Back in the day...

When I was young I can remember a lady taking a photo of the dinner we were about to have. I thought it was a very strange thing to do at the time (My dad was particularly unimpressed when we paid a small fortune to have the photos developed only to have five photos of various blackened bbq meats- of course this was back in the day when you had a roll of film and a limited number of expensive photos. Kids today just dont know how lucky they are that they have digital cameras*). Since then, I ocasionally stumble across the photo and still wonder why.


I was reminded of this when I came across twelve22 where the lady takes photos of her breakfast each morning, bless her (before she eats it of course). I am reminded of the lady who photographed our dinner all those years ago and sometimes wonder if she has moved to the US.


Anyway, I have become slightly addicted to her blog and am thrilled to read about her taking up running again. I did this for a while before having to stop when other pressures like uni, planning a wedding, moving interstate, etc... got in the way. It makes me think of having another go at it once I finish my uni work... which will be in a long time if I don't hurry up with it and stop procrastinating... sigh...



*I nearly made a friend fall off her chair with a similar comment about how in the olden days you had to sit in one spot to talk on the phone. The irony being that we were talking via skype and of course had to sit wherever the computer is- just like the olden days

Best days, schmest days

ARGH! Uni work! I am trying to get my final report finished before the end of the month, and its taking forever. Its like a black time hole or something, I sit down to do it and the next thing I know its dark outside and Jack is sooking at me because I haven't taken him for a walk yet. So, posts will be sporadic for next couple of weeks while I make a final attempt to finish uni...

Deadline? What Deadline?

I have spent the last week out collecting groundwater samples, with the joy of knowing that I get to do it again in three weeks time. As usuall, I ended up with a loveley tan. Although its only on my hands, which looks a bit strange.

When not out sampling I have been busy being baffled by requests for things to be done 'soon'. When I ask when is soon I get a funny look like I am thick or something. So I figure 'soon' is sort of like ASAP and will get translated into whenever I feel like it. I guess on a geological scale, soon could be in the next 10,000 years... hmmm, yes I can get it to you soon...

I have finally been able to upload this picture of Jack in some sort of doggy heaven at the prospect of having a budgie play with him. Unfortunately for Jack, Penny was more interested in the ball than the dog. Still, you can see the strain of restraint Jack is displaying.

Here is a blurry photo taken of where I live after getting back from a walk. Its a bit out of focus because I was talking on the phone and trying to restrain a dog from chasing a cat at the same time. Still you get the idea, my place is on the top floor to the left.

Beware of cockatoos bearing snacks

I seem to have become a halfway house for Arnhem land's cockatoo population. One even brought a snack! There were 14 cockatoos flapping about the place when I took this photo. I feel a little bit sorry for the lady downstairs. Oh well, she has a hose.

Time is getting away, I spent far too much time chatting on face book and the photos I was going to post take a while to upload. I think I will leave them for tomorrow. In the meantime I will put up a link to a news story about a kid smashing a brand new, hours old iPad with a bat. It really was only a matter of time, but I can't help being slightly troubled by it. Mainly he was doing it to seek attention, so I guess we should be pleased he chose something inanimate. But then it goes on to say he bought three of them, one to smash, one to use and the other? Probably for swapsies at school. Who buys three iPads for themselves? Wow, what a consumer.

Also, I have suddenly realised yesterday's post probably makes no sense at all. Don't worry, I'm not all that sure what was going on anymore either. Basically I was talking about all the uni work I had been doing (dont fall off your chair now) and it had turned my brain to mush. Its all horrible statistic-y stuff, trust me, you dont want to know.

Odour of DOOM

This explains everything really...

I have spent most of the weekend trying to test a whole heap of data for normality. Well, some of it is and some of it isn't. Its driving me crazy, but at least in a short while it will all be over... now all I have to do is stop procrastinating. Hmmm, I need a plan...

Might as well face it, your addicted to sugar

Each day I get a few goodies emailed to me. One of these goodies is a cookie of the day email. Basically everyday I have a biscuit recipe emailed to me that generally involves a stick of butter and a cup of sugar. Some look interesting, most just look like hard work, and none of them are as easy to make as the short bread I always end up baking when I make biscuits. So I found it interesting when I was emailed a quiz to see if I am addicted to sugar. 'I'm not addicted to sugar', I thought as I crunched my way through a bag sugar cubes and clicked on the link (of course I am kidding about the sugar cubes, I don't do that anymore).

Yes I do make excuses to get some sugar, and I do hide it in small piles around the house... Oh my god, I am addicted to sugar!

Its lovely how a link to healthy snacks were included. Unfortunately they all require access to relatively fresh fruit and veggies. Unless I start growing veggies in the gunk that builds up on the windows, the availability of fresh fruit and veggies is extremely limited.

I bought a punnet of strawberries a little while ago and carefully checked in the shop to make sure they were all okay. I kept them in the fridge overnight and went to eat them the next day only to find the punnet was actually a punnet of fungal mycelia with some strawberries in them. This hasn't happened once, it has happened everytime I have bought 'fresh' veggies or fruit. So now I am entirely reliant on tinned, frozen and dried fruit and veggies. I will have to save healthy eating until I am within reasonable distance of civilisation again...

Good Friday Walk

We have been officially give the all clear and are no longer on cyclone watch. It turned out to be fairly uneventful, if it wasn't for people at work trying to scare everyone with cyclone stories I wouldn't have known one was there. I must admit it was a little windy yesterday, enough to mess up your hair but nothing much really. People kept moaning about how windy it was and it was a sure sign the cyclone was coming our way. Seriously, I think Sydney on an August morning is windier that we experienced over the last few days. Some people are just wimps.

Anyway, I took little Jack out to see the if much had happened at the beach and got a few photos...

Before the storm...

After the storm

the new bay

Sparkly

Soylent green

I used to work with a lady who you could call 'green' without stretching the truth much. She did things like only put a few pages of paper in the photocopier*, turn the toaster off at the power point to conserve energy**, force everyone to use a kettle instead of the instantaneous hot water system*** and turn the lights off on you while you were in the bathroom****. Needless to say her efforts to create a 'green' work environment only served to really annoy everyone and never actually achieved all that much. Now don't get me wrong, I think its great to want to save the world, after all Superman does it all the time, but sometimes its not doing anything (except annoying everyone). Here is some guy who must now work with this lady, and I thought we used to get annoyed. Poor ol' Andrew Bolt has clearly lost faith in Earth Hour.

He hits on an interesting point though where he says "the ultra greens, "the original tree-loving hippies and Greenpeace embracers", turned out to be perfect specimens of our time.
They were not only the most likely to vote Green and join green groups, but also the most likely to own a 4WD and join frequent-flyer clubs". Amazingly New Scientist came up with an actual experiment that found the same thing.

It makes me glad I rebelled against the 'green office' lady and left my monitor on stand-by on weekends and holidays.




*this was to encourage people to print less by having to constantly re-fill the paper tray. It didn't work and it just annoyed everyone
**this was to prevent unnecessary 'stand-by' power usage, the fact a toaster doesnt have stand-by didn't deter her, and it just annoyed everyone
***this was because she was convinced the instantaneous hot water heater worked by constantly keeping about 500mL water boiling hot, no explainations of how instantaneous how water works would sway her, and it just annoyed everyone
****checking to see if anyone is actually in the bathroom wastes energy, best to just turn it off and see if anyone yells at you