Boring Life Of a Geek
Tonight I had another go at photographing Mercury. Yeah it was just a little blob.
Here's what Stellarium shows
But when I was looking at Stellarium I noticed Saturn had just risen and was near opposition!
How cool is this!? It's over a billion kilometres away! You can see the rings!!!!
I shoulda tried for Titan as well heh... Next time...
I was releasing a moth outside tonight and saw Venus just there. With a bright spot to its right. So I checked stellarium and it was in fact Mercury.
Excuse the powerlines I couldn't be stuffed going past the balcony.
Then zoomed right in..... how cool is this?!? Hi Venus!
This is what Stellarium thinks it should have looked like..
18.9.26
I didn't even know this place existed. I mean we drive past it all the time as it's right next to the Barton Highway. I've just never been there. Peeps have dug out their own mountain bike trails and jumps all through it. And there's birds too.
Kookaburra
White-winged chough
Sulphur-crested cockatoo
And the beautiful black cockatoos
20.9.26
We went out pretty early to beat the crowds.
Wood duck
Brown thornbills
Yellow-faced honeyeater
Then like 30 black cockatoos flew over in waves
27.9.26
We went in from the Old Kingston side this time to have a look around.
Straight off I saw a new bird - apparently a little grassbird. I dunno they kinda look the same as reed warblers...
Reed warbler .. yeah how am I meant to tell these little turds apart?
Superb fairy wren
Little pied cormorant
Yellow-faced honeyeater
There was a nest with at least three baby magpies which was pretty cool
An Australasian darter, always cool
Managed to snap a couple of shots of a rufous whistler
Great cormorant
I love Nankeen night herons .. so pretty!
3.10.26
Even though a storm was heading right for us we went out anyway! Fortunately we only got a few spots of rain and the storm moved to our northeast.
The first cool bird we saw was a sacred kingfisher!! So pretty!!
A straw-necked bin chicken flew over
Another new bird! A white-throated gerygone. I didn't get any good photos of them unfortunately. Little turds hide behind leaves.
Then the rest of the birds, and birdwatchers, I'd seen before, but still pretty cool.
Black-faced cuckooshrike
Reed warbler
Little black cormorants
Little pied cormorant
Yellow-faced honeyeaters
Grey fantail
Currawong
5.10.26
Today was a mission to find a few birds that had been spotted there only yesterday.
The first was a bird I'd never even heard of, let alone seen. And as soon as we got out of the car we could hear it. It was trilling away like crazy - a white-winged triller! So cute! And a lovely sound!
Then there were some other birds
Some white-plumed honeyeaters
Some Australasian grebes
Some hardheads
A pair of black swans
And then the other exciting new bird - a great crested grebe! So pretty!
Duck duck grebe!
So two new birds for me - very exciting!
Sunday. 27th.
Cooked a yummy roast pork and veggies for dinner, which of course meant I ate too much. Finished Good Knight MacGyver.
Monday. Okish sleep. Windoze is useless. This morning I turned my monitors on and they were in "daytime" mode before 6:30. Then at 6:30 they switched to "nighttime" mode - with warmer tones and less blue light. How retarded is that?? It slowly came good though. Had a sad that David got a perfect day at Cradle Mountain. Sigh. Now my whole family has seen it on a good day except me. Then tried to get my super statements.. only to find out they're not being released until MID TO LATE OCTOBER?? WTF??? Fricken hopeless. Why is literally everything so trash these days???
Tuesday. Slept mostly okish. Bit of crap and decom work. Leftover pork for dinner. Finally got around to watching the second half of the Last Night of the Proms (2025) which started off with Bohemian Rhapsody with Brian May and Roger Taylor which was awesome.
Wednesday. Thought I slept mostly ok but yawning a lot during the day. Bits and pieces day, deleted some stuff in the afternoon.
Picked up the car from Natrads, they fixed the car's aircon! Then went back out again a bit later to get pizzas, on account of I'll be late at work tomorrow (trivia night) and the sweetie had had a day.
Aussie and Peri Peri Chicken, both good
Recognised Larry Wilcox in MacGyver. A couple of years ago I recognised him when he was younger than he was in CHiPS and this time when he was quite a bit older. Fricken MOTHS are all through the house at the moment!! YouTube suggested a 60 Minutes interview with Magda Szubanski. She got diagnosed with the C-Word literally the day before me last year.
Thursday. Slept mostly okish although awake early. Bits and pieces day, deleted some stuff in the afternoon (take 2!). Drinks then a trivia night. Wasn't toooo bad this time, although the "Evil AI" round was pretty hard and there were wayyy too many Pokémon questions. Came fourth (by one point to the young people's table next to us who knew All The Pokémon) in the end. Also everyone seems to think that if I don't go to work Fridays I must have time to do All The Things for All The People, like Neil thinking I could prep a trivia night or DC thinking I could scan his slides, or Stu thinking we could do All The Birding. hmmmmm!!
Friday. Awake around Dentist Time for a couple of hours. Spent a bunch of time tidying the garage and pulling out boxes to take for recycling, but you'd barely notice the effort. Then photo and Lego stuff and out to do some food shopping and take aforementioned boxes to recycling and *finally* got to Indepth Scuba when it was open (when I went on Wednesday it was closed because they don't open Wednesdays, and when we went at 12:50 they were closed, said they'd be back at 13:00. Sheesh). Kievs for dinner and Black Mirror. And all the RAIN!!
Saturday. Okish sleep. All the RAIN! And storms :( Spent all morning doing some patching for work. Bit of photo stuff in the early afternoon. We did go out for a bird walk later in the afternoon, even though it was threatening to rain on us!
This Virgin plane had to fly a bit further south than normal to avoid the storm
Later it stormed again, even with hail!
We made a yellow curry with some leftover pork and watched Toy Story 5 which was ok but not great. And everyone's voices sound OLD!
Sunday. Quiet day of mostly photo stuff. IMDB has enforced dark mode on parts of their website now. I did go out and take some photos of flowers. We do have some at least!
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". Was also excited to find three bowls to match the one I broke in 2021 at the Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction. So now I have six of those. They wanted $3 each for them though which was a bit annoying. I've also over the years gotten five big plates (bigger then our original) and like five bread and butter plates. 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!!
