.

Welcome to summer in Canberra!!

Busy day. I decided I really wanted to get back to working on a project I started months ago, but it requires a lot of concentration, which I couldn't really do while being NEIL and working on proxies. So tried to get back into it. But was interrupted every five seconds by people wanting crap and distracting me. I even stayed back late after work to work on it because it's quieter then, and I STILL got interrupted by someone wanting crap. FFS. Stu cooked some pasta to go with some pesto I dug out of the freezer.

Stranger Things 4.7. Then it was pretty much bed time. Sigh. Also getting annoyed at my email which isn't downloading properly for some senders. It's like the messages are getting corrupted somehow. Or at least just not rendering correctly.  It started around maybe mid to late November. They view ok on the server in webmail. Maybe there's something in one of the headers that's confusing things. There's definitely content downloaded but it's just not displaying. And it's not everything, it's only some mails from some senders. Sigh.

Wednesday.  Okish sleep but awake from 4. Got into work early and was able to do a bunch of work before a morning full of meetings.

Connor tried the Stranger Things Upside Down Double at lunch

Got more stuff done in the arvo including fixing an ldap health check for TLS. Got home and the sweetie was cooking up leftovers from the club night. Stranger Things 4.8, then backed up my computer then it was basically bed time. hrmmm.

Thursday.  Took ages to get to sleep. Looking at traffic to domain controllers most of the day. Super quiet drinks - just our table.. oof! The sweetie felt like Dominos so that's what we got for dinner. Ate too much. Whoops. Stranger Things 4.9 (end of season 4). Some of season 5 has dropped so we'll be able to start watching that straight away. Although it's another three years later so the kids will be all grown up!

Friday.  Meh sleep.

More AD traffic checking. Lunch with the Chrises and Neil and Glenda at the Burns Club (aka Magpies) which was very nice.

Seniors Salt and Pepper Squid, with tartare sauce, lemon chips and salad, $20M $21.50NM.  At least the Burns Club is happy to serve anything off the menu, including seniors meals to non seniors.  See, it's not that hard, HERBERTS!!

Drinks with Luc and his mate Stephen (from AARNet) at Molly (Old Fashioned and a Rusty Nail)

Then dinner at Bamiyan - we had an epic feast of camel skewers, butter chicken, mantu (lamb dumplings) and lamb biryani. So good!! I ate way too much but did bring home some leftovers. Hasty goodnight as my bus arrived just as we got to the bus stop.

Saturday.  Crap sleep (bloated cause I ate (and probably drank) too much). It didn't cool down overnight either so had to have the cooler running with water all night. Spent much of the morning tidying the house.

Yeah it was stoopidly hot, but I'm trying to clear stuff out of the freezer

Then it was all afternoon at Mishi's for her 60th. Picked up TV dinners from Chris's for dinner, then watched Die Hard.

Sunday.  Awake from dentist time for a while. More house stuff and sorting out holiday finances.

Finished the puff pastry out of the freezer

Food shopping after lunch.

Ethos topped out this week (you can't see the tree in this pic)

And the Premier inn is gorrrrne, skyline replaced with The Residence at The Markets

And stressing over how little of my todo list I've gotten done this weekend :(

Sunday.  3rd.  It's going to be an eat the fridge and freezer week this week.  Starting with a cabbage bake (spiked with yellow curry paste) and some nice frozen fish fillets I got at Chris's a while back.  Then DS9 5.18.

Monday.  Pretty distracted morning at work so didn't get much done.  Did a bit of cleaning planning in the afternoon.  Finished culling Europe 2016 photos for the blog!!  DS9 5.19.

Tuesday.  We changed the house battery mode to "save battery for power outages" yesterday so it didn't drain overnight, and instead kept the lights on (and my computer running) while sparkies a couple of houses down had the power off for their work for an hour or so.

Did some deleting which was nice, and some more networking stuff for Jim (that I missed last week cause I don't *do* layer 1/2 heh).  Also got a couple of scripts working which made me pretty happy.  Made up a potato bake for dinner to use up a bunch of things, then DS9 5.20.  Dumb episode. 

Wednesday.  Slept okish.  Tried to do an improvement on one of my scripts but it was too complicated and my perfectionism got in the way so ended up abandoning it for now.  Leftovers for dinner I think.  DS9 5.21.

Thursday.

Acts 26:22.. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen-- 23 that the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles." .. spoken by Paul in Caesarea!!!  Been there!!

Awake stoopidly early.  Did some more decom planning.  Chris didn't have any pepperoni so I made olive and feta pizzas.  Stu tells me they were good.  I miss being able to to taste salt!!

DS9 5.22 - somewhat interesting moral dilemma.  Then Europe photo labelling.

Friday.  Did some tidying of all the rules we've setup for the potential new load balancing solution.  May have had cheesy vegemite scrolls for lunch.

Then deleted a heap of stuff out of the old prod load balancing environment. Deleting crap on a Friday afternoon.. what could go wrong? ;)  Kievs and fries for dinner then DS9 5.23.

Saturday.  Woke up at like 4:30 or something #grunt.  House and hobbies kind of a day.  At one point I was trying to rename a folder in Windows Explorer and it just froze up.  I looked at Event Viewer and my heart sank when I saw a disk bad blocks error.  So now I have to figure out what I've done on my computer since my last good backup on Wednesday.  And wonder if I can trust that disk anymore.  So anyway, later on I was trying to find out what the hell disk was DR9.  OMFG.. rm9's comments.. THIS!!.. In the end used Winobj64.exe from Sysinternals to figure out it was actually a USB stick that I'd plugged in at the same time that had the error.  Phew!!!  I let the sweetie order a karaage chicken pizza for dinner.  Whoops.  Then we watched The Post.  I had literally no idea what it was about other than it stared Tom Hanks, and that I assumed it was about the Washington Post.  For some reason I also picked the music.  John Williams!  But definitely not in your face, quite subtle.  Stu wondered early on if it was about Daniel Ellsberg, which he was right about too.

Sunday.  Another house and hobbies day again.  Having a beer while I write this - first drink in over two weeks.  Sigh.  

Thursday.  Boxing Day.  Took a while to get to sleep but then slept mostly ok.  Weeding first up then planned out my todo list for the break.  Alternated between house stuff, Lego stuff, dotz and blog reading.  Pizza for dinner (from Dominos - eep!) then Death in Paradise 11.1.

Sole survivor mini capsicum

I did the Plonk beer advent calendar again this year which was a lot of fun.

Friday.  Slept mostly ok, except for the storm around 04:00.  It wasn't very big and it was very quick to pass over, but I did still get up and disconnect the computer.  Alternated between house stuff, Lego stuff, dotz and blog reading.  Leftover Christmas Eve feast for dinner.  Then watched a documentary on AlphaGo - the first computer program to be able to beat top level human players.  

Saturday.  Slept mostly ok.  Weeding before it got hot.  Then got a random Blue Screen of Death which was a bit upsetting.

Alternating All The Things, although didn't get very far through it before we headed out for a big pantry shop.  Brunch/shopping/lunch and three hours of my day just GONE. Sigh.  Luv-a-duck Peking duck for dinner.

Death in Paradise 11.2 then back into Amazing Race celebrity edition (v2).

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok.  Hit 15000 in Candy Crush (nearly 3000 levels this year, 5000 in the past 18 months).  I really want to stop because the ad experience is just so trash, but what else am I going to do when I wake up at 5:30am??  Probably should delete photos off my phone.  I have like 60000 photos and the thing is nearly full.  

Maccas at Emu Bank was super quiet in the morning and there were no kids in store.  Parking was easy everywhere around Belco.  Shops were (generally) uncrowded.  I guess everyone must be down the coast.  All The Things.  Leftover Christmas feast for dinner.  Death in Paradise 11.3.

Monday.  Slept ok, but awake 5:30.  Feeling the same Monday morning stress I feel every week.  Yes I didn't have to go to "work" but my todo list is a full time job and my break is too damned short to get it all done.  As of 9:15 I'd been at it two hours and hadn't had any "fun" yet.  Sigh.  All The Things.  I swear my todo list is only getting longer not shorter.  I've barely had any time for "fun" this break.  Having to file all the Lego and do my blog year in review certainly didn't help.  Lost another congo tetra.  Resealed the shower.  Over the past couple of months mould had been growing *behind* the sealant.  We're guessing water is seeping down from the grout further up.   So pulled all that off, exit-moulded it, cleaned/dried it, and resealed a lot further up the wall.  Even managed to use the existing tube of sealant.  Did I mention I've barely had any time for fun this break?  Leftover Christmas feast for dinner.  Death in Paradise 11.3, then the finale of The Amazing Race (celebrity edition v2).

Tuesday.  New Years Eve.  Took ages to get to sleep - restless legs.  Then awake early.

Can you see?

A full on RAT was under the daisies when I went on my daily easter egg hunt to gather lemons.

Morning was mostly housework.  And Oh The Humidity.  And then all the blogging.  Have I mentioned I've barely had time for fun this break?  I did finish filing the Bricklink order though.  We lost another line on the ExtendaLine this morning.  This time it jammed into position part way out.  But it won't let me extend all the way, so can only go half way now.  Won't go in *or* out.  Doesn't bode well for having to wash sheets.  Why is everything so crap these days?  #grunt.

Sunday.  11th.  Picked up Neil and went into town.  Had Pappa Rich for dinner.  I had the roti canai with curry chicken which turned out to be huge, didn't need those chicken dumplings..

Did you know there's a bowling alley in Civic?? I didn't..

Then saw Twisters.

This whole week has been a complete blur.  Work is insanely busy and stuff on most nights as well.

Tuesday was a Shine Dome night with Professor Richard J Payne with a very interesting talk on discovering and synthesising new proteins, and A/Prof Rona Chandrawati and her work on using visible light properties of chemicals/reactions for practical applications such as detecting food spoilage.

Dinner at 10 Yards.

Wednesday had a sneaky afternoon off with the little brother and went to Questacon.

Loled at this on the way home..

Had some bubbles

Got Chong Co delivered

And made up the pavlova leftover from the club Christmas in July.

Was a lovely afternoon/evening and great that David could come up.

Thursday.  Awake from like 3 til 5.  Hurray.  Crazy busy day.  Again.  Drinks.  Bed.

Friday.  Slept mostly ok.  Crazy busy day.  Again.  Finished at like 18:30.  Still no kievs at Chris's so found other frozen brown food to have.

Then watched Iron Man.  Bit of fun, if a bit silly in places.  It's a bit dumb that the other dude could fly straight away.  What would have *actually* happened is he'd faceplant the first time he took off.  Someone on IMDB agreed with me:

Tony Stark is shown, learning to control the powerful thrusters in the suits hands and feet. It takes Tony considerable time to master the art of flying. However, when Stane acquires the arc reactor from Tony and inserts it into his new iron suit, he is able to fly and maneuver well, immediately.

Saturday.  Took forever to get to sleep.  Felt totally overwhelmed in the morning trying to keep up with housework.  I did finish labelling Tassie photos (day photos) so that was a win I guess.  And started some Lego.  But felt too blah to cook, so got tv dinners.  Hurray.  Then tried to watch Iron Man 2, but Disney refused to play anything - Error Code 83.  It was literally working before dinner.  Then I tried Netflix.  Had it going round in loops of logging me out, freezing up, not having anything in my profile, logging me out again.  WTF.  Fine.  So I try it in Edge.  Works fine.  Stoopid Chrome.  

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok.  Another busy day of house/photo/food shopping/cooking etc.  Juiced all the lemons that had fallen off the tree in the past week or two.  Now what..

These are nice though..

15.5.24

4:51 wakeup.  5:30 departure.  Stopped in Sutton Forest Maccas for breakfast and wondered if we'd missed the apocalypse - the car park only had a few cars, and the restaurant itself was completely empty.  Bizzarest thing ever!

This blew my mind because this place is *always* busy.  The staff were quite old too, guess all the kids are in school.

After Maccas the car lost connection to the ipad.  I finally started having a play with it around Pheasants Nest.  Of course I happened to be looking down as the Picton Road turnoff came up and we missed it (I looked up just as we were passing the air field).  Sigh.  So had to deal with M5 traffic all the way to Heathcote Road.  But haven't been down there in like thirty years though so that was nice.

Got to Mum's right on 9.  Dumped my crap then train to Sydenham.  Had a very slow walk to Westconnex (it takes ages when you stop every two seconds to take photos of stuff).

Talk/tour was quite interesting.

Then walked back to St Peters.

Took a train to Museum (via Circular Quay and was super super excited to see the old Freshwater class Manly ferries running again!).  Got to the museum a bit after 14:00, checked in bags, then saw the Ramses exhibition.

Afterwards did a bit of a wander of the museum.

My favourite thing in the museum - the Bone Ranger!

Gymea lily in bloom

Needed a drink after all that, so walked down to Hotel Sweeney for a couple of beers and dinner.

Then train back to Mum's and collapsed.

16.5.24

Slept fairly well.  Woke up at 5 for a bit then til 6:30.  Had a look at all Mum's Japan photos which was pretty cool.

Then went and played tourist for the day.

Train back to Mum's.  Had a shower then Luc and Cynthia came over (I was gonna go meet them at theirs but they very nicely came over to Mum's).  We went to Moim Japanese Kitchen for dinner which was very nice.

We also went and got some ice cream for dessert.  A lovely meal and catchup.

17.5.24

Early start.  Took the train to go inspect my flat.  The tenant talked for an hour about her baby coming soon and their life there.  The real estate agent didn't seem to mind, I guess it saved him from doing other work heh.

Took another train to Martin Place and walked down to the Mint.  I think I went there when I was in school but haven't been in at least thirty years so went there.  There's not a huge amount to see there so were done by lunch time.

I thought I'd look to see if there was a Tim Ho Wan in Sydney and got very excited when it showed one in Westfield.  But when we got there we couldn't find it.  Had another look and on closer inspection it was "Permanently Closed".  Yeah thanks Apple Maps.  Oh well, had Din Tai Fung instead.  

And Krispy Kreme from the station ;)

Back at Mum's I had a look at her backups.  Syncback doesn't seem to have been working since her computer was rebuilt last year.  When I loaded Syncback it complained about not having any profiles.  So I made two that matched the arguments in the windoze scheduled tasks.  I set them up to "backup" rather than "sync" - which is a better option for retrieving accidentally deleted files, not so good for a disaster recovery scenario.  Dunno what had been used previously.  I also tried to backup more of her recent photos to my disk, but ran out of time.  

Then took two trains All The Way to the other side of the world (Brooklyn).  Took like two hours.  But nicely I could change trains at Town Hall so didn't have to cart my bag all the way up to the other platforms at Central.

At Brooklyn I walked up and checked into the motel.  Ok room, but a little dated.  And no soundproofing so I could cearly hear the pub across the road.

Went across to aforementioned Angler's Rest for a couple of beers and some salt and pepper squid.  It said it came with salad, so that was a lot more meat and a lot less salad than I was expecting!

Trent Crawford was there doing live music, old pub rock, so that was pretty cool.  

Then I went back to the motel and had some wine and did my nails while listening to Trent Crawford and waiting for the sweetie.

18.5.24

Slept fairly well.  Had a leisurely start.  Picked up some pastries at the cafe for breakfast.

Then suddenly it was 9:30 and we still weren't ready so it was a bit of a rush to get out by 10:00.  Just made it though. 

Drove down to the marina to see how close you can get to the bridges.  Turns out not anywhere near them at all.  Sigh.

Then up to Rachel and Hayden's wedding.

Didn't escape til like 16:30.

Got home a bit before 20:00.  Had wine and chippies and ice cream for dinner then collapsed.

Monday.  16th.  Not backdating!  Slept ok I guess but still cranky in the morning.  Ok day I guess.  Pasta for dinner.  Tallied up all the Europe spending, Mum owes me a little bit.  Still have yet to compare how much the whole thing would have cost us doing it ourselves vs doing it with Albatross.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep - cold feet.  Had a good tidying day, planning the work I wanted to do last Friday.  Filing photos in the evening.  Also started the latest Amazing Race.  Which is a celebrity edition.  Of which I've heard of like two or three of them.  

Wednesday.  Took ages to get to sleep - cold feet.  Turned on my computer in the morning but there was no network.  And Windows 11 is so retarded at the moment that telling it to turn off or reboot simply logs you out.  So dumb.  Pressing the power button convinced it to reboot, but had to hold it in to shut it off.  Still no network after a cold boot.  So tried it with another cable.  Worked fine.  Tried my cable on a different port.  Worked fine.  So somewhere between the wall panel and the switch.  Probably the Cisco switch just killed another port like it did with our NAS.  I'd really like to get a low power 12 port gigabit switch rather than the Cisco behemoth we have.  Also after the reboot the issue Windoze has updating the wallpaper between desktops is back.  Why is Microsoft so bad at everything whyyyyyy???

Had a slightly long lunch with Neil for his birthday.

And dinner with the sweetie in the evening.  Kinn Thai beef pad see iw and chilli jam crispy pork

Thursday.  Slept ok I think.  Did some work on another server migration. 

After missing out on the raspberry ones we decided to get these.  They definitely tasted cinnamoney, but these things need to be savoury not sweet.

Then meetings in the afternoon including an hour and a half one with a vendor where I had to be engaged the whole fricken time which I fricken HATE HATE HATE.  Utterly exhausted by the end of it.  Meanwhile someone broke some stuffs pretty badly but took them a few hours to make the connection between the fact that they made a change and the fact things were broken.  Even after I asked did anyone change anything.  Ok drinks, but just our group, then a quiet night.  

Friday.  Slept ok I think.  Bunch of crap in the morning then a lovely afternoon of cleaning.  We'd just settled down to share a bottle of bubbles after work when we got a somewhat desperate message from Kit, who was going through a bit of a crisis and really needed some friends.  So we packed up and headed down the coast.  Didn't get home til after 15:00 Sunday, and quite exhausted.

Sunday.  20th.  Yummy roast pork for dinner.  

Monday.  Slept ok.  Run/sun/rain/sun all day.  I managed to get the G5X photos off the SD card, but not the Canon (got them later).  Weeding after work.  Honey mustard chicken for dinner.  Used cream that was two weeks past its use-by date, and chicken that was use-by today.  It'll be fine right? :)  Culled a few days worth of photos (first pass anyway).  Then watched the first episode of the Lego Masters Bricksmas special which was a lot of fun.

Another paver weed strawberry

Remember early this year I completely cleared this?  Sigh.

Tuesday.  Took a while to get to sleep because I was COLD!.  Then I was awake in the middle of the night for no good reason.  So a relatively slow day.  It was COLD again in the house.  14C on the heater thermostat.  We would normally turn the heater on at that temperature, except someone opened all the cooler vents the other day because it was getting hot enough to turn the cooler on.  So we suffered all day.  I had a coat around me some of the day.  My boss has covid!!!  But I haven't seen him since Thursday last week so I'll be fine.  But he was in the office yesterday so worried about other people getting sick.  More weeding after work.  Stu cooked sausages for dinner.  More photo culling.  I was going to watch the second episode of Bricksmas, but that's not til next Sunday.  Then I found out they did a Bricksmas last year!  So watched the first episode of that.  

After half an hour of cleaning yesterday

Wednesday.  Started working on something new to clean up.  Home late so nothing useful, other than a bit of culling.  Started watching the second episode of last year's Bricksmas but didn't finish it.

I love how these poppies can live where there's like, no water

Thursday.  More cleaning.  Bought a new phone at lunch.  It might turn up in January if China doesn't have too many more lockdowns.  Sigh.  Frank and Karen came to drinks which was nice.

Friday.  Catching up on bits and pieces, and more cleaning.  Stu cooked "chorizo mince" for dinner.  Started the Christmas movie season a little early with Die Hard.

More paver weed strawberries

Stu's chorizo mince

Saturday.  Panicking about my todo list and my lack of time.  So I squandered the little time I had with music and jigsaw.  Hrmm.  I was hoping the Lego Titanic might have a Black Friday discount, but it didn't, so decided to just buy it anyway.  They had stock when I looked at the price on Thursday/Friday, but when I sat down Saturday morning to buy it, it was "out of stock".  Sigh.  There goes my other Christmas present.  Sigh.  Headed out to the club after lunch and helped a bit with the setup and a bit of food prep.  Chilled for a bit then had a swim with the sweetie.  Dinner was pretty amazing as always.  Didn't stay up too late so that was good.  A lovely night as always.

Sunday.  Slept okish.  Up fairly early and came home.  Started to do All The Things, but didn't get very far before we went out to the chemist and Bunnings.  Also had a look at the Cameron Offices demolition, and tried out Pattysmiths which was nice enough.  Then home and did some more Christmas tree stuff.  Had out the fairy lights and there were enough blown bulbs to take out too many strings, so decided to rearrange the bulbs to get working strings in the middle.  Had gotten a fair way through it when Stu brought out Stumpy.  Who then proceeded to poop right where I was working.  Sigh.  So went and cooked dinner and download my phone photos (tried a few times but still can't get the SD card).  

Today's haul

Cameron Offices demolition

Pattysmiths Cheeseburger