Kazza the Blank One

Sunday.  20th.  Leftovers for dinner, MacGyver, photo stuff.

Monday.  Somewhat restless sleep. Busy day of achieving nothing. Although I did convince some peeps to let go of some legacy DNS entries which made me happy. Leftovers for dinner, MacGyver, finances stuff.

Tuesday.  Somewhat restless sleep. My monitor crashed overnight. Or rather, it was in powersave mode, even though I always turn it off at night. Then this morning it just powered off while I was using it. hmmmmm. Disjointed day waiting for people. Had another go at doing the test upgrades.. at least they didn't bone themselves this time. Stu cooked a nice creamy mushroom pasta for dinner.

This week I started my usual annual Christmas countdown panic a little early (it usually starts in October). Well not Christmas so much as end of the year and all the things I want to achieve by then. So wrote some things down and tried to plan out how to achieve it all.

Wednesday.  Dunno, no notes.  Did have lunch with DC though which was nice.

Thursday.  Feeling overwhelmed and stoopid at work. May have had a meltdown at one point. Sat outside at drinks.  Made a new friend..

Chrissie came up too later on, for her last time :( Invited her over for dinner (Mills&Grills).  She's one of those weird people that likes anchovies too, so got her and Stu a Napolitana, and I got a satay chicken.

Friday.  First day part time!!!!  

Packed up the car with cans for recycling, jigsaws for Lifeline, and some fluoro tubes for the tip. ReturnIt have replaced their machines so instead of having to feed them one at a time and do glass separately, you can now just dump the whole lot in and it'll sort it all for you. IT'S A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER!!!! Although you do get more "ineligible". Sad about the state of the garden this year. Only had one daffodil, and no jonquils. Hardly getting any orange poppies, don't think there's any purple ones. Only two strawberry plants have any flowers. Then just normal hobby/photo stuff.  In the evening went in to do the Canberra 40 years night time shots.  This time Tony came with me which was nice and very much appreciated.  We had dinner at Badger first.  That place is more misses than hits.  I had the special arancini balls, which were really nice.. except that a couple of them were a little cold in the middle :(

How cool is this?  This is Venus!  It's only at 240mm, I should have a go with the 800..

Old Parliament House and various other buildings are purple at the moment

This thing is so damned pretty at night!

Was pissed off that I couldn't get my Carillon shots because they'd covered it up with ads for a police rememberance day..

Something big going up in Barton.  With pretty greenly-lit cranes.  As seen from Mount Ainslie.

The Eternal Flame at the War Memorial

Saturday.  

Mostly photo stuff.  Cooked up a bolognase for dinner.

Finished Kenton's episode from Miami and the Everglades, then Black Mirror. Fricken moths everywhere at the moment, and a whitetail!!!

Sunday.  Took ages to get to sleep - restless legs. Photo stuff/dotz/Lego in the morning then out to the Old Kingston side of Jerrabomberra Wetlands birding.

Fish feeding frenzy in the shallows

Flowers!

Planes!

On the way out there we listened to a birding podcast and the guest speaker was talking about all the crap she takes on hikes.  Decided I needed to make up a "go bag" with some stuff in it that I can grab and take on bird walks that's stocked with water, snacks, first aid, etc.  While I was gathering things I found a USB battery charger that I'd lost YEARS ago!!  I thought I'd lent it to someone and that was the end of that.  But found it in my grandfather's raincoat pocket!!  What the??

Got home and it was time to prepare dinner.. hrmmm!

Sunday.  13th.  Had a nice slow cooker beef stew for dinner and watched some birding videos with Stu.

There was a barking dog going off somewhere for a while in the evening hrmmmm.

Monday.  Okish sleep. The barking dog was barking again this morning. Sigh.  Found this wasp in the bathroom in the morning.  Didn't know what to do with her.  In the end I kept her in a container for the day and released her the next day.  I know I probably should have killed her, but what difference can one wasp make?   Unless she was a queen in which case... whoops...

Google Street View has gotten totally enshittified. Their latest is they're letting companies drive around doing the photography AND LETTING THEM PLASTER ADS ALL OVER THE VIEWS. DISGUSTING!!!!

At least I have this to look at when I open the front door..

Busy day. Leftovers for dinner. Sadness that we probably won't be able to reproduce Skippers Gorge photos in New Zealand because the drive would terrify the sweetie too much.

Tuesday.  Restless sleep. The barking dog was barking again this morning. Sigh. Busy day.

More pink and purple (and yellow) trash..

It begins...

Sadness that we won't be able to reproduce Ball Hut photos in New Zealand because you can't drive there anymore, instead it's a 9km challenging hike. Each way. Sigh. Finished (what I could) of geotagging Dad's New Zealand photos.

Wednesday.  Dunno, no notes, it's been a week.

There seems to be only one baby gak gak bird left (there were at three originally)

By pure chance I had two different photos of Mt Fuji on my desktop.

Tornado potato!

Stu cut up all these veggies so I went to Chris's and got some frozen chicken strips to go with them

Thursday.  Awake early, no other notes, it's been a week.

Mills and Grills Deluxe Meat and Marinara.  Meat good. Marinara not good.

Friday.  Okish sleep. FFS windoze is trash. It rebooted overnight for patching. Fine. It tried to reload chrome/notepad/OneNote etc when I relogged in. Fine. Except it opened one of my Chrome windows, notepad and OneNote ON MY SECOND DESKTOP. USELESS! So I restarted notepad and OneNote on my main screen, but one of my Chrome collections won't reopen on my main desktop no no no, it refuses to do that and keeps opening on my second desktop.. EVEN THOUGH I NEVER EVEN HAD IT OPEN THERE!!! I hate windoze SO MUCH!! Last working Friday wheeee. And managed to break some crap trying to patch it. Hurrah.

Stu took me out to Giralang Pines for a bird walk after work.

And I snapped this rather spectacular shot of the moon.  Pity I missed the conjunction with Venus the other day.  Click to embiggen.

Kievs and Black Mirror (a rare one with a happy ending).

Saturday.  Okish sleep.

Bus into Civic to get some morning fountain photos. Except the turds never bothered to turn the fountain on today did they??? FFS.

No fountain for you!

I asked at the National Capital Exhibition.  They had no idea.  Also, if you want photos of the model, go on a cloudy day to avoid contrast.

Still managed to get hot and bothered walking all around Civic.  Stu very nicely picked me up on his way home from a committee meeting at the club.  He had lunch.  I had a beer.  It went down very well.

Leftovers for dinner and we watched Young Einstein which I haven't seen in YEARS!!

Sunday.  Okish sleep. Early start out to Cotter to beat the crowds. Except for the dozens of turdhead cyclists blocking the entire lane for like 50 metres. No wonder drivers hate cyclists. Because they're inconsiderate turds. Walked down and up the river a bit. Didn't see too many birds. But did see three eastern bearded dragons and a heap of little lizards.

Rage!!

Sunday.  6th.  Had tortilla pockets for dinner I got cheap at Chris's. Filled them with some taco spice-flavoured mince, lettuce, spring onion, salsa, cheese and sour cream. Yumm. Then started watching Go.

Monday.  Slept okish I think. Depressed about everything.. work, housework, being overweight. Sigh. Bits and pieces day. Leftover sausages from the freezer and veggies for dinner.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok I think. Spent half the day on the phone. Hurray. Felt like @aquila at one point who was lacking motivation. I suggested going to the pub. Which I couldn't do but I did have a beer after work, because, it was a day. There may have also been TV dinners. MacGyver was basically Home Alone (which had recently been released). Finished watching Go.

Wednesday.  Thought I slept okish, but felt tired during the day. Busy day setting up a new DR laptop, upgrading stuff, and just a tonne of other crap. I asked the sweetie to cook dinner, so we got KFC.

Thursday.  Spent all morning stressing about the afternoon's patching, then the afternoon patching. With lunch at Zhangliang Malatang in the middle.

Their sauces have changed since last time

I had "Spicy Dry Mix" which was peanutty but too spicy for me.  It's a pity they don't have any one chilli sauces.

Good drinks. Mills&Grills and MacGyver.

Capricciosa and Italian meatball

Also, Chrissie took back her little tank today.  We'd had it eight and a half years.  There's a hole in our life now... 

Friday.  11th.  Lest we forget.  Had another painful vendor meeting. We literally showed them our problem on the last call, but had to show them all over AGAIN because they'd completely misunderstood how we do things. Got off work early and we wandered out to the border behind Macgregor looking for swallows and tree martins but not finding any. We did see a reed warbler and a pipit though which were new for me.

Literally the biggest mushroom I've ever seen in my life!  It was the size of a dinner plate!!

Someone setup the Parliament House flag in their yard - very cool!

Kievs and Black Mirror.

Saturday.  Awake ~1 to ~3 with my mind in a loop. Went out for brunch to Cafe Luzon.

Stu with his Talong Omelet

I had a very nice "Tocilog" - grilled marinated pork, garlic rice, Asian slaw, fried egg, house vinegar ($24)

Then we went touristing around Canberra for a while. The main problem being people. Well that's a given. Civic is in chaos at the moment with all the tram works and Floriade. I should have been doing this weeks ago, but we've just had too much on and I haven't had the brain space. The other problem being our car's aircon doesn't work. So the car was getting super hot - up to like 30C which killed our will to live. Pretty much collapsed in the afternoon. Stu cooked up a bunch of veggies for dinner and we watched The Mandolorian and Grogu which was ok, just a bit of fun.

Sunday.  Restless sleep. Thermoregulation issues and hands constantly going numb. More touristing in the morning. The only problem being people. Going up to Stromlo this woman followed us right up our butt the whole way up the mountain then parked right in the middle of the spot I wanted to take a photo.  Sigh.

Then heading out to Cotter there was some BS car cruise which completely clogged up the road to Cotter Dam.

We actually abandoned the idea of going to the dam because we thought the car park would just be chaos.  Took off up to Uriarra instead.

..only to have to slow down a few times because of some bicycle race. Sigh. Grabbed some groceries and Maccas on the way home. Then I had to clean the kitchen (Stu helped) and cook dinner and suddenly it's 14:00 and I've achieved pretty much nothing all weekend. Well I did geotag 4/9ths of Dad's New Zealand photos from 1975.  Hurray.

Sunday.  30th.  Finished the leftover beef and Stu prepped a bunch of veggies for dinner, then MacGyver.

Monday.  Early night, slept okish.. until 3:55 then never got back to sleep.

My only daffodil this year.  And no jonquils.  And minimal plum blossoms.

Bits and pieces in the morning then some DNS cleanup in the afternoon. Pizza for dinner. Yeup. Third time in five days. I shoulda thought of that on Saturday and said no... But the sweetie enjoyed it so that's all that matters. Then MacGyver and an early night.

Crust pizzas

Tuesday.  Slept mostly okish, awake from like 5:35. Spent much of the day cleaning with a few interruptions.

After work we went to Giralang Pond to see some birds.

Leftover yellow curry for dinner, MacGyver and bird blogging.  

Wednesday.  

Slept mostly okish I think. Another day of going through DNS entries that need cleaning. Cutlets from Ben and Sarah for dinner with leftover veggies then an episode of MacGyver which was another Indiana Jones rerun, this time with the Fifth Element mixed in. Fun but bollocks heh. Then I managed to rename, resize, geotag and file all of Stu's photos from our Southern Australia trip. Now to start culling.....! (Did this while half watching half listening to Anti-Chef videos). Also today I realised I've chipped my left front lower incisor at some point.  hrmm.

Thursday.  Slept mostly okish.  DNS cleaning and fighting with certificates. Good drinks, then continued working our way through the Mills&Grills menu.  Yeup, pizza four nights out of eight.  hrmmmmmmm.

Brekky and Napolitana.  I gave my anchovies to the sweetie.

Friday.  Slept mostly okish.  Google is so dumb.  It doesn't index some of my holiday blogs, but it's fully indexed a blog I haven't linked to from my site yet, only from a blogger's site from America.  Deleting day at work which was fun.  Kievs and potato for dinner. 

Then watched Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines with EB which I haven't seen since I saw it at the movies in 2003.  I was disappointed with the ending last time and that's literally all I remembered about it (although I did vaguely remember the crane chase scene).  Yeah the movie was lame.  Claire Danes was good, but that's about it.  Arnie's lines were very forced.  23 years since I last saw it, and I doubt I'll ever watch it again.  Also finished watching a 60 Minutes special on Steve Irwin, who died twenty years ago today.

Saturday.  Took ages to get to sleep - super restless, and restless around 4 as well. Got some stuff done in the morning, then in the afternoon we went over to Mishi's. We just chatted for a few hours, then played a couple of games of Rummy tiles. Eight people in the first game and seven in the second, which made for a bit of fun.. except for poor Helen who couldn't make the requisite 30 points in one meld in either game!!

Sunday.  In the morning we went out to the Ginninderry Conservation Corridor out the back of Macnamara to do some bird watching. Or rather just get frustrated by birds that we could hear but not see. And I forgot my hat so whenever I tried to take photos I'd just get the sun shining in my eyes blinding me. We were there for two hours all up but didn't get very far due to aforementioned frustration with turds I mean birds.

You didn't know wallabies and kangaroos could fly did you?

Got some stuff done in the afternoon including draining Chrissie's little tank (the clown loach was still alive in the two foot yesterday...).

Stu already went out birdwatching today, but late afternoon he thought he'd go out to Giralang Pond, so I said only if I can come too.  So logged off work a little early and off we went.

Great egret

Several people stopped and asked us what we were looking at when we found these yellow-rumped thornbills

Black swans are nesting on the island

This willie wagtail was flitting around this log

A white-faced heron and some bin chickens at the stormwater drain inlet

Crested pigeon

Sulphur-crested cockatoo

Stu was scanning the trees for roosting birds and couldn't see anything.  So I was surprised he missed this straw-necked ibis and nankeen night heron.  All I saw was a dark tan blob.  Stu was excited to see one in the ACT, his first since counting this year.

We were out for nearly two hours all up, a good way to get a bit of exercise.

Sunday.  23rd.  Had a very nicely done roast beef for dinner, with some veggies.  Then we watched Kenton's next birding video in Costa Rica.

Monday.  Somewhat restless sleep, at one point in a delirium about the urls and firewall rules needed to go birdwatching. Somewhat less crazy day at work although didn't really achieve much. Cooked a nice yellow curry for dinner with some of the leftover beef.

Tuesday.  Restless sleep, kept waking up hot. So much BS at work I literally had a meltdown in the morning. After work I took a bus into town for the second Bright Minds Bold Voices talk of the year - Food, science and the stories we swallow.  It was super crowded - at 17:20 the place already had lots of people, and the food got demolished!  This talk had Adam Liaw and Dr Emma Beckett (a food and nutrition scientist).  Again it was a conversation rather than a talk.  Adam was espousing just cooking real food, while Dr Beckett had a surprisingly pragmatic view of industrialised food - like that juice has a place for neurodivergent people who balk at the unpredictability of fruit; industrialised food means that more people get fed, and sure, now people have the opposite problem of eating too much food, but surely that's better than starving?  Another interesting difference is that Adam talked to the audience.  Dr Beckett talked to Lish and Adam (until question time). 

After the talk we went to the newly reopened Fellows Bar for a light dinner.  We got Labneh, dukkah and rose ($13) - Hung yoghurt with hazelnut dukkah, dried rose and toasted sourdough; and Agnello pizza ($26) - slow roasted lamb shoulder, chilli jam, onion, provolone and rocket leaves.  Both delicious but still filling enough that I took home two pieces of pizza for the sweetie.  

Untitled, Aurel Ragus 1973

These weren't clocks they were old instruments

Wednesday.  

Got to do a bit of decom work planning which was nice. Late dinner (leftover beef/veggies), MacGyver and suddenly it's 20:00 sigh.

Latest Windoze 11 trash: I was filing photos so I had my photos to file in the right pane and the folder structure for filing on the left. But since there's a lot of folders to file photos into, I'd be expanding and collapsing folders to reduce scrolling.  But.  Sometimes instead of just collapsing the colder IT WOULD TAKE YOU TO THE FOLDER!!!!!!  Not every time, just sometimes.  What an utter piece of trash windows 11 is!!!!  I can't believe how unbelievably bad windoze 11 is.  I'm tempted to grab a copy of windows 10 explorer and see if it'll run.

Thursday.  Slept mostly ok. Crap day. Pretty good drinks. Mills&Grills, MacGyver.

Favourites - the Nachos on the left and Potata on the right

Friday.  Mostly decom planning work day which was nice. Kievs with gems and roasted tomatoes for dinner, then watched Nosedive on Black Mirror. Sometimes it would be good to be able to rate people like that. AHs need to be called out sometimes. But for the most part it'd be pretty crap, just like in the episode.

Saturday.  Slept mostly okish I think. Got a couple of things done in the morning but not much - headed out to the club around 10. After the bbq lunch they had the the AGM. Which went for THREE HOURS. Ooof. Stu may have wanted beer and pizza for dinner. Watched American Beauty which we haven't seen in ages.

Also, the house battery didn't charge today.  Have I mentioned that Solar Edge is trash?

We're on a mission now to try all the pizzas on the Mills&Grills menu - this one is roast pumpkin and spaghetti bolognase .. !!

Sunday.  Slept mostly okish. Or so I thought. I felt like a zombie from about midmorning for the rest of the day. We headed out pretty early (around 8!) to Jerrabomberra Wetlands to walk around. I saw shovelers which I don't think I've seen before but nothing else new and exciting.

David would agree

Was feeling like a zombie in the afternoon and it felt like too late in the weekend to start anything, so really didn't achieve much. I did move Chrissie's last clown loach to the two foot so I can break down her tank and give it back to her (I got it in February 2018 so that little loach is *at least* eight years old).  I'll be devastated if the thing dies in the next few days - I'll be a fish murderer .. again...

4.8.26

A few weeks back I was having a crap day so the sweetie said I should leave work and go birdwatching with him.  Con said do it, so off I went.

This time we actually walked all the way around the pond.  It was cold and windy!

Hoary-headed grebe

Hardhead

Australasian grebe

Sacred ibis

Welcome swallows hovering in the wind looking for bugs

A small flock of pied currawongs were flitting around the tops of some trees

Red-browed finches

Fairy wren

Australasian grebe

Hardhead

Pacific black duck

12.4.26

We got a little way around the south-east side of the pond before turning back.  This was before I got my big lens, so I included a few of Stu's photos.

Stu's photo of an Australasian grebe

More grebes

Stu's photo of a hardhead

Hardhead

Cormorants

This faceoff between a raven and a little pied cormorant was pretty funny

Willie wagtail

Yellow-rumped thornbill

Crested pigeons

8.8.26

A nature reserve out the back of Symonston.

Black-faced cuckooshrike

Fairy wren

Eastern rosella!!

Noisy miner

Spotted pardalote

I've literally never seen rainbow lorikeets in Canberra before so this was pretty cool

Wood ducks

How cute are Australasian grebes??

8.8.26

On the way home from Callum Brae we stopped at Giralang Pond. Apparently straw-necked ibis had been coming there in the evenings to roost. We'd driven past a few times but not seen them.  This day we actually got out of the car, and just as we did three of them flew in, poked around the water for a bit, then went up into the trees to roost.  It was pretty dark but still managed some ok photos of them.

(This is just a regular sacred ibis (aka bin chicken), but it looked kinda cool anyway)

So yeah, super lucky timing!