Sunday.  10th.  Chicken sausages and a bunch of roast veggies for dinner.

Watched the Lighthouses 2.3. Then I watched part 1 of a documentary on Hurricane Katrina.

Monday.  Awake around midnight for a while, then a somewhat delirious sleep stressing over the proxies. Day of trying to get things done, waiting for people etc. Leftovers for dinner, Lighthouses 3.1 on Beachy Head, photo stuff, then watched the next two episodes of the Hurricane Katrina documentary.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep and felt like I was awake half the night. On and off day.. filling in time for part of it, crazy busy for other parts. Stu cooked up a very nice Asian-style dinner with some leftover pork and veggies, and we watched the Lighthouses 3.2 on Muckle Flugga.  Did some photo stuff, and watched more of the Hurricane Katrina documentary.

Wednesday.  Took ages to get to sleep and somewhat restless night. Busy day of trying to deal with stoopid proxy problems. Our old one could deal with Mutual TLS, why can't the new one?? Lame. Leftovers of last night's dinner for dinner, then the last episode (3.3) of The Secret Life of Lighthouses, on the Boston Lighthouse.  Did some photo stuff and finished the National Geographic doco on Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time. What an utter debacle. It's so sad looking at Google Earth/Street View and all the vacant blocks because so many people didn't have the resources to rebuild.

Thursday.  Took ages to get to sleep and somewhat restless night. Yeah after like four nights in a row of crap sleep I was a zombie today. Sure made it hard to concentrate on various proxy problems. Good drinks, a few other tables. Mills and Grills again for dinner. Death in Paradise 15.8 (end of season 15).

Friday.  Went to bed early and went to sleep early, but woke up around like 3 for a couple of hours. Tried to turn the heater on. It didn't even seem to want to turn on. Went back later with a light and was seeing "Busy 10 hi" and "Busy 46 hi" errors. Sigh. They errored out all day and we never did manage to get it going. Organised with Voltair for them to come and quote on installing a split system. Not quite as busy a day at work. Called it at 16:00. Kievs for dinner then we watched Rental Family which was.. touching. We both enjoyed it.

Saturday.  Took ages to get to sleep and awake a bit early but slept mostly ok in the middle. Turned the heater on and today it worked first go. Go figure. Definitely going to try and get it serviced/fixed soon though. We've lost one of Chrissie's clown loaches. It had been looking unwell for a couple of weeks with two large welts on either side of it. Now I need to decide what to do with the other one. I also need to decide what to do with the AR-620T. Both its lights have gone and they're getting hard to replace. Gem Aquatics still sell them but only the white ones, not the pink ones. Tony refitted his with a compact fluorescent fitting but I'm wondering if I should bother or just downsize our fish tanks. Climbed Mt Rogers, then went out birdwatching with the sweetie out the back of Weetangera.

Mt Rogers Trig Station

Airbus A380 VH-OQG flying over Canberra (QF93 MEL to LAX)

We may have stopped at The Scottish Restaurant for lunch.  They've got creme brulee pies at the moment (deep fried!) which are quite nice.

Finished the leftover pork for dinner then watched Catch Me if You Can, which I hadn't seen since 2003 (we tried to watch it a few years back but had to stop after like fifteen minutes and neither of us could remember why).

Sunday.  Actually slept relatively well for a change! The heater worked first go, but then died after its first break.  Reset it and gave it a rest and tried again later and it ran for a while before the house warmed up enough it didn't need to run again.  Quiet day of photo and house stuff. Even made a cake! 

Sunday.  18th.  Stu spent all afternoon prepping veggies for a spectacular tagine.

Only problem is our tagine is quite small so nothing fitted and he ended up having to resort to saucepans. We had Jenn over for dinner and we all enjoyed it.

Monday.  Slept okish. Paperwork for changes and changes. Stu cooked up the mince I cooked on Sunday with some tomatoey goodness and we had that with salad. Beyond Paradise 3.5.

Tuesday.  Slept okish.

We tried out Oishii Go at lunch.  It was *ok* but the takoyaki didn't have much octopus and both of them were cold, which is really not the way to eat takoyaki or tempura.

Cleaning and changes. They think I broke something, but I'm not so sure, and in the middle of it other stuff broke that I was worried would be me but it wasn't. Stressful afternoon so may have had a beer after work. Stu cooked up some leftover Christmas party sausages, with salad for me and sauerkraut for him. Beyond Paradise 3.6 - end of season 3.

There was supposed to be auroras.

There wasn't.

Not that me or my camera could see anyway.

I did get a hand-held shot of the Southern Cross though

Wednesday.  Slightly late night aurora hunting but then woke up early. Plodding my way through DC rules. Leftovers for dinner then watched part 1 of the Last Night at the Proms from 1984.

Thursday.  Um. Busy day not achieving much. Went to Yat Bun Tong with Neil and XL - first time since 2019!

Dry fried chilli beef $21.80

Steamed combination buns $17.80 and Pan fried pork dumpling $15.80

Nice drinks. Made a pepperoni pizza and a cheeseburger pizza for dinner. Watched the 2025 Beyond Paradise Christmas special.

Our usual pepperoni and feta pizza above, and a cheeseburger pizza below - tomatoey mince, pickles, and special sauce at the end

Friday.  Another busy day not achieving much.

Tried the crispy chicken El Maco at lunch which was quite tasty but a little messy

Got lots done at work between 4 and 6 though when the interruptions stopped. Stu cooked up some couscous and leftover tagine for dinner and we watched Ready Player One.

Saturday.  Headed out to the club fairly early for the committee meeting.

I did some cabinetry priming (pretty much done now), a bit of tidying and vacuuming, some tapestry, and just tried to not feel too miserable in the heat.  Oh and listened to ABC Classic FM's 50th birthday celebrations all day which was a bit of fun because they mostly played "popular" music.. ie.. crap I'd actually heard of.. so that was good.

At happy hour we went up and got in the pool for a couple of hours which was lovely. Dinner was pretty spectacular and then Chris's trivia which was actually quite reasonable this time.

Had another swim before bed (which was a bit late).

Orion as seen from the club (handheld on the Canon - 24mm, f/4, 0.8 sec, ISO 25600)

Sunday.  Woke up at 6:00. Because that's what I do.

Stu rescued this enormous longhorn beetle from the bathroom

Went up to the shed and did some washing up and tidying then we came home. Fairly quiet day doing some holiday thinking and photo stuff.

Sunday.  15th.  Kievs and brussels sprouts for dinner. Must be Friday. Wait, what?

DS9 4.14. Another episode to be endured. Then LegoMasters 7.3. Yayyy Karen!!!! haha

Monday.  Slept mostly ok. Gave Mum a call before work for her birthday and heard more about her trip. Sigh. Did a few tickets at work but mostly scripting which was nice. Google AI helped with one problem but sent me on a wild goose chase with another and needed Nick to help me fix. Pizzas for dinner, must be Thursday. Wait, what?

Andor 2.4 then Lego Masters 7.4.

Was impressed how well these things lasted - like a month!

Tuesday.  Slept mostly okish. 

Happy 3128!!  Whenever I see my clock/watch at around 13:52 I wish @Aquillaaudux a happy 1352.  So my step log at 3128 two days ago was pretty cool!

Stoopidly busy day. All. The. Tickets. The last week or so has been quite pleasant, so this was quite a shock to the system. 

Nissin miso ramen that I had for lunch.  Not miso-ey enough.  Next time I'll lump in some miso paste

Cooked up some leftover pork with some veggies for dinner. Andor 2.5. People are calling this like the best show ever, but I'm all what the actual f#$& is going on all the way through it. I have no idea who's who (I struggle with names and faces at the best of times, but no one has names that mean anything to me, and some of the cast look fricken identical), who's on who's side (hurray for espionage stories), or what anyone is doing. And that end scene?? What??? Fricken hopeless. A real estate agent (I guess) came to Kit's place today. But instead of turning off the lights in the kitchen that have been on for two weeks straight, they turned MORE lights on and left them on too! What a retard.

Wednesday.  Slept ish-ish I think.

Baby fish!  Not sure who's babies they are.. either from the very unwell big female I took from the four foot a couple of weeks ago, or maybe one of the super young females I took from the two foot..  There's only like three babies though so who knows.

Not quite as crazy a busy day but still pretty busy. I tried multiple times to do some scripting, but whenever I started someone would interrupt me. Even after 17:00 when most people were offline, people came to talk to me in real life and I *still* didn't get any scripting done hmmmm. KFC for dinner. Whoops. Andor 2.6 (somewhat better episode, easier to follow), Lego Masters.

Thursday.  Slept mostly okish.

Fairly busy day again.

Saw these guys at lunch attacking a new grass seed mat

Good drinks, heaps of people, and even a whole heap of pizzas (thanks Timmy!) so I had dinner before I even got home. Lego Masters .. awwwwwwwwwww so sad to see Owen and Gabby go. Someone must have come to Kit's place again today because most (not all) of the lights are off now.

Friday.  Okish sleep. Took an RDO. Got some things done in the morning. Went out before lunch to do a couple of things, but ended up being out for nearly four hours #grunt. There's a couple moving into Kit's today, including a dude with an actual truck. Leftover beef from the freezer for dinner. DS9 4.15,  urgh another tedious episode. Then The Bomb and the Cold War episode 7.

Saturday.  Ok sleep I think. Semi productive day. I asked the sweetie what he wanted for dinner and so he got Dumpling Inn haha. Had that while watching Jaws, on account of it being fifty years ago yesterday that it was first released in cinemas (in the US). Also because Stu has never actually seen it. !!

Sunday.  Slept okish. Less productive day today. Did get some photo culling done and some food shopping, but a lot of the day went on a horrible jigsaw.

Windoze Explorer has been continuing to drive me crazy.  This week it refuses to honour settings I've previously set like sorting and icon size.  I was trying to file email attachments and it would reset the settings to whatever it felt like EVERY SINGLE TIME I NAVIGATED AWAY.  Or it'll just randomly jump to the top of the window and I have scroll back down to find where I was working.  FFS windows is trash.  Tonight it actually remembered my blog photo directory by some miracle, although Chrome reset itself.  I hate windoze.  

Sunday.  Star Wars Day.  Stu cooked a cauliflower and feta bake with brussels sprouts and zucchini for dinner.  

DS9 3.9 then Andor 2.1.

Monday.  Slept okish. The guppies downstairs I think are doing ok, but I think the ones in the four foot got eaten. I think one might have survived overnight (but didn't see it again later in the week). Catching up at work (not too many interruptions hurray). Cooked very nice salmon for dinner (huge pieces though), with salad for me and leftover veggies for the sweetie. DS9 3.10 which was pretty silly.

Sunrise.. sunset..

Tuesday - Slept okish. All over the place day. Did manage to do a change I'd been planning though. The sweetie cooked the mince I cooked the other night with olives and tomatoes and fake fettuccini which was very nice.

DS9 3.11. Had to LOL at a Riot-ACT post from the other day. They were all spruiking the "first Malatang in a food court in Canberra" in Civic. The first comment on the page was literally from someone saying the people in Belconnen must be shocked that they don't live in Canberra (there's been a Malatang at Belco mall since pre covid). I just reloaded the entry and got a 404. bwahahahaha.

Wednesday. Awake from 1:30 to 5:00 or so. Hurrah. Distracting day again. Did get some decom work done in the later afternoon. Pizzas for dinner. Was going to make slow cooked lamb shanks, but, life. DS9 3.12.

Thursday.  Awake for a while in the middle of the night. Managed quite a bit of decom work due to not being interrupted every five seconds. Was actually a fairly peaceful day. Put the lamb shanks on at lunch, they turned out really well. Too often in the past my slow cooker lamb shanks have super watery sauce, so this time I didn't cover the meat - I only used about a cup of liquid with a stockcube, as well as a heap of fresh rosemary and some gobs of minced garlic. At the end I made gravy like I do with the pulled pork - take the lamb out to shred, pour all the stock/juices into a saucepan with some cornflour (in a slurry with a little water). Boil til thickened. Mix back in with lamb. Enjoy!  I didn't get an "after" photo.  DS9 3.13.

The veggies didn't make it to leftovers..

Friday.  Early night so woke up at 4. Hurrah. Got a bit more sleep and in the end woken from a dream (wherein I was drifting over Sydney in what appeared to be a massive cruise ship, but I was also weightless. I held onto a handrail tightly (in case gravity came back suddenly) and just floated. Nice :) ).

More decom work. Kievs and a cauliflower bake for dinner.

Then Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Don't know why it rates so highly in IMDB - pretty much most of the entire movie takes place on one night in the story. And it's just so damned *dark*!!

Saturday.  Slept okish. Awake for a while here and there though.

Just a day of all the things. Started back into culling of Europe 2016 photos again so I can get them online.

Made butt sorry beef cheeks for dinner with lemon garlic broccolini which was very nice.

Watched Andor 2.2, Fantasia 2000, and The Movies That Made Us on Back to the Future.

Sunday.  Awake from ~1:25 to ~4 hurrah. Bit of a slow start. Quieter day, but did do some Europe photo culling.

Sunday.  27th.  Leftovers for dinner then Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I still don't like how they explain how he's the half blood prince in the movie. Not that the book was a whole lot better - it was just a line, but at least it had that line.

Monday.  28th.  Remembering Alan's first heart attack, Como Presbyterian Church reopening after the 1994 bushfires, and the Port Arthur Massacre. Slept okish - restless and thermoregulation issues. My computer crashed last night #grunt and it wasn't even for patching this time. Managed to lose another hair tie overnight. Like how does that even happen, I've only been in like three rooms since last night. While searching I did find one I lost a couple of months ago. Hurray. Busy day. The sweetie cooked creamy mushroom fake noodles which was quite nice. DS9 3.4. Looked more into ways to disable Optus while overseas, including setting a SIM PIN, and locking the phone to Optus manually (but that causes a battery hit apparently). Also realised that my iPhone 5 is really a brick now on Optus since they shut down 3G, which is why it won't connect anymore. Spent entirely too much time stressing over Optus being such a ripoff.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok I think. Busy day. Lunch with the sweetie. Bought some light tshirts (all my tshirts are dark, which is no good for Greece or Dubai in summer). Lots of rain FINALLY and even some thunderbolts and lightning. The sweetie cooked some nice mince for dinner (well I cooked the mince the other weekend, but he added nicely to it). DS9 3.5 then holiday planning.

Wednesday.  Took forever to get to sleep - restless legs for ages. Tried to turn the heater on. But the control panel was dead. So Stu went to reboot it. The panel turned all the led things on. But then turned off. Then started flickering on and off. So he rebooted it again (leaving it off longer). It came up for a few seconds normally.. but then started flickering again. Sigh. So leaving it off for longer this time.

All on!

Did put a jumper on for third time this year. KFC for dinner, DS9 3.6, early night.

Thursday.  Took a while to get to sleep (cold!) but mostly slept ok. 12.7C in the study in the morning!! eep!! Achieved pretty much nothing all day. Super quiet drinks. Blue cheese pizzas for dinner. DS9 3.7. Early night.

Friday.  Got to sleep ok, but then awake from like 1-4. Sigh. The heater worked briefly in the morning then died. Nice warm day though so the house wasn't too crazy. Stu rebooted the heater again and it worked for a few minutes then died again. Sigh. Emailed Travis about recommendations for a split system but he hasn't mailed me back. The sweetie cooked up a cauliflower bake and brussels sprouts with kievs for dinner. 

DS9 3.8 which was pretty silly. Then another episode of an anime series of some Japanese travel blogger. Continued frustration with the heater which might work for a minute or two then just die. Sigh. The house is cold. Sigh.

Saturday.  Awake from like 3 or 4 and never got back to sleep. Sigh.

Another ripe mini capsicum!!

Super busy day. Attacked the todo list (mostly) in the order it happened to be in FreeMind. Chong Co for dinner then Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. Finished just in time to see Dutton's concession speech.

Sunday.  Slept somewhat better. More ploughing through the todo list. Moved ten young guppies to the tank downstairs which has been empty for a while and desperately needing new fish, and four to the four foot (it definitely needs a lot more guppies). Need to get a few new guppies with different genetics though.

I doubt I'll get to eat this tomato.. 

Remember how much I was complaining about windoze resetting the folder views every time I went to use them?  Well the last week or two it's been a lot better - my in tray folder of photos for blogging has maintained my view settings.  This makes me happy.  I guess enough other people complained about it.

After seeing all the dead pixels in my (Dad's) old 600D thought it was time for a new one.  The new one has a dead pixel right in the middle.  But we won't talk about that.

The first photo I took on it I didn't even realise I had taken it.  It's fast and silent!

Second shot was of the sweetie of course.  Quite soft though

Obligatory Lego shot

I think at this point I'd set the date wrong on the camera so fixed that.  We won't mention that the time was actually 12 hours out as well. 

Not bad at fish photos, with a fair bit of zoom

A couple of shots of the sweetie later on - super shallow depth of field here, I'm wondering if that's cause it focussed on him being a human

Next up the true test - under the house with almost no light.  It did really well here - quite bright - a lot brighter than it looks in real life!

Went outside and took a bunch of photos of flowers which turned out quite well

Had a play with the "art" filters.  Yeah nah, none of them are any good.

A closeup of a fish - not bad

I went back downstairs to try out more options.  I tried the "hand held night scene" which supposedly takes like three photos and stacks them.  But this turned out all fuzzy.  The simple single shot (below) worked better.

This was using the "food" filter which is supposed to make things look more vibrant.  I guess it did maybe?

The next day took it to Annie's and got a nice, fairly candid, shot of her

And then the real test - comet photos!

If you can get past all of Elon's space junk cluttering up the sky #grunt

One without satellites

Thanks Elon

Thanks Elon.  This shot has TEN satellites ruining it!! (hard to see resized)

Thanks Elon

I did get a nice shot of Orion.  Well one, the others were ruined by Elon's space junk

A couple of weeks later took some more photos of the fish

And other random stuff around the house

Fern closeup

Did I mention the super shallow depth of field, even with only a modest zoom?

When I took it to Adelaide the other weekend, all of my photos on it were rather dull and lifeless compared to my phone photos.  

Like.. compare the pair..

 

Seriously WTF??

Hoping it's just a setting somewhere.. will have to do some more playing.

I'm also frustrated with the lack of zoom.  And I knew I was going to be.  I stand by my opinion of many years ago.. L series lenses are like twice the cost, but they're not twice as good.  Things are still soft at raw pixels..

I miss the old 18-135mm lens I had (~24-200 equivalent with crop).  I only get half that now. Sigh.

Yeup.

Monday.  17th.  Slept mostly ok - although took me a while to get to sleep - it's been *cold* the last two nights - like 3 or 4 C overnight.  House work before work.  Work work at work.  It was so cold in the house I had to put my jeans on!  Salad for lunch.  Salad takes a long time to prepare and eat, did you know?  Had a 45 minute lunch break, and most of that was taken up with prepping and eating.  And I still ended up hungry by like 16:30.  Booked a hotel in Adelaide.  Realised the angel tank was leaking *again*.  Even with a stone weighing it down, the filter had drifted over into the edge of its compartment into the outflow compartment, backing everything up.  Not so serious this time but sheesh.  Need a heavier stone.  Stumpy has decided he's not very hungry anymore this summer.  Salmon and salad for dinner.  More time taking prepping food and eating food.  At least the salad can be done while the meat is cooking, and the eating can be done while watching TV.  Watched Return to Paradise 1.3.  Another preposterous setup for a murder.  Reminded me a bit of Death of a Detective from season 3 of Death in Paradise.  Then a few minutes of hobbies and suddenly it's bed time.  hrmm.  Also, turns out maltitol is really bad for the sweetie's bowels.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok.  Spent the morning going through a log of stuff other teams have deleted, so can list all the things we need to do to clean up after them.  Did some scripting in the afternoon.  Fixed my foreach statement with a where-object, because sometimes arrays are not really arrays, but you apply a where-object to them and then you can work with them.  Sheesh powershell is dumb sometimes.  Wondered if I could compile all Mum's family photos in two weeks.  So put in a start on it.  Leftovers for dinner.  Return to Paradise 1.4.  Finished a Nanoblocks set I got at Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction.  

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok.

Potato fruit!

Bit of decom thinking, but too many meetings to get much done.  Bit of scripting in the afternoon.  Thought it was green bin week.  The green bin is full.  But no, it's recycling week.  The recycling bin is only 1/3 full.  Sigh.  Leftovers for dinner.  Return to Paradise 1.5.  Continued frustration with Windoze which constantly opens text files ON THE OTHER DESKTOP!!  Like, I have Notepad open in my current desktop.  I open a text file and it opens in the current desktop.  But a minute later I open another text file and it opens ON THE OTHER DESKTOP.  I HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN TO THE OTHER DESKTOP!!  Sigh.  Backed up computer, washed hair, bed.

Thursday.  Slept mostly ok.  Found the lovely pleco in the downstairs two foot tank had died overnight.  I don't get it.  It seemed happy enough yesterday.  Today, dead.  Sigh.  Also a bunch of guppies in the two foot are looking sick with red gills.  I don't get that either - that's the healthiest tank we have and I even did a water change last weekend.  Lots of crap at work, feeling like not getting anything useful done. 

Jim and Ray did a pizza feast to commemorate all the shut down and decom work we've been doing (remember all those migrations I did last year?  we decommed the hardware just recently).

Then drinks and more pizzas.  Finale of Return to Paradise season 1.  Much like the other series, the setups for the murders are completely ridiculous.  

Friday.  Awake from like 3:30 or 4 or so.  Sigh.  Another day of a lot of crap and distractions and feeling like not achieving much.  Stu cooked miso mushrooms and cauliflower rice for dinner which was very nice.  

Then we started into Deep Space Nine.  Stu watched this himself years ago but I didn't watch it with him at the time.  He wanted to watch it again so we're watching it now.  Early night on account of early morning.

Saturday.  So I went to bed relatively early, but not early enough, so it took til nearly midnight for me to get to sleep.  Sigh.  Stoopid being too tired to go to sleep.  Just tired and restless. 

Mostly house stuff in the morning.  Was freaking out about my todo list.  Then spent the ENTIRE afternoon tagging people in Picasa.  Sigh.  But I did find out you can simply move out the two database directories in and out and so therefore have different databases for different folders of files.  Handy if you want to keep the tagged people in different groups.  Like I want to keep work peeps separate to friends and family.  Leftovers for dinner then Stranger Things 1.4.  Early night.

Sunday.  Early night again and then slept mostly ok which was nice.  Spent all morning on photo filing and tagging.  When I probably should have been doing crap I won't be able to do the next couple of weekends.  Bit more "productive" in the afternoon, including cooking all the food.  

Monday.  10th.  Backdated because I spent the time I should have been blogging on cooking instead.

Stormy overnight.  Woke up around 2, then 3, then 4, but managed to get back to sleep each time.  Not a terribly productive day at work - fighting all the crap.  Found out HBZ is leaving.  And I immediately started feeling a sense of impending doom.  So did Con.  Yummy dinner of slow cooked pork neck and all the veggies.  Beyond Paradise 1.4, then bed.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok I think.  The BS started as soon as I logged in - a product used by our security team needs direct internet access, *apparently* doesn't support a proxy (to be confirmed).  Seriously this is a SECURITY product???  Didn't get anywhere with the errors on the new mail servers.  Although we were able to do a restore of an old one to a new one and it's working ok.  Mince and cabbage for dinner.  Beyond Paradise 1.5.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok I think.  Was stretching just after I got up and felt a bit of a twang in my shoulder which hurts a bit.  Another unproductive day of dealing with crap and no word back from mail server vendor.  Nearly two weeks into keto and I'm already sick of food.  Sick of cooking.  Sick of having to think about what to eat.  Some retard used my Gmail address to book a hotel in South Carolina.  Very tempted to cancel the day before so he gets charged the first night fee and has nowhere to stay.  Stressed with travel agent who hasn't been communicating very well.  And finished Beyond Paradise, which had a nice crossover into Death in Paradise at the end of the 2023 season.  

Thursday.  Slept okish.  After emailing the mob in South Carolina last night that someone had booked the hotel using my email address, I got a thing back from them to say they'd cancelled the booking.  Lolz.  Another day of not getting much done due to all the crap.  Some of Con's grad cohort came to drinks which was a bit of fun.  Pizzas then started into Return to Paradise - a spinoff series set on the South Coast, with filming locations on the South Coast as well as Avalon.

Friday.  Had a bit of time for scripting in the afternoon.  But couldn't get a simple foreach to work.  Sigh.  Kievs for dinner, then Stranger Things 1.2, then the first two episodes of Meltdown: Three Mile Island.

Saturday.  Slept okish until about 4:30. hrmm. 

When you pack up the majority of the carbs in your pantry (I couldn't move in there).  Will slowly start going through this in a few weeks.

Stu found a keto muffin recipe that's actually quite good

Had a busy morning including house stuff, booking flights to Adelaide, taking my brand-new-second-hand saxophone for a service, going to Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction.  It's still got most of the vibes of the Green Shed in terms of range of stuff for sale.  But all the bits and pieces are arranged mostly by colour.  Odd.  It's also a bit expensive, like the cheapest stuff is still a dollar (sub dollar would be better for something small), cheap plastic glasses are still $2 which seems a bit high.  Jigsaws are somewhat variable but mostly $4 (Green Shed was $3 per jigsaw flat rate).  However, they retain the colour coded bargain weeks that Vinnies do, which means that that $4 jigsaw is only $1 or $2 depending on the coloured tag.  So I wasn't going to buy anything.  And then I did.  Whoops.  More house stuff in the afternoon.

Stu cooked creamy mushrooms and cauliflower rice for dinner - yum!

Return to Paradise 1.2, then finished the last two episodes of Meltdown: Three Mile Island.

Sunday.  Slept ok I think.  Another busy day of house stuff, but this time had a bit of time for hobbies.  Played some clarinet for possibly the first time this year.  hrmmm. 

Dropped into the reptile place at Gold Creek.  They *still* don't have a 48" 10% UV light, but they did suggest an edison screw heater with UV that I could try in the meantime.  But I'm a bit worried about giving Stumpy sunburn, he hasn't had any UV all summer.  The baby blueys are so cute though!!

Did you know you can buy garlic cloves by the kilo?  Only $12 too!  Bargain!!

Lots of cooking in the afternoon, so no time to blog. 

A big veggie bake, a heap of garlic, and one of Tony's eggplants with ham and cheese.  The eggplant went very slimy though

Lachie's breakfast lasagna

Watched Stranger Things 1.3.  Tried to start on Chernobyl, but, technology.  Turned on the NAS for the first time in months.  The thing booted which was nice, but the admin interface and sharing protocols are so old my computer wouldn't talk to it.  Had to fire up an ancient version of Firefox I had lying around to be able to connect to the admin interface.  Reenabled SMB 1 on my computer but will need to reboot to use it.

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.

Monday.  9th.  Nice and cool overnight.  You'd think I'd be able to sleep.  You'd be wrong.  Took ages to get to sleep.  Busy morning before work doing all the dusting/vacuuming/weeding/cleaning the kitchen, and then time to go to work.  Cert renewal crap and meetings all day.  Kievs for dinner (was too hot and humid over the weekend to think about turning the oven on).  Did some catchup blogging, then bed.

Also waved at the peeps up on the space station.

Tuesday.  Nice and cool overnight.  You'd think I'd be able to sleep.  You'd be wrong.  Took ages to get to sleep.  Busy morning before work doing all the dusting/vacuuming/weeding/cleaning the kitchen, and then time to go to work.

Yeah a rinse and repeat.

Planned out some more decom work for later in the week.  Started looking at Daniel's quality report script.  Brain might have exploded.  Final Journey of Australian Science at the Shine Dome, which was back to hard science again which was pretty cool.  This one was related to the work of Sir John Carew Eccles.  They even had some of his family members there.

They had Prof Stephen Redman and Professor Lucy Palmer talking about their work with neurons and electricity in the brain.

Dinner at Terra afterwards.  We split a 220g beef brisket smoked steak and had charred broccolini and brisket fat chips as sides.  

Beef brisket (smoker) 220g | salsa verde $39

Charred broccolini | burnt miso butter, chili oil, garlic chips $18

Brisket fat chips $12

I enjoyed the sides.  The brisket itself I found a little.. dry..   I'm used to slower cooker brisket which is basically confit brisket.  This was done in a smoker so wasn't quite the same.  It wasn't bad, just wasn't what I'm used to.  It really needed the sauces.

Nice view of the tower on the way back to the car.

Wednesday.  Um.  I think I slept better.

Thursday.  12/12/24 - cool date!  I think I slept ok. 

Oh, I planted some mini capsicums the other week.  Some have sprouted.  At least one has been eaten already.

Got to do some decom work in the afternoon.  Ok drinks, but ate wayyy too much in the way of chips and sausage.  Still made pizzas but Stu ate most of mine.  Watched some more Jamie and Julia.

Friday.  took ages to get to sleep, then woke up at like 4:30.  Sigh.  Party day!!!!  The sweetie very kindly gave me a lift to work (he was working from home).  Picked up All The Sausages ($300 worth!!) and then just getting everything ready.  Went shopping with XL and Jo.  Then partied all afternoon! 

It was super hot though.  A special thanks to Louise and Tony for cooking the chicken and veggie stuff cause noone else wanted to go out in the heat! 

Typical though.. you give the camera to someone else and they cut off the tshirts and get all sky.  Uncropped.

Ho Ho Hold my .. bird.. ?  It's tradition for me to catch birds at these things.  I was never expecting to catch a honeyeater though!!

Finished up maybe like 19:30.  Stu took two loads of crap home.  Bestest sweetie ever!!  Con and Ward kicked on somewhere.  Tony biked it home.  And we gave Doc a lift home.  By the time we'd unpacked enough and organised, it was after nine by the time I got to bed.  Doh.

Saturday.  Slept relatively well.  Spent most of the morning organising the leftovers and party crap.  

For lunch I thought I'd see if any of the leftovers would give me food poisoning...

Mostly Lego filing in the afternoon.  Late in the afternoon I wondered how hard it would be to get a weather pixie on my blog...

Sunday.  Took ages to get to sleep (like 23:00).  Then woke up at 4:30.  Sigh.  Scripting, house stuff (two loads of washing up even! and ran the dishwasher for the second time in two days), Lego filing.  Put on my cd jukebox and listened to random crap all day.  Billy Joel sang about The King and I, and a few songs later Shall We Dance came up..!!  Funny stuff.