nothing ever goes away

I just had someone comment on a 2007 post. I blame google searches. I've also just found that this program doesn't like me typing google in lower case - it wants Google. Go figure.

And now back to reading through a paper someone here is submitting. So far I've only found a couple of typos. No, my name isn't on the author list :(

wet

It's been raining all day (after raining on and off for weeks). I almost gave myself heat exhaustion getting through mowing the front lawn last week and it needs doing again. I think the back needs a slasher now. Of course its too wet to do anything.

In other news, I'm getting used to my new progressive lenses. The frames are a bit more of a problem - I've been getting them adjusted every day. They still aren't right.

focus , focus now

Lately I've had some days where some of my tasks haven't taken up as much time as I expected (yay!) or have required me to twiddle thumbs waiting for other people (boo!).
As a result, I've been getting to the middle of the day and I've crossed off my day's list or moved it forward while I wait. The temptation is strong to just go home, but there's lots to do that I haven't got to because my days in general have been too full. I need to suck it up and start some of these jobs...but I don't want to. :(

Should I;
read my students partial project proposal
read any number of papers I haven't got to yet
apply for that equipment grant
clean up may samples in the walk in fridge that were dumped there when the lab fridge was Yasi'ed
read the notes for my education subject and reference my assignment
write the practicals for my new subject
write the appendices for my new subject
write lectures for my new subject
read the inch thick pile of papers on QA QC that I need to understand to write a lecture for my new subject.

Hmm.. perhaps the last one. It keeps me in my office while I wait for
1. the phone call from the computer guys
2. The student who promised to turn up so we could go talk to someone else
3. all the email replies from the other jobs I did today.

And is sort of what I'm in the mood for now I'm sucking it up.

raining

I love drizzly cool rain. I'd rather be at home enjoying it than at work. I'm about to go into a room 1m by 3m square with no windows and an autoclose door...I may be some time. I won't even know if there's thunder and lightning.

Sucky Windows

I just noticed that my windows now says its a non-genuine copy - I've checked online and according to the literature it does this if it asks you to type in your code and you don't (even if you do afterwards). This rings a bell from when windows downloaded a patch that caused my computer to not turn on and when I could get it on, it thought I had a new version of windows and wanted my number. This happened several times and on some occasions, it may have been asking for it but my monitor was not working. On at least one occasion I clicked past it without typing it in because I knew I'd previously installed it properly. I ditched the patch and now things are ok-ish, but I'm now waiting for windows to play up in a "non-genuine windows" way.

todays fun

This was run during our biosafety induction today - it certainly lightened things up and lots of us could relate.

Power Back Today!

Our power is back on, so now I'm catching up on things I couldn't do with the power off and resetting up my tivo....mmm off to set up the tivo now.

Day 5

Still no power.
My battery fan was nice last night and I'll buy some more batteries today in case it runs out. We are going to buy a generator and a proper chainsaw & kevlar chainsaw clothes. I just need to do some generator research, but I'm too busy right now with the course I'm on and the stuff that died in the lab.

Post Yasi day 4

I've still got no power. Today I bought a battery operated fan (designed for camping). Tomorrow I have to go back to work and sit in a course for three days - I hope they don't expect me to do internet based homework at night - my access will be limited. Its going to be very tight getting the semester ready since I've lost 6.5 work days, 3 for the course, the rest for Yasi. I havenn't got onto the emergency recovery number yet - its overloaded.

Post Yasi - day 3

Still no power. I got someone in Thuringowa to recharge my computer & mums mobile. The Ergon guy was on the radio talking about expected repair times & listed suburbs that will get power over the weekend, then the suburbs for next week and the suburbs they can't get into yet due to damage...my suburb was not mentioned at all. It could be a long week. I'm now entitled to a payment to cover expenses of being without power (generator fuel, ice, thrown out food etc. I haven't rung yet in the hope we'll get power back soon. If not , the costs will start to mount up & I might think about it.
The weather is getting warmer, skies are blue, hot sun, steamy ground, so I'm missing the fan now. I'm also achy, I've been working pretty hard the last few days pulling out stuff we had stored and this morning I helped clean up the very, very large amounts of huge fallen trees at our church. We only stopped because the larger tools (such as chainsaws) all ran out of oil. There are a few petrol stations open, so dad got fuel, but they had no ice. The ice maker in Townsville has been sleeping at his facility making ice 24 hours a day with friends and family to help. There's a queue at the gate that has been as long as 2km at times. I'm not sure I need to get ice that badly.
Missing my computer games :( I haven't been bored enough to pull out my work notes though.

Post Yasi - day 2

Power still out. I went to uni to check on the -80 freezers and see if they had power for me to recharge my computer with. Generator power ok with freezers on it but no other power. So I only have 40 minutes left on my computer (no way I'm unplugging our generator powered units. Depending on how long this goes on I may go silent. The Honours and Masters students building has a branch through the roof. Theres a few shops open but no-one with bread yet.
I am so lucky. None of our trees came down and nothing is damaged at our house. The number of yards with trees down is amazing. People are putting branches on the footpath everywhere... Plus all the footpath trees down. Dad couldn't get out to his bees this morning there were multiple trees over the road but also a power line about 2ft off the road going across. The street next to us has lovely trees over the road - now on the road. So its not just blocked at one spot, but at least 3 spots that I could see at a glance. I've seen a few windows broken and the church building has had glass doors blow in and the carpark is full of trees down.
We have water again - they frantically were fixing the water supply last night, but we would have been ok anyway, we had about 200 plus litres of water stored.
Getting off nowe in the hopes I can save some charge for tomorrow - or find someone with power (most of Townsville is still out).

Post Yasi

We're still here.
We lost power at about 10:40pm and still don't have it back. Yay for laptop batteries and wireless dongles from Telstra (which is the only provider functioning right now).
I didn't sleep much and we've had to clean up water in the house because our windows leak when horizontal rain hits it, but thats it.
Behind us a large tree came down from one neighbour and crushed the other neighbours hills hoist.
beside us a 6ft wooden gate was ripped down - it banged back and forth for a while and a metal awning tore off and hit a car. Over the road one neighbours gutters and fascia are 1/2 down and next to the 2/3 of a metal awning is down and some roof damage has occurred. There are tree branches in the street and snapped branches around places. The local news says don't drive round because there's lots of power lines down and trees blocking roads.
We've been told to be careful with waater because the treatment plant isn't running.
We are sharing the neighbours generator and running one fridge/freezer for 3 hours and then swapping to the next one.
Its still very gusty but like a normal gusty day, not a storm. The sun even came out.
We

Cyclone Yasi

11:45am
Starting to hunker down (crossing coast about 10pm to midnight atm). They shut the uni yesterday and won't open for the rest of the week. I waited in a queue this morning to fill a can of petrol in case we need to use a generator. The windows are taped. The cameras, phones and computers are fully charged. Plenty of foood in the house, the gas camping stove and fuel is upstairs. My evacuation bag is packed except for my pillow. I have most of the yard cleaned, all the budgies are in cages under the house (If we have to go, I give them a tonne of food and water & hope they survive. Now I'm just waiting for dad to finish moving someone to another house and come home to tie down the last couple of things. The house gates are chained shut, front fence gates aren't yet.
We've just had our first band of rain & wind and I was still tidying so I'm now soaked.
I don't think we'll bother filling the bathtub with water till we've had showers but all my water bottles are full.

8pm
We still have power (I'm lotroing with the radio on). The tub is being filled as I type. Cardwell is completely empty - the whole town was evacuated today.

We've been getting txts on our phones from the emergency centre. Last night at 10:30pm we got one saying the low lying areas of townsville were being evacuated. Apparently they door-knocked and everyone affected had to be out by this morning. We are about 300m away from the worst case scenario flooding zone - and in a high set house so all we'll lose is cars and stuff under the house if its worse than that.

I may keep you updated but I expect we'll lose power tonight and not have access to it for 3-4 days.

2pm
Now I'm exhausted - we weren't as close to finished as I thought. The bush house is now full of miscellaneous potential missiles, my car is up the side of the house for more protection. The aviary has stuff in it that doesn't fit under the house. Dad said there was enough protection in it that as long as the cyclone doesn't change direction, my birds would have been fine...but if it did change direction I might have been trying to catch the birds in the dark during category 2+ winds. Anyhoo, now we are done. I also planted a gerbera in the front garden - what timing. The winds have picked up again but its only spitting.

3:05pm. My cousin in Ayr just lost power - Some parts of Ayr lost power earlier today. I think it might be a combination of left over cyclone Anthony damage and a less stable power supply. Windy here, not a lot of rain.

4:05pm Its getting gusty. We are having early showers so we can fill up the bath tub. Parts of Townsville are losing power. This may be my last post for some time if we lose power too. Mum's filling the hurricane lanterns & putting boiling water in thermos flasks. We have the radio on constantly now. I'm off to turn off un-needed stuff.

5:35pm
I still have power but its gusty and rainy - the forcast map says we are well into strong gale force winds - destructive winds should be here in an hour or so.

8:50pm
Power out in Kelso, northern beaches, west end. We still have power if you didn't guess. The winds are wild & whistling down the street. The trees are churning. Nothing has broken or flown through the air yet that I can see. Its really loud if you actually open a door or window (or go into the toilet where the window doesn't seal shut). I'm really sleepy, but I'm not sure its safe to sleep.

9:22pm
That last gust shook the house. Maybe its time to turn off the computer. We are in the destructive winds phase and will be for hours now

spoke too soon

That annoying computer glitch is still happening, so now I've uninstalled the KB2419640 patch (restore pointed it). Of course I'll have to keep an eye out for windows tying to reinstall it, but lets see how it goes now.

bleh - windows update scare

Fortunately it fixed itself, but my newish computer wouldn't turn on after it updated this morning - power and fans but nothing else. I let it cool down, tried again a few times and finally it fixed itself. And then it told me I had to register windows - which I've already done, good thing the box was still to hand. I thought it might have messed up something important and all my programs would be gone. It didn't help that the computer has been off for 2 weeks while I was away. I found the last update and searched online and apparently this is a windows7 64 problem with this update - some people had to get in and manually remove it (not easy if it just won't turn on). {tentative} it seems ok now.

spirobathmophobia

There's a name for it!
The fear of spiral staircases. I never used to be afraid of them. In fact when touring Britain (twice) I climbed up and down many of them in various castles. But at some point they started to freak me out. I think it was at Clifford's Tower in York. Its too heavy for the hill its on and has sunk a bit - theres a tilt. So you are climbing a spiral staircase on a sideways slope. Then there was the very narrow very long, often with no rail to hold onto. staircase to the roof of York Cathedral..so my incipent spirobathmophobia was reinforced by my claustrophobia and my general lack of fitness (am I going to have a heart attack 1/2 way up and how would they get me out). Now they make me very nervous. My brother Doug laughed at me since he thinks spiral staircases are the safest ones to fall down on the basis you hit a wall pretty quickly that stops you cold. I will still climb them, but they are no longer fun.

the invention of a gravity inversion field is well overdue

I'm painting the bathroom ceiling. Or rather, I'm preparing to paint the bathroom ceiling.
Plan
Monday: sand and wash ceiling
Tuesday: undercoat ceiling
Wednesday-Thursday: paint ceiling
Friday: Tidy up

Reality
Monday: hand sand and wash, informed by dad I'll have to use the electric sander and a paint scraper because the current condition is so poor it won't take a new coat, sanded some and scraped off 1m square
Tuesday: sanding off areas that wont scrape and scraping as the sander hits loose areas - about 1 square foot done by lunch time....I might have it all cleaned by the end of the week. I have to keep stopping and doing other things to rest my aching arms.

Friday Update
Still sanding/scraping the ceiling - in some areas the sander works, in others it doesn't. In some areas I can scrape off swathes, in most areas its bits less than a cm 2. I'm also going through the paint in some areas and tearing off cardboard. Day 1 (Monday) had the most success. Tuesday and Thursday was sheer torture. Wednesday I did a lot of other things. Today seems to be more of the scrape off large sections again. If I can get all the loose stuff off today, I've tested a fine sandpaper which seems to smooth all the different types of surface and maybe I can undercoat tomorrow...but I'm thinking it will be closer to Monday. I do have to get it done by then though, or I'll be off on a plane with it half finished.

ah...

On Holiday. Of course, I've sort of filled my holiday completely up - but its not with work

Goldilocks and the three bears

I'm tempted to do a Chris - not that he's used muppets recently, so I can vent regarding aspects of life. Fairy-tale characters reused would be a good start, but I'd have to be far more creative than my current workload allows, and I'd have to work out who was who.

wow that was fast

I couldn't figure out how to do something on LOTRO - I thought there was a glitch, so I put in a help request - and a GM replied in game in under 5 minutes! It was actually me not noticing the right person to talk to. Duh.

books...books

My first lot of books from the Book Depository arrived yesterday. There was much reading of "I shall wear midnight" last night. I let my brother know about it this morning and he immediately got online and found it was cheaper for him than Amazon. Now of course, I have to read a lit review...then go into the lab! Glee!

Footloose

I found a new web comic called Footloose I had to stay up last night to read aallll the way through the archive. Tired now.

Ah - lecture recess - a week off from students

..no..wait...I have a project proposal, chapter of a thesis and half a literature review to write (lots of) comments on, 5 sets of 30+ practicals to mark, next week's lectures to write, a grad student to teach PCR to and another to teach the use of a freeze dryer to & a new PhD students offer to babysit through the paper trail. At least I got a paper submitted last Friday. With any luck they'll wait at least a week before rejecting it.

Rain

I washed the car on Sunday...so it started raining Sunday night. We had 38mm by 7am. My wellingtons have once more only lasted one season. I bought a pair a couple of years ago, used them for one wet season, tried to use them the next and found they leaked. I bought a new pair from somewhere else, ditto and ditto. Wet feet checking on the birds this morning. My next pair will be from a workwear shop it the hopes they aren't cheap junk like the previous few. My Dads wellingtons have lasted him years.

almost tempted to buy...

Theres a Miles Vorkosigan roleplaying game out - my favourite character by my favourite author. Perhaps I could just get it to have it.

WorldCon!

Loads of fun...oldest attender looked like she was in her late 70's, youngest was under 6months - possibly under 3 months but I have no baby age skills. This is my favourite shot of the con. I'm wearing my "come to the dark side, we have cookies -V" shirt. Which was appropriate for the shot :)

For those of you who haven't heard yet, there was a tie for first place for the Hugo for best novel and the Foglio's sold out of their graphic novels in under 2 hours - I got one - Glee!

dinner - Jamaica Joe's

I went out to Jamaica Joe's using my table 52 card on Saturday night with my parents. The weather was a little cool for it. The place is not sealed in, being on the water, but the food was nice. Mum and I had the best dishes; Jerked chicken and Goat curry. The curry was mild and tasty, the meat was tender. Dad's Angus burger was ok but not special. Service was friendly and prompt. Some of the prices were up there with Michels, but there were cheaper options.

Dropping balls

Up to 4 since last Friday.

forgot to let students into a lab on Friday
forgot to put lecture notes online prior to end of weekend
forgot to find reagents for Tuesdays prac till I woke up at 11:30pm last night having just got to sleep
went to the wrong lecture theatre this morning

Its going to get worse too.

Phew!

I got my updated computer home yesterday and the second thing I did was install LOTRO from scratch. I've heard of problems and didn't want to add to them by installing an old version and trying to upgrade.
The download went on all night (12 hours) then it installed directX 9 and microsoft net1.1 and started up fine. The computer then asked if I'd like to install directX 10 and I decided not in case something happens.
Of course, I haven't checked it again since I turned the computer off. Maybe the Microsoft net thing will screw up my computer and it won't turn on again :)


Edit: Ok not quite so phew - playing LOTRO caused my computer to turn off in 5 minute intervals, till I upgraded my video card & now it seems ok for an hour or so & then turns off. The fans do get faster & stay fast shortly before it shuts down (no BSOD, just off like the power went out). It lasts longer when I pull off my lit up mouse & turn off backlighting on my keyboard. The error is power kernal. Methinks the power supply isn't quite handling it. Its not overheating - I've been monitoring the core temp. When I have a minute to spit, I'll check how much wattage my power supply has.

Free Tickets!

I got free tickets to one of the chamber music festival events from Uni and had a lovely night out this week. I learned that there are musical notations for plucking strings as well as whacking the wood of your instrument with your bow. A violin/piano duet (of hebrew lullaby I think) was amazing. The violinist was celebrating his 30th birthday and the music was glorious. There were also some very slow gentle pieces being played at around 10pm - my mother just started to nod off :).

The civic theatre is undergoing an expansion, it looks lovely, but they'd better be putting more loo's in. 3 ladies toilets on one side is not sufficient.

stitches

3.

Across the side of my left hand. Now I can't do anything weight bearing with my hand. Typing is done with just my middle finger...don't know how gaming will go.

I pulled a ring pull lid off a can of salmon at lunch and it unexpectedly released more on one side than the other so I swung the sharp edge across my hand. A 1.5cm long and 5mm deep laceration resulted. Kind of puts me off tinned salmon.

I waited in emergency for 2 hours, fortunately with a well bandaged hand. When the nurse took the bandage off to check if it needed stitching (as there was a long queue and I wasn't very high up it if it didn't need stitching) it started bleeding nicely again, but it had mainly stopped when the doctor called me 10 minutes later.

He started cleaning it before putting local in - which made the rather painful local seem relatively mild :) I think that might have been a clever psychological trick.

Now I can't get it wet for a week, need to change my bandage twice a day and get stitches out in a week. The pharmasist siad take pain killers as soon as it starts to throb or they won't work as well. One of my co-workers said to take some before bed so I don't wake up in pain.

These are the first stitches I've ever had not under a general (I had my wisdom teeth out under general).

Sydney dinners

I was in Sydney for a conference the other week. I spent my travel time dodging FIFA celebrations and the state of origin match. The trip back home had full planes due to it being the day after state of origin and the day before the V8's in Tville.

I did have some nice meals while I was there...
Pork belly at the restaurant at the Novotel where I stayed. - lovely but waaay too much for me to get through


Peri peri chicken (assuming I remember the name) also at my hotel - forgot to photograph it till I'd eaten some






entree at the conference dinner

hmm - the rest are on my phone and I'm too tired to figure out how to download them.

Yongala lodge for dinner

I have a acquired a deck of table 52 cards which has 52 "buy one main course get one free" cards for various restaurants, pubs, cafes etc round Townsville. It runs out next May, so I'll probably get through a few of them. Last Friday my cousin and I went out to Yongala Lodge. We parked directly out front, ate on the balcony and generally had a good time. Food was good (greek themed) We shared an antipasto platter and then I had chicken koti and Ros had lamb on rice with baby potatoes. They altered a dish to take into account the no wheat, dairy, nuts or yeast limits she has. I probably didn't enjoy the koti as much as I would have if I hadn't filled up on antipasto. It was lovely but I could feel the calories going down. I thought the veg were very tasty though. The service was just right, service staff seemed happy to be there & turned up at exactly the right time intervals. Ambiance was excellent, its quiet, not cramped and the view is nice. We had a little entertainment when the ghost tour turned up. Though we didn't hear the details.

I expect I'll be eating out more now. I'm taking my parents to Michel's next month.

I'll write them up. Must remember to take camera - I haven't figured out how to download the phone pics yet

I should have been reading a students chapter but...

I was reading a web page on ciguatera poisoning today and was struck by the chemical structure of the toxin. It looks for all the world like a hairy caterpillar drinking through a straw.

not sure I like this new fangled technology

I've been reading through the Hugo award entries on my computer, so I can vote intelligently - or at least not based on whose name sounds coolest. I'm finding I'd much prefer to be lying on a bed with a paperback in front of my nose. Its more comfy and less hard on my eyes. Perhaps if I tech'd up and got a ipad I would be able to at least lie down and read, but I still prefer the ability to stick my finger in a page and randomly flick through, knowing I can get back to my page at will & immediately.

Arrr me hearties

In a continuation of my frivolous spending of yesterday, I bought boots on sale from rivers. I put them on and they made me laugh out loud, possibly not the best reason to buy accessories.
They have a flap at the top that makes them look exactly like pirate boots! I shall take a photo when I have something to wear them with. I should have dragged myself round the shops when Jeggings were in - I probably can't get them now and these will need something tight and not thick to go over. Bare knees won't cut the mustard. If I do make an outfit, I'm so wearing them to work on international talk like a pirate day on September 19. I'll even go to the chemist and buy an eye-patch.
On other news, I have the GPS working, so tomorrow I'm going to try "turning right in 300 meters"

frivolous shopping

This morning I went to buy my mother a mouse for her computer and didn't like any of the ones under $70. So instead, I gave her my cordless mouse and keyboard and bought myself a gaming keyboard that was on sale - microsoft sidewinder X6. So far so nice - glowy keys. I'll have to spend some time working on the macro keys though. The big plus is I can put the number pad on the left side. I also bought myself a car sat nav....haven't pulled it out of the box yet - but I have a long weekend and a new Wii game - ditto. I'm torn between playing with all that and playing with my new keyboard on LOTRO (since its a free travel weekend).

Did I mention that there were a lot of sales on today?

where did the weekend go?

To Ayr apparently, where some female friends and I went bargain clothes hunting - good Australian brands, very good prices. I now have a LBD and two pairs of terribly impractical shoes. I also bought black truffles for work and some sheeps cheese. Then we had high tea at the Pantry door - good value for money.

Going south, Hemorrhaging money

I had been wincing slightly at the ~$2000 it will cost me to got to Melbourne in September for 5 days of WorldCon...roll on Science fiction :D
Then I added up what it will cost me to go to Sydney for a week in July to get to a conference that will be very useful for my research work (and teaching)...$3500. I'm not even leaving the country! It doesn't help that registration for this event is $1000 and I'll have to stay 7 nights in Darling Harbour area so I can network efficiently after conference hours. Its the general consensus that if you stay a long way away from the conference, you miss out on the most useful part - making contacts. Otherwise I'd be angling for that fold out couch of Andrea's. At least I don't have to pay for Sydney from my own pocket, just my own research pocket.

Ah - exceedingly long epic questline done

It took a fair chunk of my long weekend to do it too. I thought it just gave me the option to buy a white horse - but apparently, it gives it to you free :) There's 5G I've been saving up that is now able to be frivolously spent :D

Also as really cool gifties is a very nice cloak and a painting of Narmaleth for my cottage in the shire. Kin should stop round to have a look - its next to the keg that takes you to places in Moria where you can't get down except by plummeting to your death.

update again

Just before I trot off on rounds handing things over to people.
On the weekend I finally got round to planting my Lilly Pillies and doing the last of the first coat on the fence. My touch up spray coat will have top wait for a less windy day. Also went out on Saturday night and saw how to train your dragon (3D) the screams and ooh's of the kids in the audience were entertaining. The little black dragon was the star performer and he didn't even speak. :) The running gags were funny, though some of the dialogue was a bit too mature for the age of the characters.

Also on the weekend I ran Bindy through two chapters of book 1 epic line (I'm now on Book 14 (heh just wrote 145 - it seems that long)). I tried to get through as much as possible while the travel was free - good thing too - I spent an hour or more quick riding back and forth from the east to the west side of the bay in Forochel just talking to two people who kept sending me away to talk to the other.
I will shortly be up to the Eregion components - I think that might be the last of it - there's only 15 books before I can buy my pure white horse.
Things I have learned on the epic line - never trust any female NPC's - its all treachery and lies.

making up for lost time

Today I;
Mowed the lawn
scrubbed the bath
vacuumed and mopped the floor
pulled up some grass from the driveway
planned, measured and dug 7 of the 14 holes for the lilly pilli hedge I'm going to plant
tested out the best method of painting the front fence:- spray bottle full of deruster followed by small sponge roller, followed by paint brush or aerosol spray can of the same paint for fiddly areas
looked at moving the aviary (need to get quote for getting a new slab down when we get the new driveway done)
played some Lotro
had a nap
wrote up my blog

Ah..it feels good to achieve something

mmm movies

I found a trailer website with a bunch of movies I wouldn't mind seeing this year

2 superhero movies - both with non-powered heroes (one a delusional man - I think)
the last airbender - I enjoyed the cartoons in the morning & it looks quite spectacular
killers - looks funny, similar premise to one with robert de niro & michael douglas (fathers of the bride and groom) - can't remember the name of it though
The losers - maybe

Looks like it might be movie year for me :)

tired, anxious and taking a deep breath

Sooo much to do and Lectures start on Monday. This is my last chance to finish the instructional videos I've been making, and organise demonstrators for next weeks prac :(

nothing to say

busy, tired - all the usual suspects...still here.

Thought I'd better let people know I wasn't swallowed by a black hole.

1 week down

Well,
I'm now one week into work and still haven't got through all my Monday stuff - not unexpected. My brother has left to go back to sunny Scotland and now I have the cooler room and more comfy bed back - ah. In spite of reading the late Christmas present that Andrea sent last night (thanks Andrea, one of my favourite authors) I feel wide awake this morning , ready to:

mow the lawn
take back the wii remote that's playing up
hunt for some sort of paint spray that seals in rust for the front fence
sell some cook books
copy some VCR's to DVD

but first, a little lotro - heh heh heh

sleepy..

Its Thursday,
I still haven't got to some of the things I thought would be done on Monday. I haven't looked at my own research yet (though that may happen today). I have talked to 3 research students though :) and they are all doing something now.
Its been rather hot, my bed is not as comfortable as the one I sleep in when my little brother isn't visiting and I haven't been getting my afternoon nanna nap that was a mainstay of my holidays..so I'm a little sleepy.
Its been 34oC at 9:30pm at night in my room and then 32oC the next morning - I need a better fan, or aircon.

I think I need to write a list of the gear I need to get my research going and then go find it. I ordered it all a year ago thinking I'd have time then, so its sat around, being shifted everytime the lab moves/fridges fail etc and now I have to find it all again :( I hope its all still in date.

On more fun news, this is my brothers last night here so we're going to the strand - I must remember to wear walking shoes for the long stroll after dinner to the icecream shop.

aaaand back

Back at work, too much to do - 9:30am and I've already had 4 people poke their heads through the door to see me.

No blogging recently as my brother has been home from Scotland for the first time in 10 years. We've been going out a lot and also ripping out the front fence and replacing it in a straight format.

Also,
Barbeques on the strand with plate sized t-bones, curries, pastas and roo dinners...Dougs cooking. Michel's mmm, Hervey's range tea house for cat poo coffee, Charters towers for lunch, lots of going out for coffee in the morning. Naps in the afternoon. Movie watching at night. Playing the Wii (and getting thrashed at boxing)...hmm I'm sure there's more, but I must focus on work now :(

What I did on my holidays

Today I went through 10 years of superannuation and receipts paperwork and files most of it in the shredder. The back room is almost clear enough for my brother to sleep in when he arrives, the front room is still a pigsty but I do have a pile of stuff in there ready for a trip to the salvos. I cut the ham I bought this Christmas for lunch today - mmm smoked ham.
I've been playing with a new high pressure water hose. If it hadn't been so saturated here the last few days I'd be out spraying foam on the house and cleaning it properly. The squelchy weather turns me off a bit. I mowed last week and the grass is higher now than it was when I mowed. I'm not looking forward to the first mow when it gets dry enough
I figured out what my dedunk error was on my computer - I think - and can deal with it fine now - its the card reader slots - they have an attached USB port which is probably what causes the error. I just disengage when the error first turns up and its all fine.
I spent the afternoon tanking for a group of 5 in Carn Dum and only died once.

I'm sure I've done more than this in the last few days...its something of a blur.

Avatar

Saw it in 3D today
Very, very cool flying things ..and that is all I will say until you've all seen it.

Merry Christmas one and all (for tomorrow)

Because there's no way I'll get on the computer tomorrow to say it - what with the turkey and the ham and the cake and the prawns... and the buche de Noel.

In the last two days I mowed the lawn, window tinted the western facing windows in the back room, bought office 7 for a laptop that didn't have office on it, did the very last of my Christmas shopping and had a pedicure (the nail polish was a little disappointing - I was careful with it for 2 hours afterward and assumed it would then be dry - and now I have material patterns in it from the blanket on my bed when I had an afternoon nap.

I also had my first MRI today - loud long and slightly uncomfortable, but at least only the bottom 1/2 of my body went in so there was no claustrophobia induced panic attack involving wild thrashing about and uncontrolled sobbing.

Still to do today
Photograph the bird Susie is getting for Christmas, take a bird over to Dot and wrap those last pesky presents.
I think I'll wait till after Christmas to do anything more on my list.

and so it goes dedunk dedunk dedunk

They couldn't find an error with the computer and suggested it was a USB connection. I pulled everything and replaced my mouse and spent 3 days monitoring, at first I thought it was heat since I still got the error sometimes but then when if was going nuts, I took away the side wall that was just resting against the computer and turned the fan on it. No dice. Then I turned the computer around a bit and it stopped- and stayed stopped. I've had the fan off, the side back on and had it running hotter and still no error. I think there's a connection in the back which is not quite right and moving the computer has got it sitting right ( or a cable that has a dodgy bit maybe). I'm now afraid to touch the computer even though its sitting rather awkwardly.

On other news - the back room is cleaned up, I've been pricing software, I've marked a literature review for work - EVEN THOUGH I'M ON HOLIDAYS!, gone to the graduation (4 hours out of my day) - EVEN THOUGH I'M ON HOLIDAYS!
Tomorrow I'm getting my car serviced and going in to uni to listen to an honours confirmation seminar - EVEN THOUGH I'M ON HOLIDAYS!
I've also had calls and requests to go in to work every day last week. You really need to leave town and lose your mobile to get away from this job. My dad laughed because when I was small he was doing exactly the same (they even called him after he'd resigned and moved on).

I just washed my academic robes today. I figured out since I wear them no more than twice a year, I have to wear them for 70 years to get my $5 a wear rule value out of them. I work on the basis that I can buy any jewelry, shoes or clothing so long as I wear them once for each $5 that they cost - eg $30 pair of shoes must be worn 6 times. It stops me from thinking clothes are too good to wear and leaving them in the cupboard. The better they are, the more I have to wear them.

I've also cleaned all bar one of my bird cages, booked a facial etc for me and Mum and put away the miscellaneous star trek paraphernalia I'd picked up over the last year as well as playing an RPG with C & A, lots of LOTRO and a bit of an online game in beta - but the repeated big downloads, character wipes and limited access time sort of cramps my style.

new comic

Having read this, I feel a bit bad about taking down goblins in LOTRO.

To do done so far

2 days officially off and I've already had to write a long email to a student and have a 10 minute phone call today. As per usual, expensive pieces of equipment break on Friday at 2pm, when the rest of the day is meetings and then off on holidays. Hopefully it will all be dealt with by someone else, though that was what the phone call was about.

So far I have;
* taken my computer in to have a glitch looked at (I'm using my parents to write this)
* taken my DVD recorder in ditto (don't expect it back before christmas - so much for watching DVD's on Holidays) - maybe I will be buying that tivo sooner rather than later
* made Buche de Noel with Dot
* shifted the lounge room furniture around
* made a start on cleaning up my rooms
*taken some 1/2 hour afternoon naps
*Posted Andreas Christmas present and Birthday present- only to have Australia Post go on Strike. You may get it, someday....I also just bought the first bit of the next round of presents.

About to go out and;
*play RPG with A & C

Still to do
*repair tumbler (only been trying to get to this since July)
*get ebay account and sell some stuff (only been trying to get to this since 2 years ago)
* finish clean up my back bedroom so that visitors can actually sleep there
*sew up curtain hems
*look for cool Birthday presents for Dad, Doug,
*play lots and lots of online RPG's - I have done a little bit ;)
*finish scrapbooking my tazzy trip, do skiing trip
*rest - as instructed by Andrea
*convert tapes to DVD - if I ever get the DVD recorder back
*go to the movies - I just bought 6 tickets to use up at Warrina
put the christmas tree up - only 2 weeks behind so far
*hmm I think there's more on my list somewhere - but I'm off now to put the birds to bed and put the Birthday presents for A & C in the car.

I feel strangely sleepy given I'm on Holidays ;D

been galivanting

I've been up in Innisfail collecting soil samples to look for phage. Now I have to process them....still sleepy from filed trip fresh air. I have to finish the coffee sitting beside me and go sort my samples this morning, maybe start processing them too.
Innisfail was nice, I ate out at the RSL and the Imperial tavern & stayed at the Big 4 caravan park with was clean, quiet and well set out. I got to see lots of different banana breeds as well as ornamental gingers, lilipilli and limes. We stopped and bought cheap fruit all the way home...mmm lychees.
Last night I had a meat skewer at outback Jacks. It was a foot long with 3cm cubed chunks of meat on it...double yum

...and now, to work!

Subject to change without notice

This is my list of things to do during my holidays. I will be editing as I remember things, decide not to do things etc

To do
*repair tumbler (only been trying to get to this since July)
*get ebay account and sell some stuff (only been trying to get to this since 2 years ago)
*make Buche de Noel with Dot - this is the "oh we've eaten too much so we'll just have a little slice to be polite....is there any more? perhaps thirds?" cake I have made in previous years
*clean up my back bedroom so that visitors can actually sleep there
*play RPG with A & C
*Post Andreas Christmas present
*look for cool Birthday presents for Dad, Doug, Andrea
*play lots and lots of online RPG's
*finish scrapbooking my tazzy trip, do skiing trip

edit 18/11/09
*rest - as instructed by Andrea

edit 26/11/09
*sew up curtain hems




Wouldn't it be nice to do
catch a flight to brisbane and go shopping for a couple of days

crippled - timing could be worse

I blew out my knee on Tuesday. I spent the evening icing it and the next morning it looked baseball sized and almost as firm - I couldn't bend it far or straighten up completely. Went to work to pick up some reading and then went home and spent the day in bed alternatively icing and compressing. I got a new ice pack whcih is really cool...in more ways than one. It looks like one of those old headache bags with the screw cap that you put ice in - but also comes with a large neoprene thing with straps that fits over it so you can velcro the whole thing to your knee, ankle , elbow etc...and it doesn't slide off!
On Thursday I spent much of the day seeing the Doctor, getting x-rays and making bookings to see the orthopedic surgeon.
Its a lot better today, but the problem I have is that I'm getting injured regularly when walking on flat surfaces in straight lines.
When people say "what did you do?" my response is "nothing". So I want to find out whats really wrong inside the old knee & make sure its not something that 10 years from now they'll say "oh we know whats wrong, you should have got it fixed a decade ago, its too late now."
And the timing could be worse - at least I don't have to run for classes and stand up in front of them at the moment. It might mess up the planned field trip though.

and the phone doesn't work again

We had a ml of rain last night. Enough to make it muggy and make the phone line change from static and working to snow and not. The ADSL is still working though.

a blow by blow account....

Actually, probably not - since we were online doing hall of mirrors instance in LOTRO for 3 hours and still didn't get to the end. We gave up when we all died at 10:30pm and had to run a very long way back through to get to the "just before the big boss" area.

I did discover that 3x lvl 60 characters can, with the appropriate mix and tactics, kill 2 nasty rehealing wargs and then a boss with over 100 000 hit points. When we eventually got close to the big boss, the morrovail kept repopping and since they had an instideath thing after 45 sec, it was hard to take them out quickly enough to not die as well as have time to figure out the next step. I've got to the point where if the creature has less than 11000hp, its considered easy. At least in a group with a loremaster.

I think we'll have to start from scratch next time...perhaps when we have a longer free time to go through it.

problems briefly fixed

P1
The guy came round, looked at the phone - discovered I'd plugged the network port into the phone line which had caused the complete silence (woops - since taped over that connection). Couldn't find any static, said it might be one of my plugs being old and a little dodgy connection wise.....they'll probably send me a bill since they found the plug in the wrong port)
Static came back the next day - replaced all of my line filters and splitters, static still there. Will call my brother before calling Telstra again I think.

P2
Opened up the computer, swapped the ram around, prodded the connections - issue went away. Until I'd had the computer on all Sunday afternoon, where I got a BSOD and then a brief freeze with audio loop. I also had a new issue which was actual lag I think - though possibly it was the freeze screen. It killed Bindy.
I'll have another open up and prod. I may have to run the computer with the side off, or move it to somewhere I can blast a fan on it full time. I could tape net curtain over the side - or fly screen - and let a fan blow in...I could buy and install airconditioning I guess too.

problem fixed..errm

I checked all my cables - even when all switched off and filter/no filter on single lines I still had static. I rang telstra, they were having an upgrade, could I ring tomorrow. I rang tomorrow, They organised to send out a tech - in 2-4 days and diverted incoming calls to my mums mobile...outgoing should still work but be staticy still.

Then the phones stopped working entirely no static, no dial tone - the incoming divert worked but we have no outgoing - oh, and no internet. Now telstra have got us booked in for a tech in 2 days.

Soo - no good way to work on my second computer based problem yet. Also, no game playing.

problem solving

I actually enjoy problem solving - if I have some free time. Even if not, I can waste hours trying to figure out solutions to things for other people. I know I shouldn't because my work doesn't get done, but it is so much fun.

I do have some of my own trouble shoots to do at the moment.

1. Static on phone. Is it because;
a) I churned to a new provider
b) there's a fault turned up on the line
c) the dvd player I in put in the parents room is interfering with the phone base

2. Dedunk dedunk noise on my computer, matched with brief thinking by the computer which slows things down on the desktop and freezes the screen in lotro if I'm playing (also causing audio looping) for about 10 sec - mouse still works. I need to;
a) remove everything that plugs in via usb and turn on computer - see if it happens again
b) open computer and check all my connections are tight
c) try to track down some of the alert thingies on my event viewer
d) do more online reading
e) look for viruses, spyware etc
f) look at my router settings -I did some fiddling when I churned - but I think I already had the issue then

I've already done a checkdisk - its not that. Used canned air on all my USB ports - still happens.

Some of the comments on the event viewer are about non-existant registry or DLL files, but there don't seem to be enough events to match to the frequency of the dedunks

ok - must go and do real work (ie marking) now

pics at last

Here are my new Champions online characters
- Dark Lightning



Precious Horde (who I team up with A&C's Dragons to fight for justice for the soft skins.


Hawk Blade - physically my strongest character - she lifts trucks over her head and throws them



and Tiffany, my gadgeteer. I wanted a completely human looking character. Apparently a good fighting match for Normal Man...who looks suspiciously like Chris dressed up.

storage woes

My Lotro characters have bulging pockets that are terribly unorganised...pretty much like my own storage at home. I spent all evening fiddling with it last night (the Lotro stuff that is) logging in and out between watching TV. I don't think its improved any...perhaps I'll have another shot on Thursday - or i could just sell it all. I would be selling my own stuff if I got organised enough too.

chipmonk eyes

I am suspicious that the decaf coffee I was given at 8:30 last night was not actually decaf - I was still eyes wide open at 1am. Then I had to get up before 7am. The previous night I had stayed up waaay too late killing dragons in Carn Dum. At least I have the gratifyingly sunken and darkly circled eyes of the sleep deprived. I hate it when I feel awful but look fine - there's just no sympathy.

And in recognition of the 19th...Arrgh

My pirate name is:

Captain Jenny Bonney

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

behind

Still haven't put photos I intended to on here.

I also have a cold - for which I'm blaming Lexifabs plague ridden blog.
I have a bunch of jobs at home that aren't done - which I'm not blaming LOTRO or champions online for (though I probably should).
I also have a bunch of jobs at work that aren't done for which I'm blaming focusing entirely on writing lectures. I now have two weeks to catch up (and write more lectures). Today I will be doing only catch up stuff. Tomorrow I'll start writing again I think.

not a great start to the day

At work at 7:30am for an 8am lecture. Open up my brand new fresh coffee beans and the top comes off the packet so the packet drops - coffee beans on the floor. Set up my dripolator and start reading the lecture - look back and theres coffee all over my coffee table (aka filing cabinet). The top seal on the coffee (which is there to keep the heat in and should pop down automatically when you put the coffee pot in the dripolator) hadn't popped down - so the coffee had run out over the now sealled lid of the coffee pot. Cleaned up and on a second run through the same beans now - not as good as it could have been.

I'm definitely not doing any lab work today.

Champions online - death by rubberbanding

Two days after mentioning I might try this new superhero game, a late birthday present arrives...so now I'm very tired.

The character make up is awesome...I spend at least an hour on each one. 30 seconds to pick a power, then 59 minutes and 30 seconds to get the cheekbones, toenails, insect wings and colour scheme juuust right.

It was ok on day one once I got past the intro screen freezing my computer because zone alarm blocked the game. The game itself in the first section looks very comic booky - which is realistic I guess. My Gold Dragon character sort of makes my eyes bleed to look at her in the sunlighty bits.

I even got my head round the movement controls - sort of. Day two I gave up due to terminal rubberbanding. No-one else seemed to have problems but my character ended up dead due to not being able to run away or fight back. I may check it again tonight and see how it is.

Characters so far:
Hawk blade (female martial artist in pink and white with hawk wings, tail and a head crest)
Dark lightning (male darkness skill, all in shiny metallic black with blue lightning motifs and
a cape and scarf over his face)
Precious Horde: Golden humanoidish type dragon with green trim - she lopes along on all fours rather than running
Tiffany (blonde gadgeteer with pigtails and wearing a green plaid skirt and jacket over a purple shirt, with purple shoes and spectacles)

Edit: tried it - rubberbanding up the wazoo. Tried again this morning and its fine - hope that means they've fixed it and not "won't be able to play in the evenings 'cause it just doesn't work then"

tax return spent

on Frivolous Wii game and now Wii mat.
Of course, I'd just done my knee so I can't use the mat properly till I can put weight on the right leg

tired, sore and a cough

The cough is really bugging me. The tired is a combination of not enough sleep and disgustingly early mornings caused by lectures. The sore is all my own fault. I bought a Wii on the weekend - with sports games. On day one I had a Wii age of 78. On day 2 it was 38. I blame ignorance of the rules for day 1 results....but the soreness seems to match

relaxing in front of the fire in the Inn league headquarters

Bindy, having finally got to level 60, has also got enough cred with the Inn league to get into their secret Lair in Michel Delving. And very nice it is too. I shall attach pics at some time. I managed to buy a new dance move in there and only need some more festival tokens and and a trophy skin to get an animal trophy either smoking a pipe or wearing a silly hat. It would be a great place to meet up...oh wait, no-one I know has managed to get the cred yet.
On other related issues - Bindy is lvl 60 now and its an odd sensation to know if you do quests, you'll get no XP, yet I still have a bunch of deeds and those legendary weapons still get XP, so it will probably keep me working on him.

Anyhoo, back to my huge, real workload

The house

Has a new roof...just waiting on the gutters.

They turned up and put up scaffolding. 2 days later some guys arrived before dawn. At 7 am on the 24th July they came in and had the roof off before morning tea and a new on by lunch time. They left and arrived a week later and did the final trimming. The scaffolder arrived yesterday and took the scaffolding down. Now we wait for the guttering guy to turn up and our house will have a completely new roof. Then, of course, the very, very, very big bill will arrive.

pottering

I have some very big jobs to start, but a lot of not quite finished things that have been put aside during the first two nightmare weeks of lecturing. I'm dithering a bit finishing these off and trying to decide which ones should still be left till after I've done the big jobs. This is because I did a 60+ hour week last week and I'm not really up to jumping in both feet into the big jobs yet. It doesn't help that there's so many smaller, half finished jobs that I keep finding new ones...and some of them have more important deadlines than others. So right now I'm dithering, scrounging through my desk, sorting the order of the things to do, looking over lists, trying to get all of them in my head and in some sort of priority. Add to that trying not to take my eye too far off the ball regarding the big jobs with deadlines that are coming up.

Its an odd sensation, alternately relaxing with paper shuffling and having mild anxiety spurts regarding deadlines.

waiting for the hit

I have exceeded my 40 hour week and am now head down, making sure stuff I need on Monday morning 8am is done. I've also had to repeat those samples in the 44oC incubator, because when I finally went home thinking it was stable, it wasn't. 3 degrees higher meant everything died. This morning I had a low carb Monster in the hopes this would trick my body into feeling refreshed.
Guarana, Vitamin B, Taurine, Ginseng. It tastes ok if you like vitamin B - mmm berocca. So we'll see if the lights turn on.

I want to go home

But here I sit, tidying up work - and blogging - because someone decided to change the incubator from 44oC to 25oC. This is the one with a big label that says 44oC and is used multiple times each week at this temperature. I may get screamed at tomorrow but its actually my lab incubator and I'm the only one authorised to change the temperature.
So, it took me till 6pm to finish setting up samples (2.5 hours of work) & then I discovered the incubators been altered. Now I have to hang round till it gets back up to temp and make sure I haven't set it a degree too high - or the samples all die - its rather fiddly. I'm annoyed that I didn't think to look at it when I started. It would have been fixed by the time the samples were ready.

I took the container that was in there out. It can sit at room temperature. That's roughly what they'd changed the incubator to anyway.

I also have a cold. Did I mention I want to go home?

guilty pleasure for birthday

Ok, get your minds out of the gutters.

My nephews gave me a USB drinks fridge for my birthday. I have always wanted one, but thought it a frivolous use of energy to keep one can cold next to the computer. Now of course, I have to use it, because it was a gift. :D

frivolous purchases...because it was my birthday

As well as some less so because I needed them.

At the markets I bought;
a 15 minute massage that left me very relaxed - though I need another one now (stiffening muscles)
1/2 a cheese and oregano pizza and a big plate of honey puff balls (for dinner)
a pair of stirling silver twisty dangly earrings (which I must wear 5 times to justify my $5 rule for apparel and accessories)
two funny logo t-shirts (geek by day, superhero by night and Don't make me send my flying monkeys after you). I didn't buy the you can get to know a lot about people if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentothol shirt.
magnetic haematite ring (I usually break them after a week of wear, but they only cost $5)
a cabochon ring with a stone who's name I can't recall right now (brown glass with flecks of copper in it - first made by people trying to create a fake gold look).
jar of pickled garlic....mmmm

I think that was it..except for the decaf cappuccino I got from Juliettes for supper.

V8 thing meant that Stockland was ok to park at today. Now having spent 2 hours at work, I'm off to do a little more shopping followed by lunch and a post-prandial nap. I may even clean the house afterwards....or play LOTRO. One of the two.

PS free play on LOTRO for lapsed players for this week I think...Dave.

Its my Birthday

Dad sent me a text this morning to wish me happy birthday...at 6:40am...after being awake at 4:30am due to a screaming argument at the house across the road. Somewhat sleepy now and drinking coffee.
I was thinking about going out for a nice dinner tonight but we have a V8 race thing on here today, so the centre of town will be nightmarish and booked out. I may still go out to the markets (at 5 so there's some slight chance of a park) and then maybe get takeaway and sit on the strand...with a million other people. Even on Wednesday night this week it was chockas.
I may leave work early. There's a research meeting at 3pm that i have to be at, but after that I'm free to skive off.

Something I learned this weekend

If you put the spa bath mat in the bath and add bath milk instead of bath salts, you get 4 foot high bubbles.

I guess I can tick -"lie in a bath tub covered by 3 foot of bubbles" off my list of things to do before I die. Done and exceeded.

things

I have learned about lotro by reading up on them.
Its 5% cheaper to by stuff at the kin house neighbourhood supplier than the individual house supplier (which I knew was 10% cheaper than generally).
You can buy racial buffs from rep dealers when you get in good with them...I'd wondered how I was going to get the hobbit virtue trait.

now of course I won't read anymore for a while

Sound is overrated anyway

Both my video camera and my computer are in the shop (different shops) for quotes for repairs to the recording component of the audio. In both cases I can play something and hear it, but when I want to use the microphone - nada, zip.

I need to video next weekish to record some work related stuff and I'd like the computer back by tomorrow night to play LOTRO (or I'll be bowing out). My laptop has lotro on it, but plays buggy at the lowest resolution and hasn't been updated for a year. I really need to find a CD version of LOTRO+Moria so that I have a version that won't take 3 solid days of downloading and blowing my limit to do a reset.

Anyone know if they are purchasable in Australia?

On other sound related topics, I've moved 1/2 my birds to the front of the house in anticipation of selling them - and hopefully to stop the neighbour complaining that they are too loud. The remaining birds sound just as loud to me, but the ones out the front sound quieter than they did out the back and I know at least one of them was the noisiest bird out there.

I looked up the old out of date council regs. They defined caged budgies as "quiet birds", cockatiels as "medium" and cockatoos and "loud". The budgies are apparently more annoying than the cockatiels.

using this for the purpose for which it was set up

avoiding starting work.
I have an eyestrain headache that had worked its way back into the top of my shoulder. I'm having some strong coffee to fix the problem before I get into assessing an application. I've actually been pretty good with the eyestrain - I got new glasses and wore them constantly for a week and it went away. Then I was able to wear them intermittently while doing computer stuff. Unfortunately I got cocky and didn't wear them watching TV or playing LOTRO last night and the headache is back.

To do today:
read and comment on an application
finiosh writing the biosafety application for a project I'm about to do
organise transport of biologicals from brisbane to me
monitor the new technician doing the food testing
get prices on a new dispenser
have a meeting at 3pm then unplug the lab gear prior to the power outage this weekend
clean the house before my brother & his family turn up for his Birthday dinner

Andrea comes up trumps

I spent a fair bit of time on the weekend near and on the Bitter Stair in LOTRO. It was, as Andrea said, a good place to earn moola. Of course all of this is gone now due to crafting expences for my alts - greedy little things, but at least they are moving up the ranks and earning crafting rep. On another nice note - I got about 6 recipes that my alts didn't have off the bitter stair people. Roll on Burgundy coloured clothes :D

In addition I realised I have still got animal deeds to do in the area, so I've been alternating the stair and killing snowbeasts etc. Only about 300 of each bear, worm and snowbeast to go to get my deeds completely done :) Then I have to go back to goblin town and finish off the 'find this place' quests there - Bilbo left some buttons behind apparently.

One thing about keeping budgies..you see more birds of prey

Here is my second successful hawk shot. It was on the top of the cage this morning. Dad missed taking a photo of yesterdays hawk - possibly the same one. It slammed into the side of the cockatiel cage and left a dint in it

Bindy is broke!

I have somehow managed to spend all of Bindy's money. This tends to happen when I focus on crafting. Bindy is broker than he was as a lvl2 character. He has 20 copper pieces left. Of course, the reverse happens when I focus on completing deeds where its "kill 500 wargs/goblins" style. Perhaps it would be a good idea to deed crunch for a while.

Melaleuca linariifolia

The council have replanted trees on our footpath after cutting the old ones down when they fixed the gutters. We hadn't had a tree on the footpath before. The original one died of malicious neglect many years ago I think. The old trees weren't suited to the position, they grew too tall and into the powerlines. As a result they were weirdly and probably not effectively pruned. The new one looks like it will be gorgeous and grow to 10m.....what? why plant trees under powerlines that are recorded as growing 8-10M tall? Maybe its the 'shrubby' version that only grows to 2.5meters. The neighbour was told they'd grow to 4m. Stay tuned and ask again in 5 years or so.

my new toy

After doing some research I bought myself a video/DVD recorder combo with an SD digital tuner in it on the weekend. I'd priced it everywhere at $500 & went somewhere with a sale on. I got them to knock $20 off the sale price & saved myself $40. Woot! Now I can use the money to buy some good quality DVDs for converting all my irreplaceable videos & some DVD ram disks for general recording. As a plus, the non-existent reception for WIN is now perfect. My mother thinks I'm rubbing it in.

In other news, instead of playing with my new toy last night, I got all my characters in LOTRO up a crafting level after Chris kindly bodyguarded them through their respective purple crafting quests. Bruse ended up emptying 1/2 of his bank to read all the stored master armoursmith recipes. BTW if any of my kin are armoursmiths with master level, let me know, I have 1/2 a dozen double recipes to pass on now.

huh, what? free time?

Well, not actually free, just free of short term deadlines that I have to work to. At least today.

This means I can cast my eye around my office and do that 8 hours of marking that is sitting there. Also I can organise my accomodation for the conference in July in Cairns. Then there's that gel tank I was going to try to bodgy up the platinum wire electrodes. Hmmm maybe I could take an hour off and go price VCR/DVD recorder combos. Since I've been working long hours and weekends.
While I'm out I could post Caillan's present. For those of you who are supposed to send him something - his Birthday is later this month!! This is your friendly automatic reminder service. I would have forgotten only I put my calendar back on my door after it was painted and there was the reminder on it.
BTW I now have mid colour blue doors in the house rather than brown. Much cheerier.

This free association written blog was brought to you by the number googleplex and the letters R for relaxed and D for delusional.

oh...I forgot to mention

I went to the 50th Anniversay of Pimlico open day. They had colour coded name tags for decades. Lots of the 1st year people turned up (1959) and masses of the 60's. After that the numbers steadily dropped by decade. A sign of the employment demographic I think. We all moved away and only a few of us are still around. Of the 1983 cohort, I saw Sean Mullins, Sandor and Tiffany....and thats it.
After I went home it occured to me I'd taken no photos of any of them, or any photos at all for that matter in spite of taking my camera - I guess you miss out on my happy snaps.
Theres a bunch of new buildings & where we sat for lunch is now reserved for grade 11 and 12 students. The library still looks identical. The Home Ec teacher did recognise my name - because she taught my brother Doug. I was rather invisible in Home Ec, Doug became a chef.

>(

For two weeks I've been getting a practical up and running for next Monday. First one of the reagents was off and it made the results look good when they weren't. I found it, fixed it, tried again and got good results. So I made up more of the samples to run and checked them - not working. Went back and used original samples again -now they're not working....argh.
I'm going to try once more under really careful conditions with every control I can think of. If it still doesn't work, I may be scrounging round for Monday.

There goes my weekend.

Shades of Tolkien!

While watching Midsommer Murders on Friday night, I suddenly realised that the protagonist was played by a young Orlando Bloom..."Hey!" I said to everyone in the room "thats the elf from Lord of the Rings!". "Surely not" they said. But the credits proved me right. (he was skewered by a pitchfork btw.)
The really weird bit was where the killer turned out to be a resident of a property called Lothlorien. The coppers even commented on knowing your lord of the rings content.

So - zero degrees of separation there I think.

typing with trepidation

mainly because I don't want to jinx things.

I did step one of the fix - opening the box, frowning at it and prodding the video card. I also sprayed air on it to remove any dust.

My computer hasn't frozen since. The front audio ports no longer work, but I'm not desperate enough to open the unit again and risk the much more vital video card right now...give it a month or so.

and the fear continues

Well, that didn't fix it. I was starting up in safe mode to uninstall and reinstall my video driver when my cousin called. I mentioned I'd noticed on the worst occasions that I had extra beeps when the computer turned on. She told me to do a search on the beeps. They mean something - mainly hardware wise. Fancy that.

Ok, one search later when the computer chose to turn on and one long beep followed by three short beeps means I either have a problem with my video ram or I don't have a video card.

So, Is my Nvidia 8800GT card frying after 15months? Its working intermittantly. Does this mean its a connection problem? You'd think a hardware problem would happen the same every time. Though every problem I've ever had with computers has been intermittant. Except when my battery leaked all over my motherboard that time. That was pretty terminal.

I also found the forums for my motherboard - ASUS has a forum just for P5K-SE motherboards, Well, well, I learn so much when my computer plays up. Their first suggestion is always to clear the CMOS. They suggest this EVERY time you install ANY hardware. Including those people who had exactly the same video card as me. So, I looked this up. I need to open the case for this and move some pins (or take the battery out for 1/2 an hour). The computer apparently then resets all the hardware so your BIOS and CMOS match - I think. One site had a bunch of "manually reset all your hardware settings after this" instructions - but the others seemed to just say reset, turn back on.

Oh, they also said that ASUS motherboards don't always have the best relationship with NVidia cards, and an ATI card might be better if you want to change.

So, here's my plan.
1. Open up the box, look at it dubiously for a while, prod the video card, looking for physical - jarred out of place issues
2. Turn on the computer and try to get it to freeze (basically by internetting and LOTROing at the same time - high demand as possible)
If I can get it to do it, continue by;
3. Read my motherboard book re resetting CMOS & try this
.....assuming this doesn't cause more issues
4. Go to 2
If 2 still shows issues,

Research good non Nvidia cards & do a forum search on LOTRO with my preferred cards (so I don't buy something that causes LOTRO to crash)

5. Buy and install new card
6. Goto 2.
If 2 still happens,
7. talk to my friendly computer guy and spend more money

Anyone see anything that makes them want to scream "NOOO! Don't do that!" while running forward in slow motion to prevent the disaster?

As an aside, my computer is running at 39 degrees C. If it were human, it would be running a considerable fever. I love my probe software.

Approach the computer with fear and trembling

Lately my computer has been freezing up...requiring a hard boot. I defragged, cleaned my drive, ran a virus check on the whole system. Nada. It started in LOTRO and then moved to when I was trying to do more than one thing even when not playing. Then I got the dreaded BSOD, with a video driver error.
I updated my video driver and its seemed to go away - or not. Crap.
I did some reading and the errors seemed to be identical to some that happened when the video card was new out (way back in 2007). Updating the driver worked then. It also seemed identical to an issue someone else on LOTRO was having earlier this month - so it could have been LOTRO related, but the issue for both of us also happened outside of LOTRO. The suggestion was a corrupted file in LOTRO, requiring an uninstall and complete reinstall of LOTRO (Think 24 hours and a blown out download limit given I don't have the DVDs). The last suggestion was a BIOS issue - out of date for driver or corrupt file. Solution - update the BIOS of the motherboard.
I didn't want to reinstall LOTRO for a guess, so I started reading up on BIOS updating. They tell you how to do it with many dire "unless you know what you are doing don't do this or you'll turn your computer into a brick" warnings. I still preferred this to reinstalling LOTRO.
So this morning I pulled out my files to identify exactly what my motherboard was - go to your manufacturer and get the updated bios for exactly your board, do not try to get it anywhere else or computer death will ensue etc etc.
My motherboard book pointed out I have software on my CD to A - update the bios and B - monitor voltage and core temperature (which I've always wanted to do). Utilities now downloaded I got the update software to save a copy of the current BIOS to a CD and then got it to find the company site, select the available BIOS's and then I picked the most recent one and told the software to flash install - so no effort on my part. Apparently theres also instructions for laborious, careful DOS installing if it doesn't work.
Then the software told me to reboot...ok....why isn't anything turning up on the screen. Crap.
Hard reboot. Now something pops up Checksum error press 1 to fix - takes me to bios altering zone. Crap some more.
Decided to make no changes and just reboot again. Turned on fine. The cold sweat of fear starts to dry. So far no freezes, but I haven't done anything intensive yet. I have a vague suspicion that when I made no changes, the BIOS may have reverted to the previous default state and my computer will continue to crash and burn when Bindy fights a boss.
BTW Sorry about the other week guys - the guardian abandoning everyone just at the start of the "OK, I'll hold off the big boss with 26 000 HP" fight.

some pics

On the way up to the tablelands we stopped at Paronella Park and took pictures of crumbling ruins and turtles...the Ulysses butterflies were too fast for me though.


Skipping everything else for now, here is the blurry, grainy shot of the elusive platypus...as well as probably the best shot of a Ulysses butterfly from the trip. I think the professional shots have probably been doen with dead butterflies. It'd be the only way to get them to stop moving.

had a week off

I've had a week off and have been putting off writing anything till I brought in the pictures of my first live platypus sighting. But then I saw this comic and it reminded me of every time I've taken Berry into a fellowship. And I do believe we were discussing this very idea at one point. Did one of you read it then?

Aprils Blog

Life is still hectic. Summary as follows

I have 130 pracs to mark before Easter.
2 more lectures before Easter plus one practical
exam quesiotn need to be written and submitted - not all lectures written yet, less given.
Biosafety applications need looking at

Should know soon about job. Waiting on interview of last (and absolutely fantastic) applicant. Doom, doom de doom.

Week off at lake Eacham after Easter followed by writing a weeks lectures for a subject I've never done before, plus 11 2nd year (done last time in 2006) and 4 3rd year lectures to update

Research in there somewhere, I hope. I have a good idea but no money or students to do it.

Misc lab things to repair/supervise, Food lab to get up to scratch.

Long term - lecturing a whole subject next semester that I haven't done before.

Bindy now has a Facebook page. There are even pictures.

Hmm, thats enough bloggin in point form...work now.

talking part 1 is done

I've given my seminar - I'm told it went well. The HOS said he understood it which is a good sign. I felt I blathered at certain points, but I kept it mainly to time...phew.
Now I have to wait for an interview at 5pm.

Biggest 2 weeks ever

I'm about 2/3 of the way through a monstrously busy 2 weeks. Masses of lectures and practicals which means I've had to work around them. A grant application went in and I'm preparing for a presentation and interview for a job on this Friday. Samples are coming into the testing lab for something we've never done, so I had to design a protocol for them and make up new and interesting media. I've also been going to a series of presentations by other people for various jobs they are applying for (one a day all week). Then the PC3 lab air flow started to play up...so its been shut down and we are setting up to sterilise it on Monday-Tuesday prior to technicians doing repairs. Oh, I also did a lot of phone calling regarding a complicated order for pipettes. I'm now taking a breath and a coffee before pouring agar plates and tightening up my presentation...must also find out the type of questions that get asked at interviews before Friday morning. This afternoon I will be running a food quality practical and then going to aquarobics.