Kazza the Blank One

Yesterday afternoon was Mishi's 60th.

This was like a third of the food spread

Her Dad's place has a lovely outlook over Yerrabi Pond (but unfortunately no cooling)

Several cakes were involved

Including this rather spectacular black forest cake

Then it was just eating and drinking and chatting and watching the birds

Last Friday night after drinks at Molly, Luc and I went to try out Bamiyan (at Stephen's recommendation).

We had an epic feast of camel skewers, butter chicken, mantu (lamb dumplings) and lamb biryani.

Spicy camel skewer (chargrill) - marinated camel shoulder mince with onion, capsicum, chili flakes, salt and pepper simply chargrilled on skewer + salad, naan and spicy dip (2 skewer) $34

This was so tender and delicious!  Ate all the meat but brought some of the naan home

Mantu - steamed lamb minced dumplings topped with split peas, tomato and lamb mince sauce + yoghurt and mint $30

These were so delicious!  Brought one or two home

Butter chicken (Indian dish) - marinated chicken fillet roasted in tandoor + cooked in tomato-based sauce and cream $25

Stephen had recommended this so we tried it, and it was pretty amazing!

Lamb Sindhi biryani - (on bone) famous lamb Sindhi biryani from Shind province served with raita $26

Excellent, except for the bones ;)

So yeah, all amazing.  I ate way too much but did bring home some leftovers. 

Grease Monkey opened up a store in Belconnen recently.

There's a mural for it near Oporto

A bunch of us went there for lunch on Tuesday.  I didn't want a huge burger (for a huge price) so just had the Truffle Mac and Cheese Bites with Greasy's Sauce ($14) which were very nice.

Jim also very nicely offered a piece of his Supreme Pizza which was also very good.

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.  16th.  Stu cooked up a pasta bake and a cabbage bake to use up a bunch of things in the fridge that needed using up.  

Then some Stranger Things (I think).  

Monday.  Logged onto work to be NEIL for the morning and did a handover after lunch. Got paperwork done for the proxy cutover change that I'd prepped but would be leaving to Con/Ward to do.  

Tuesday.  Holidays!

Thursday.  27th.  Got home around lunch time.  Lost one potted strawberry plant due to the heat and epic WIND.  But look at the haul!!  

Thanks Tony for looking after all our plants and animals :)  Spent some time unpacking, downloading GPS and photos etc.  Later in the afternoon the sweetie dropped me off so I could get a blood test done, then I dropped into work drinks.  KFC for dinner then Stranger Things 4.3.

Friday.   Got to sleep briefly but then awake for a while because I was HOT. Was looking at Kiama temperatures before bed, so didn't realise it was actually going to get *cold* overnight, but it was lovely! Had a busy day just trying to get caught up with life, including taking last year's Christmas party cans for recycling (finally!!) and getting a bone density scan (which they could do *today* which was pretty impressive.. I thought I'd have to wait weeks).

Kievs and some garlic bread I made with bread from the last club function leftovers. Stranger Things 4.4.

Saturday.  Slept like crap. Took ages to get to sleep, then awake from 1 for ages then awake from 4 for ages. Sigh. Got ready and headed out to the club.

John had cut a Christmas tree which we setup and then I spent an hour or so decorating. Good fun and it looked super cool.

Then R&F turned up and I helped all afternoon with the cooking. The night went really well.

Sunday.  Slept okish (mostly ok til around 4:45 then awake for a while). Went up to the shed and spent an hour or so tidying up and washing up.

Had to evict this five-legged grasshopper first..

Then home. And spent much of the afternoon putting up our Christmas tree and decorations.

The other night Tony messaged me that there should be aurora visible, even from here.

So I looked out the back window.  Couldn't see anything.  In fact it wasn't really even dark yet.  Plus we have a heap of city light.  I took a few snaps on my phone anyway, and wouldn't you know it, there was pink stuff in the sky.  So I pulled out the "real" camera (with the 24-105 L series lens because it's brighter) and got some snaps.

This was the forecast.. not super great from here.

Meanwhile in Canada..

Sigh.

So twice in the last couple of weeks my MyWay+ app has refused to show a QR code.

The error message I get is "Your tickets will be shown here.  You currently have no tickets".

Which is dumb because this thing worked for ages and now that I've started using the buses again (after being hibernation for nearly six months) it's decided to stop working.

So the way I've managed to get it working is to click on the user icon in the top right corner, click Show MyWay+ Portal, login to the thing, click Done, Done, then click again to show the QR code.  So I think the app is just forgetting the account details and you need to relogin to the thing to get it to connect.

I complained to @Transport_CBR on X but got no response.  Thanks guys.  NOT.

Sunday.  9th.  9/11.  Stu had a recipe he wanted to make up this week that had pork belly, but not the rind. So the butcher cut it off and gave it to us separately. So I made crackling with it! It actually turned out really well.

Stu also cooked up a cauliflower bake and some sweet potato and we had that with leftover beef.

Stranger Things 2.6. Early night.

Monday.   So I think I got to sleep ok, but I know I was restless. Then I woke up at 4:42. Hurray.

Usual day of NEIL and all the crap.

We may have cut down the bamboo sprout..

Stu cooked up that pork belly with a very nice Japanese recipe. My only complaint: not enough vegetables ;)

Stranger Things 2.7. Then finished watching the You Are What You Eat docuseries. Yeah really need to eat less meat! hmmm.

Tuesday.  Hebrews 9:27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Got stuck into planning moving proxies temporarily. Remembering there's no such thing as temporary solutions at our work. Stu cooked up the mince I cooked the other day with some stock and flavourings.  And there was a lot more veggies :)  I didn't eat all that mince, I gave some to the sweetie.

Stranger Things 2.8. Finished watching Half-Life Histories (for now). 

Wednesday.  Stoopid MyWay+ is stoopid. It keeps refusing to bring up my QR code. Last time it did this I fiddled and fiddled and got it going, but not this morning. It did mean a free ride though.  Hurrah. NEIL/proxy migration/crap. I only really got any useful work done after about 16:30. Stoopid MyWay+ is stoopid. This evening I did what I did last time and signed into the portal within the app. This seems to kick it, and turns out that was probably what got it working two weeks ago.

Stu cooked up leftover pork belly with more garlic spinach and rice.

Stranger Things 2.9 which finished season 2 which was pretty cool. Tony messaged me about the aurora (which was super helpful otherwise I never would have seen it). Got some photos but couldn't actually *see* anything. Went to bed wayy past my bed time but then epic restless legs because I was overtired.

Thursday.   Yeah crap sleep after a bit of a late night. NEIL/proxies/crap. Finished copying across all the proxy config and then managed to test it. After Jim extended my admin ID because the new system is too lame and doesn't work yet. How am i meant to do my JOB without the access i need??  But yeah was super excited that the proxies "just worked" after copying all the config.  Even kerberos authentication which is a strange beast.  But then my desktop froze up and never came back which made me depressed because you never know what you've LOST when your computer crashes.  Good drinks though.  Made pizzas then watched The Simpsons 36.14 (I think we may have missed some, need to check synopses).  

Friday.  Crap sleep.  Again.  Hurray.  Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. .. I learnt that as: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  I wonder what my printed copy has.  

Yeah I have strawberries growing as WEEDS in our pavers!

Remember those LR44 batteries from 1998?  Well they finally died.  Given they were well over twenty five years old and lasted for nearly two years once I started using them I was pretty damned impressed.  Yayy Seiko!  I bet the Energizer ones I bought today won't last that long!

Logged into work and found my desktop had only frozen and hadn't completely crashed! So it was all there!!! Hurray!! Finished getting the proxy cutover work done and did some testing. I got frustrated at our border firewalls that barely work and you have to FIGHT them to get certificates deployed. Then I got frustrated with our Strata mob who don't send reminders if you don't pay your strata fees, they start charging ridiculous interest. No idea what happened this time, I had filed the email, filed the attachment, and marked it as paid on my budget spreadsheet, but couldn't find any payment in my internet banking. So I paid it. Without the interest. Because it's RUDE that they don't send a reminder first. I've complained to them about it in the past too. Then got frustrated with St George's internet banking which doesn't give you an option to add a nickname to payee accounts. So if I have two payee accounts with the same name but different account numbers I have to go and look up which account is which. Every. Damned. Time. They've never updated their internet banking interface in OVER TWENTY YEARS!!  So I complained AGAIN to them about it. Then I got frustrated at the ATO because their billing system is so TRASH!! I had a "New myGov Inbox message" so went to look. It's complaining about an overdue PAYG tax bill, but I can't find any original bills at all!! They just give me a dollar value and say it's overdue. They don't say which quarter it's for. Fricken HOPELESS ATO!!!!! Not only that, but most of the links from MyGov to the ATO site were giving such fun errors as "An error has occurred. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. We apologise for any inconvenience. Try again later." Yeah thanks ATO.  Had EB over after dinner and we watched a 50th anniversary documentary on Jaws (Jaws @ 50) which was pretty cool.  

Saturday.  Awake from 2:52 for most of the rest of the night.  Hurrah. 

More WEEDS! ;)

Day of housework, Lego filing, jigsaw, scanning.  Then went over to Rob and Fiona's for a "deck warming" which was a very pleasant evening, but a bit of a late night, whoops.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well all things considered.  Spent entirely too much time geotagging photos of Dad's. Whoops.

Sunday.  2nd.  All The Leftovers for dinner - some pasta from the club, some veggies from last weekend, and some bits of cut up bread from the club fried in bacon fat (wheee). Stranger Things 2.1.

Monday.  Restless sleep.

Was about to do Monday morning STUFF including cleaning the kitchen and doing some weeding before my washing was ready to hang out, only to find a bit watery mess. Yesterday when I did a water change in Chrissie's tank I went around watering all the plants. I probably put too much into the big plant above the bins, so I stood with a towel waiting for it in case it overflowed. It came about half way up the tray then stopped, so I carried on. This morning there was water all over the top shelf, drips down the wall, drips onto the shelves and rungs below and over all the bins. Fricken great. So then I had clean up the mess. I don't have TIME for this trash. And that reminds me, I overfilled one of the ferns on top of Stumpy's tank and that went everywhere too. Sigh. Being NEIL and fighting with proxies at work. Nine minutes of weeding at lunch. Had to deal with mail servers being spazzes so didn't finish up til nearly dinner time. Sigh. Need. More. TIME!!! Stu cooked a couple of pretty spectacular pasta bakes with pasta leftover from the club event. The puttanesca one was pretty good, the creamy one needed a little more cream (we ran out) but was still tasty (and crispy!).

Stranger Things 2.2 then photo picking and half watching/listening to Half-Life Histories.

Tuesday.  Awake from around midnight for a couple of hours hurray. NEIL/proxies.

It hailed in the morning!

I wasn't in any sweeps this year (they've mostly died post covid) so picked number 14 (Half Yours, based on my birthday) before the race to see what would happen.  And he won!  With the second female jockey winning race.  Although I was a bit disturbed about all the blood, they said it was a "minor cut" on the inside of his cheek, but what from?  The bit? hrmmm

Cooked up a very tasty rump cap and veggies for dinner.

Stranger Things 2.3, photo stuffs.

Wednesday.  5th.  Remember remember.  Slept somewhat ok. I think. It was nice and cold which helped. Although it meant the house was like 13C in the morning. Couldn't be stuffed running around and closing up the vents (again) so endured the cold.

NEIL/proxies (rinse and repeat). One of my fingernails is falling off. Hurray. Leftovers for dinner. Stranger Things 2.4. I can't SEE anymore. For the last few months I've been able to use my regular glasses for the computer but now it's going back to me needing to wear my "computer" glasses. Sigh. Started watching V for Vendetta but only got half way through.

Thursday.  Slept okish I think. NEIL mostly and dealing with whatever crap people came to me with. Did spend a bit of time planning how to get off some legacy load balancers. Good drinks.

The only correct way to eat Cheezels!!!

Pizzas, Stranger Things 2.5.

Chris didn't have any "special sauce" so the one on the bottom had a sauce of mayo and tomato paste.  We put pickles and mince on it to make a "cheeseburger" pizza.

Friday.  

Tried to have a catchup day - tried to get my inbox under control. Still a long way to go. TV dinner for dinner (the sweetie was at the club) then watched The China Syndrome (influenced by all the those Half-Life Histories videos!). It was freaky that this movie came out just a few days before the Three Mile Island accident!

Saturday.  Awake from 4:28 when a massive bang woke me up. Nothing much on the radar or lightning maps. Was hoping it was just a "bolt out of the blue" but no, crazy lightning all around. Turned off my computer and disconnected a few things, then didn't get back to sleep. Hurray. Mostly house stuff in the morning and some slide rescanning. David and Kellie came over later in the afternoon and we locked in Christmas plans with the mother type person. Had a drink or two and a nice catchup.  Early dinner of kievs, then David and Kellie went off to see Ricky Martin, then the sweetie and I watched Back to the Future and V for Vendetta.

Sunday.  Couldn't get to sleep til like 1am on account of epic restless legs. Sigh. Took David and Kellie out for brunch as a belated birthday brunch for David so that was quite nice to hang out.

Had a quick walk down to the lake after.

These turds where zooming up and down the lake.  Pretty sure petrol motor boats are not allowed on Lake Ginninderra.  hrmmmm.

Then we went to Vinnies at Mitchell then the Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction.

Came home and David fixed the last Mirabella light hurray! (took him a while - in the end he did what the sweetie was going to do - take out all the "good" lights and keep turning on/off until the last one went into pairing mode).  Then D&K went home, the sweetie went food shopping, and I did some music.  And just like that the weekend is over.. hrmmm..

Got this cute little set for my birthday.

This was actually the first new set I've gotten where they've had paper bags instead of plastic ones

This is one of the three sets made up

And all the leftover pieces for it

This is the second set

From behind

And with all the extra pieces

And finally the Space Shuttle itself (I built it last so I could leave it out completed)

From behind

The payload bay doors open so you can see what's inside

It even comes with a Canadarm and little satellite!  Very cute!

So yeah a cute little set that I still have out