Happy happy

My parents dropped off my new filing cabinet (thank you! thank you!), Andrew is back from Darwin/Adelaide and I just had a fun time at the Gengiscon quiz night. (Hi Pamela...yeah yeah...well, I got a consolation purple bandana....Mmm Purple)
All is pretty good. :)
Andrew was going to be back on Friday, but hey everything was packed up and he didn't see the point in hanging around another day so he's back home, and glad to be. Did mean I was at the quiz night so couldn't meet him at the airport, but ah well, he had plenty of family to meet him. Though as it turns out his plane was a little on the late side. If he wasn't an astronomer he'd be thinking he was up late. :)

Finally finished my postproofing of my first project for Distributed Proofreaders, and, glutton for punishment that I am, have downloaded another one ;) A 1921 thriller. Looks kinda interesting.

As the end of the semester approaches I'm thinking about panicking about the amount I still have left to do, but ah..who has the time? I'm ahead on my 'recording' stuff this week so I've got all tomorrow clear. (was going to go to some student seminars but boss says lecture notes and labs are my priority. Fair enough) At least I don't have to worry tomorrow about crashing the audio software.

Was thinking about going to Dave's Halloween party, but I think with Andrew just back we'd both prefer a nice quiet night in :)

One more early rise to go!

Well, only one more early rise to go now. After next tuesday I shan't have to worry about early morning rises till next semester. Wheeee! To counteract this decadence I intend to ride more into work given that the sun is now still in the sky at 5pm and the weather is getting better.

Still no idea what I'm doing on Friday apart from welcoming Andrew back home :).

I am enormously appreciative of my parental units who have kindly agreed to pick up my filing cabinet for me. I was worried about doing it myself on two counts.

1. My car is only a little hatchback and getting it in and out could be tricky


2. I am not exactly an iron woman and the idea of lugging it up the stairs to my place was not appealing

OK, off to move my car so that I can load extra boxes into them for earlier mentioned friend, drop them off at her place and be home in time for Dr Who (because I forgot to change tapes this morning)

So much for that idea.

Well, it looks like I won't be getting the filing cabinet today after all. More time to chase someone up I guess. :)

And timing seems to be working at the moment as someone needs the boxes I just emptied as they're moving house shortly.

Well, Simon should be back in the country by now. Welcome back! Hope the jetlag isn't too bad.

Just had lunch so feeling sleepy. Oh that's right. Coffee...time for coffee!! Then back to work!

Success!

My back room is (nearly) unpacked. And with a bit of luck I'll have the filing cabinet to make the unpacking of the rest of my stuff easy by the end of the day. (Provided I can find someone to give me a hand lugging it up the stairs.)

Had a fun time on Saturday night at Emma's place. Lots of nicely arranged food and dressed up people. (Though Tessa's lime green mittens didn't really match the rest of her outfit :) ) Sorry Patrick, but had already committed to this before your invite. Not that you posted it to my topic anyway ;)

Andrew expects to be in Adelaide either today or early tomorrow, and home Friday night. Now I just have to find out what else I'm doing friday night till airport time :)

Too much to do!

Argh...far too much to do ... still what can I do but keep on. I succumbed to the 2nd hand book stall yesterday. The Deeper Meaning of Liff, One for the Money, Two for the Dough, and another for someone else.

I might even get some back room unpacking done at the weekend. Still got to figure out what I'm taking as an (arranged) plate tomorrow. My sister's feeling better so that's good. And my lucky parents are going down south for the weekend.
And the G&S tapes which we couldn't find have been located (Yay!) so I'm planning on getting together with a few people next week to watch Pirates of Penzance.

Better go now. I biked in today *puff puff* and I have still to get lights for the bike (whoops) so should pedal off home before it gets dark, or too shiny in my eyes.

Awwwww

Went to visit Tessa Holly and family yesterday. All appear well, although lacking in sleep. Usual thing, she only wants to eat and sleep right now ... well, mostly she wants to eat.

Alas, due to lack of sun on day 2 Sungroper has abandoned hopes of finishing the race without trailering. Still, after the engine and driver overheat on day 1 things appear to be improving, apart from the weather. (Alas Sungroper isn't actually waterproof). The (yahoo sponsored) Sungroper Internet Cafe is proving a hit with others of the slower moving solar teams, enabling them to check their email etc. from Dunmarra caravan park.

Most boggling thing seen this week: Poster for play on at the Nexus Theatre in early November:
Richard III The Bollywood Musical. It occurs to me that the guy playing the high priest of sacrifice in Dr Who and the Aztecs at the moment probably did a lot of Richard III playing. He's coming across as very thespian :)

Heard an interesting talk at the observatory last night on how with a $200 webcam, access to a telescope, lots of hard disk space and some freeware processing software you too can make some spiffy images of Mars.
Lots of pretty pictures :)

News confirmed

An official notice has finally come round that D & F's newest little girl has made her way into the world safely. (The grapevine version had at least two errors, such is the nature of things). Tessa Holly.

Seen some pics, and might go pay them a visit during my lunch break :)

Spent yesterday at a games day, played a bit of Chronology and this mindbending 'Set' game that I thought I had the hang of, and then lost it. I should probably avoid the Daily Puzzle on the game site, but I suspect that's a losing battle.

Didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted at the weekend. House still looking mildly hit by bomb, but a lot of the mess is the transitional kind, (things on piles on floor being sorted before being put away) I figure maybe wednesday evening or some time tonight after my observatory meeting I'll be able to clear some of it away if I don't get distracted again.

*sigh*

Well, spent part of today tidying, the rest of it doing my tax return. It looks as if I will have to fork over a fair amount...Damn HECS :(

Should tidy away the remains of dinner now, feeling tired..time for Zzzzs.

Did manage to catch up with Andrew on flame finally. He has a much earlier start than I do (heh). Found out from him news I've been wondering about for the last few days involving people living not five minutes from me. Noone tells me anything ;)

Did a little proofreading too. Old books are hard to proofread, the kind that are pre-commas and with the s's that look like f's.
Anyway, got some updates to install so publishing and heading offline. Games day tomorrow so that should be fun. :)

Only a year later

Well, I've been in my 'new house' now for over a year so I don't think it counts as a 'new' home any longer. All I have to do now is finish unpacking :)

Finally, I have gotten around to buying a printer, and given some time I think I might even find a place to put it :) It's not top of the range but it's reasonable and does have the individual tank system so I don't have to buy a new full colour tank just because I'm out of yellow.

So this weekend looks like my weekend for actually getting my taxes done.

Wednesday night was fun mostly, the only cloud on the horizon was my sister not feeling well. Hopefully she'll perk up soon.

Ahh well, better get some work done before my committee meeting. What fun ;)

Photographs from Darwin

photographs of Sungroper in Darwin, the 'Sungroper Internet Café (Bring your own Seat and Mug).

It's got such a good grin that car. Hope the cloud clears before the race though.

I wonder if our team has the largest number of laptops along? Go team!

Is it there??

I can't seem to access my actual blog, though the blog writing stuff seems to be all here. Though haven't tried posting yet. Sungroper has apparently been checked over in Darwin and is alright so big relief there. And so far Andrew seems to be surviving 'the house with pet snakes'.

My sister's birthday today! So going to have a nice little family get together and a fondue. Heh, she's nearly joined me on top of the hill.

Been busy wrestling with web data acquisition software so I could write a lab for a course here. With a bit of luck it'll be fine for the job. At least for this semester. Trying to do too many things at once I think, still at least I'm not tutoring LATU.

Of course technical difficulties in their usual way have struck and I'm hoping that the stuff I'm currently transferring to the 'puter for the student's lectures contains all the lecture as the microphone had been acting up. Got a new one now, but doesn't help lectures gone by. Ah well, next year.

Scuse me, going back to proofreading so I can find out what mandrakes have to do with the giver of life and the evolution of dragons.

Sunday, sunday!!

Well, in my first Sunday spent at home in quite a while I had a nice lie in and then spent the rest of the day trying to wrestle my financial records into shape. More or less there but must remember to buy a hole punch so that I can put some of the records away properly. Also have to try and work out how to do depreciation.

I have just noticed that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is on TV tonight so I think I'd better start dinner so I've got plenty of time to settle in before the movie (Yeah, Andrew has got it on DVD but I don't have a DVD player except on the computer and there's always competition for the TV at his place, not to mention a backlog of taped stuff we're trying to catch up on)

Well, now to carefully pick my way over the piles of paper. I hope to get my taxes done sometime over the next week

Very tired now

I should go to bed now, but that would require summoning up the energy to move.

Eventually thirst will drive me to get up I think.
Well, finally finished my first game of Galactic Civilisations last night, after it crashing on me the other day. Yay for autosaves. Mwahahaha!!! The human culture reigns supreme!!!! Course that was on beginner, but hey we've got to start somewhere.

Andrew SMSed from Darwin where it is apparently 'hot and humid'. Big surprise there.
Pamela will have been pleased with the cool turn in the weather after friday's heat, but I suspect Darwin has remained hot and sticky.

Simon I see is sleeping or possibly travelling now within cooee of the place I grew up. Lovely scenery but not terribly exciting to tell you the truth. See if you can get told the story of the sugar boat if you're still around there. Town's main claim to fame is as being the hometown of the pioneer of television (John Logie Baird - I went to JLB primary school) amongst many other inventions, including a borax insole to stop WWI british & french troops getting foot rot in the trenches.
And I believe an actress whose name I can't remember.
Also has 'The Hill House' designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh if you're into that kind of architecture.

Seeing Andrew off

Well, saw Andrew off at the airport today. Off to sunny, hot, humid Darwin. Big long queue for the checkin desks, he got nearly to the front before they opened a desk up for his flight as it was starting to board.

He's staying in Darwin for a bit prior to the race, acclimatising, shopping for camping gear and staying with a friend/relative? who apparently keeps snakes or lizards or something so that should be fun.

On the race itself he'll have to be getting up before dawn which will be quite a shock to his system, his normal wakeup time being late morning (hey, he's allowed, he's an astronomer) and it will be interesting to see how he survives that. At least on the race thanks to some people with a travelling net connection that I believe was /.ed he will at least be able to get his net fix. (He was also speculating about playing Feng Shui as they go, apparently when you're driving that slow you need some way to pass the time)

So now I have the time to do all those jobs I've been putting off at the weekends. Joy ;)

Get well soon Patrick and Jo

Just read from Simon's blog about the car crash. Glad to hear that they're improving. Hope all continues well.

Drying apples

I spent yesterday and today taking digital photos of apples drying in two solar dryers. Among all my other little jobs like removing references to scholarships that don't exist because the people providing the scholarships didn't get their funding renewed.

I did a little filk writing yesterday prior to going for my weekly sing. Is it too late for me? :) Ahh well, I'm having fun and that's the main thing.

I am skipping book club tonight to go spend some time with Andrew as he's off to Darwin tomorrow to go on the World Solar Challenge with the Sungroper team.

My thoughts on the book for book club anyway (The sword in the stone by T.H.White): I suspect I found it more engaging as a child, currently I found the mishmash of historical periods, anachronisms and eccentric characters a little irritating. The best part about reading it was figuring out where the Pellinore etc. characters had come from in 'Lost in a Good Book' by Jasper Fforde which I am currently rereading. Again.

Oh well, better get some work done before I have to go down and take another few photos.

Mondayitus

Well, could be worse. I felt very sleepy this morning, I did not want to rise and shine, but alas, the lure of salaried employment summoned me from my comfy bed.

Mostly webby stuff today, image processing and doing some labs for the energy studies courses here. Wednesday looks like I'm going to be busy taking photos and cycling up and down to the MUERI area to get pictures for a storybook lab for the renewable energy for sustainable development course.

Dull stuff I know. Maybe I should rant more, like some of the other bloggers I know, but I need a runup to rant effectively. I shall therefore make growly noises at tv stations that decide without telling you that this week they're putting on two episodes of a show instead of one thus mucking up your recording schedule.

Ahh well, time to go home (yay!) and maybe think more about a filk I seem to be collaborating on.

Sunday lunch

It's been a lazy weekend so far. Yesterday evening was my night for volunteering at the observatory and it was a good night, no clouds, relatively good seeing and I got to man one of the telescopes for the first time, and not give too much wrong information.

Then today an old friend of Andrew's mother was visiting and also his cousin Gene is staying for a bit so we had most of the immediate family up for a lovely lunch. (Mmmm thai fish curry and lovely desserts)

So I'm sitting here feeling replete and sleepy while nearly everyone else has gone to look at wildflowers.

I did a little cryptic crosswording this afternoon, bit out of practice there. (I looked at a previous post and I have resolved to include my actor pronouns more)

Busy week

Spent yesterday at a postgraduate student's convention. (Just listening, yay to no longer be a student). Ate far too much food.

Saw new Lara Croft movie on Tuesday, found it quite fun (it's amazing the number of films you can enjoy if you check in all disbelief at the door) and hope to find time to see the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen before Andrew goes to Darwin. (It's been a busy month movie wise.)
Spent too much money on books, including book club one for this month.

Apparently Anna has started a blog also, though it is still in progress, so watch the blog link space.

Ahh well, back to graphic manipulating and general panicking.

(House still tidy more or less - put this down to having spent little time there this week.)