Fun Stuff: December 2016 Archives

So 2016. Not too bad a year for me personally. But memorable for a spate of celebrity deaths (two I'd seen in real life - David Bowie and Carrie Fisher) and two overseas trips.

My first trip of the year was by myself to Sydney to see mum and the uncles/aunties for a Christmas party in early January where I cooked a big baked dinner for everyone. Also saw two Lego exhibitions on the same day while I was up there. Came home from that trip to a pool party in full swing. In January we did a two week trip to Hong Kong (to see Chris and Anne one last time there before they came home) and Singapore. The weather was the biggest downer of the trip - grey and rainy in Hong Kong, and unbearably humid in Singapore. In April we went to Sydney again for my cousin Ben's wedding. Later in April I went to Europe for six weeks with mum. The first two weeks was for a "reformation tour" of sites pertaining to the protestant reformation. That was a really interesting trip and a good group of people. Had a couple of days in Salzburg before heading up to Scandanavia for a three week tour. We saw some amazing things on that tour, but the size of the group (forty people) made it incredibly draining for me. In June mum and I went down to Junee to visit David and celebrate mum's 70th birthday. We only went down to the coast once this year in July. And we did our yearly trip to Queensland, but in November, which was a lot later in the year than I wanted to (Stu had uni work making it to hard to go any earlier). Fortunately the weather wasn't *too* hot and humid.

At work my most interesting work was some firewall migrations. Our first attempt in the test environment though was a bit of a disaster. It took the cleverer network guys about a month to solve a super weird MTU issue in the switch infrastructure they were plugged into. After that, the migrations went very smoothly. I also did an authentication system migration which also went well. So the first half of the year I was pretty busy and the work was interesting. In the second half of the year though I had to deal with the proxies again which drains my will to live. Is there actually such a thing as a *good* proxy? I'm beginning to think not. They caused me a lot of stress this year, including *three* failed attempts to upgrade them to the lastest version. Other than that I was feeling way too dumb to be in the team I'm in. But things picked up towards the end of the year with another firewall migration that went pretty smoothly and a stocktake, which is kind of my super power.

Socially at work I ran another trivia night in March which was packed. We won the next trivia night in June, but luckily the second place getters agreed to run the next one. Which we then won in September, so now I have to run the next one. Had a Gatsby ball in June, although I didn't get with the theme. Had a whiskey night in July. And for our section Christmas party (with various hangers on) I organised a bbq for nearly 40 people.

Healthwise I've been ok. I find lying down uncomfortable due to my deformed spine, which results in a lot of insomnia due to not being comfortable. Early in the year I did some proactive stuff that I'd been putting off forever - I got my skin checked, went to the dentist for the first time in twenty years and got new glasses. I got a minor cold in July, and a more severe one in November.

We've had a super social year this year. We've continued our visits to "the club", going to events and committee meetings in February, March, June, did a Christmas in July, October, twice in November (one of them we fed seventy-plus people) and December. My best friend from high school Chris moved down to Canberra at the end of last year so we've seen quite a bit of her - either dinners here, there, or out, or just going for walks (she lives in stumbling distance which is super handy!). We've also spent a lot of time with Kit, and also Ben and Serena - mostly just hanging out in the courtyard, but the occasional parties, meals as well, and even a p0ker night. Ben moved into a new place earlier in the year and we had a small housewarming there. I did an impromptu hanami party with Chris, Kit and Serena, and another one a week later with Nat and Andrew and the sweetie. Unfortunately that was the only time we saw Nat and Andrew all year. We've seen quite a bit of EffanC and Scott this year as well which as been nice - alternating between our places and enjoying champagne or a local equivalent. We had games nights at Mishi's in July and August. Also caught up with Damien and Amanda at the Dumpling Inn, and Damien and Tom at the Durham on a trivia night. Managed to see Ding twice this year, although the second time was a lot more chaotic with a heap of people in the house. Luc came to stay a night in March, Stu's ex colleague Jenn came for dinner, and we had an afternoon tea at Chris and Glenda's.

Dave and Kat came to stay with us five times this year which was great - in February, April, August, November and December. Mum stayed in June and December. Kerry and the kids dropped in in April, and Potty and Jake came to stay a night on the way to the snow and ended up staying for several nights. Didn't see much of Annie's family, only saw them a couple of times. Graham and Pam came to stay in April as well, and we went to the Dumpling Inn for dinner. Uncle Colin dropped in to say hi in December.

Various people came to swim in the pool in the summer months. For Christmas we did roast pork for Mum, Dave, Kat, Chris and Zac.

In the fish tanks I had four baby angels at the beginning of the year but three of them died. One of them survived, and it shares the AR-620T tank with four huge danios and a cory catfish. The two foot tank was a disaster at the end of last year with toxic black algae. I moved the fish downstairs over summer and cleaned it out completely. The black algae did start to come back, but with a bunch of plants, snails and a siamensis the tank has stabilised nicely and looks really good. The two remaining black neon tetras died this year - but they'd had a good run - I'd had them for ten years!! Amazing for such small fish. I bought some danios to be dither fish for the rummy nose tetras which worked really well - you can see them and their colour a lot better now. So in the upstairs two foot I have the five rummy nose tetras, five danios and a siamensis. Downstairs I had four of Chris's platies that I looked after while she moved house, but three of them died so there's only one left now. It shares the tank with four danios. Stu also has a tiny tank with a betta and some really small fish, and his four foot which got overrun with algae for a while but it's settled down a bit now.

I did a 5000 piece jigsaw this year which was good, but the quality of it was shocking. Did other jigsaws as well, but not as many this year. I've been doing a lot of nonograms online ever since the GCHQ Christmas puzzle last year. And just a couple of days ago I rediscovered Loops of Zen. I didn't buy any Lego this year, but I did spend a couple of months sorting out all of Zac's Lego.

The weather was *hot* this year. Summer seemed to last *forever* this year - global warming anyone? Made good use of the pool, but suffered in the heat. Had a lot of heat-induced insomnia and generally felt miserable for months. We got some hail in January. The pool only froze over twice this year in late June. It actually snowed one morning in July, but then a week later had the warmest overnight July temperature in recorded history. The El Niño finished up and it rained *a lot* over winter and spring.

We did a lot of stuff with the house this year. We got all the guttering replaced (while I was overseas). No more flooding of the garage after heavy rain! We got gutter guards in one corner where the oak tree is, but probably should have gotten them along the back as well, as one end still clogs up from that tree. Our twenty five year old hot water system died in the middle of winter, luckily a plumber could come the same day to replace it. The same plumber came a month or so later to clear out the sewer pipes which had been blocked by roots. We put evaporative cooling in which has been amazing for the most part, except this whole Christmas break which feels like the humidest week in Canberra ever! And we got a solar blanket for the pool (basically glorified bubble wrap) which has made a small difference to the temperature, but also has added bonuses of keeping most of the light out so algae doesn't grow as much, and keeps most of the leaves and bugs out as well.

I got a bit frustrated with technology this year. Had to fight with Logitech's Harmony remote software again. In the end never got it working with our tv. Upgraded my computer to Windows 10, which actually went ok, but had some drama with Windows Defender, and got sick of it rebooting without permission whenever it feels like it. I thought I'd bricked my iPhone because the battery got so dead it wouldn't turn on, even after charging overnight. Warming it up fixed it. Did this several more times over the next few months before finally replacing the battery in late November. I would like to get an iPhone 7, but I want one as small as I have now. Still having issues with the scanner, but still haven't gotten around to testing it on another computer to see if it's the computer or the scanner. And this blog got moved to new hardware by my hosting company so it's a lot more responsive now.

The Dumpling Inn was still our most visited restaurant this year. We went for Chrissie's birthday, again with Pam and Graham, again with Chrissie, with Chris and mum in June, and Damien and Amanda in July. I finally got to go to Smoque in Civic, fortunately, because it closed down later in the year. I went with Neil to a degustation dinner at Sage which was awesome. We went to Shogun for Ben's birthday, The Hungry Buddha with EffanC and Scott, and Casey Jones with Annie and the family for my birthday. With the sweetie we had dessert at Max Brenner in Civic, went to Chong Co, and tried Jamie's Italian and Pappa Rich. Generally we didn't eat out as much this year - trying to save a bit of money. Although we still had a lot of pizza! And bacon and cheese loaded fries from Maccas. omfg sooo good! Sadly the last time I tried to get some they didn't have them anymore :(

I didn't do a whole lot of creative cooking this year. I did make some cream cheese bacon balls which are so evil they're amazing. I made "epic" stuffed zucchini. I made some cheese and spinach pastries with some pastry inherited from Kerry before they moved which turned out pretty well. I did a zucchini lasagna. And a I tried a couple of different breakfast casseroles - one pretty evil and I made it a few times, and one I wasn't too fussed about.

Theatre/Shows/Exhibitions:
* Art of the Brick Exhibition in Sydney
* Sydney Icons in Lego in Sydney
* The Proclaimers

Movies:
* Sherlock - The Abominable Bride
* The Big Short
* Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
* Independence Day: Resurgence
* Finding Dory
* Star Trek: Beyond
* Rogue One

TV:
* Finished the last seasons of House
* Season 1 of Fuller House
* Documentaries on Netflix
* First four seasons of Homeland
* Most of Star Trek: the Original Series
* Australian Survivor
* Start of season 2 of Fuller House

Books:
* The Tower by Richard Martin Stern
* The Hindenburg Disaster by Jeff Rovin
* Raise the Titanic! by Clive Cussler
* Grey Mountain by John Grisham
* Penguin Bloom by Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive

Other Stuff:
* Started off year with an impromptu neighbourhood party at Kit's
* Didn't dance on Lachie's table
* Saddened by deaths of David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Prince, Gene Wilder, Kenny Baker, George Michael, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, and the end of the world as we know it, ie, the US presidential election results.
* Went to the Mint open day
* Went to Canberra's new Ikea for first time
* Went to the Canberra Show with Chrissie
* Watched Das Rheingold with the sweetie, but still haven't gotten around to watching the rest of it
* Saw the Canberra balloon fiesta - twice
* Digitised my USA 2000 blog, although still haven't added photos to it
* Did the Granite Tors walk with Kit, nearly trod on a brown snake
* Ben and Stu fixed up the festoon lights out the back (only took seven and a half years to get around to doing!)
* Went to the Canberra Airport open day
* Installed Windows 10 on my travel laptop and my main computer
* Scanned ten of mum's photo albums
* Voted twice, but only got one #democracysausage
* Went out to Cotter Dam in August to see it overflowing, and went back again a week or two later to get it with better lighting
* Did a flying visit to Sydney in August to drop Stu off at the airport early Sunday morning, and saw the Sea Cliff Bridge on the way home
* Chrissie brought up her steam cleaner and made the bathroom all sparkly
* Saw James Turrell's Skyspace at the Art Gallery
* Kept myself busy in September with a massive photo project
* Popped into the War Memorial for an hour to look at the newly done WWI memorial halls
* Saw the first flight from Singapore to Canberra land, and the first flight from Canberra to Wellington depart
* Went to Costco for the second time. I think Coles and Aldi are actually cheaper.
* Did a massive photoshoot around Canberra to compare thirty years ago til now
* Photographed the super moon
* Spent several days over the break cleaning out cupboards

These are my jigsaw efforts for all of 2016.  Not as many this year - too busy!  (and the big one took ages, then I was away for a while).

After having so much fun with the 1000 different coloured piece jigsaw, Stu got me its big brother - a 5000 piece version - for Christmas last year (although it didn't arrive til January).  It was certainly a lot more challenging, and would have been quite awesome, except for the fact that the quality was shocking and there was a piece missing.  I really want a refund it was that bad.  I'm going to do a full post and send it to the manufacturers to complain.

This was a jigsaw I did out at the club - of the entrance to Dreamworld.

These were the three jigsaws I did at the coast in July.

This is a 1500 piece jigsaw brought home from mum's at some point.  Did most of it myself then David helped finish it when he came up in August.

This 1000 piece jigsaw of balloons we all smashed out in an evening.

So the next day we very quickly did this one of buttons.

This is supposed to be "the world's most difficult jigsaw" as it's got the same picture on the back, but rotated ninety degrees.  So each piece (except a diagonal line through the middle) exists twice.  So yes it was a bit difficult, but certainly not the most difficult jigsaw ever.  I started it at work the day I was watching graphs and finished it over lunch breaks in the next few weeks.

A jigsaw of New York that I bought shortly after the World Trade Centre attacks of 2001.  I'd done it once back then, and we did it when David came to visit in November.

This was setup at work in a different team's area.  I discovered it just after they'd separated the pieces and done some of the edge.  We finished it in forty minutes flat.

And this is my own jigsaw of the world that David mostly did when he came up for Christmas.  He also did another jigsaw on Christmas morning but I didn't document it because I barely helped at all - was too busy cooking lunch!

Annie gave me another landmark Nanoblock set for Christmas - I've now got three landmarks that I've been to sitting on my desk :)

Earlier in the year they resurfaced our road.  But they did it using their new horrible method of just putting a bit of tar down and smooshing a bit of gravel into it.  Absolutely appalling way to resurface a road, and there were potholes in it within a couple of months.

So I was all WTF when for this little rest area on the Federal Highway just at the north end of Canberra where they did a full hot-bitumen treatment *for a carpark* !!  So wrong.

And some little kid lost this troll head near our house.  Someone put it on top of our letterbox where I found it when I got home.  I considered leaving it back out there in case the kid came back, but it was just a Maccas happy meal troll, not particularly exciting or irreplaceable.  So I still have it on my desk.

The little brother couldn't help himself on Monday morning, he had to clean our bathroom exhaust vent :)

Such a good little brother :):)

This was one of my photos of the supermoon a couple of weeks ago.. (actual pixel size)

In other news, Uncle Colin called me out of the blue this afternoon - he was in the country and could he pop over after dinner to say hi..  so he did!  Was nice to see him again.  Hopefully we'll see him again early in the new year before he wanders off back to Europe (it's a tough life but someone has to do it!)

Earlier in the year I scanned a photo of Canberra taken thirty years ago on a family holiday here which completely freaked me out.  It was a photo of my brother and I in front of the Canberra Times Fountain in Civic.  But most of the Canberra Centre didn't exist then, instead there was a road, a car park and a clear view to Mount Ainslie.  So in September I embarked on a photo mission to recreate as many photos as I could from that holiday.  I drove several hundred kilometers I think (I certainly used up more than a tank of fuel).  It would have been more efficient if I'd been able to have four days off with good weather, but the weather was problematic in September (it rained *a lot*) and I didn't have four full days in a row with work and all.  So I did what I could with the lighting I had, with priority on the more seasonally-dependent things like cherry blossoms.  Sadly the Captain Cook Fountain was out of action for months which ruined things somewhat.  Now that it's operating again I might go and redo some of them.  This is a quick snapshot of another blog to come ..

Cotter Dam

Mount Stromlo

Canberra Times Fountain

High Court

Australian-American Monument

Carillon

Carillon sunset

Lake Burley Griffin Sunset

Parliament House

National Library

Scrivener Dam

Government House

Mount Pleasant

Weston Park

Weston Park

Weston Park

Weston Park

Commonwealth Avenue

Black Mountain Peninsula

Black Mountain Peninsula

High Court

Australian War Memorial

Mount Ainslie

Black Mountain Tower

View from Black Mountain Tower

Black Mountain Tower by night

View from Black Mountain Tower

Australian War Memorial

Australian War Memorial

Mount Ainslie

St Andrews Presbyterian Church

Carillon

National Capital Exhibition

Australian War Memorial

Australian Botanical Gardens

Science Academy, ANU (The Shine Dome)

Civic

Canberra Times Fountain (not fountaining)

Civic Square

Cockington Green

St Andrews Presbyterian Church

Parliament House

Australian War Memorial view

High Court

Department of the Environment

National Gallery of Australia

Carillon

 
I was busy..

I did several hundred kilometres all over Canberra

A bunch more photos taken during the year that needed blogging..

One of Kit's brown frogs.  She had two or three of them that she'd had for years, and they died almost at the same time, she has no idea why..

Curious George..

Happy flower!

Petal snow!

Poppy

Teeny teeny bug at the Christmas party last week

Way back in April we headed up to Sydney for my cousin Ben's wedding.  It was a very relaxed afternoon and evening and it was great catching up with the cousins.

We stayed the night at Oxford Falls nearby, and as we went to leave the next morning we discovered this..

Fortunately we weren't in any hurry and the weather was fine, so it was a relatively low stress thing to fix.  And our spare tire is a full tire, not one of those stoopid mini tires with an 80km/h speed limit which would have made our trip home pretty painful.

Kit has hatched five chickens and a duck over spring.

The five chickens were born in September, and they've all grown up now (well as much as that breed does), and two have been given away.

The duck hatched in October.  This was from an egg from her own ducks.  She also tried a whole heap more from someone else at the same time, but they were all duds (apparently the dude left them way too long before giving them to Kit).  The idea was that she'd be able to have a little flock of ducklings, and one could become Christmas dinner.  So the single duckling became known as "Roast".  But she's not sure if she'll eat it, it being the only one and all.