more grinding

Spent some of the morning and some of the afternoon grinding. Had nephews over in the middle of the day, watched stardust on DVD. Played LOTRO this evening and got Bindy 1/2 way through lvl46. One level a day wont get me to 50 before I go back to work...thats assuming i could get a level a day...oh, and they got my hopes up with a superior workbench in suri-kyla, but it only works if I get to ally status...I only managed that with the mathom society because bindy is a cook & they have cook quests etc.

It was an angle grinding sort of day

Got up, ate breakfast, fed birds, used the angle grinder to grind off the extra concrete lumps on the new aviary base, changes angle grinder head to metal grinding and spent the rest of daylight!!! grinding down welds after dad had welded bits. It really doesn't look like we did much, just extended the entry portal to the aviary - theres sooo much more to do & I go back to work next week. I didn't even drive my new car today :( I did however play LOTRO at lunch time and after dinner - Bindy is now 3/4 of the way through lvl45. My holiday resolution of getting him to lvl50 seems a long way off.

almost forgot

Woops, almost turned off and went to bed without blogging - my resolution almost crached and burned in three days.
today I finished shifting the budgies, did a little shopping and a lot of LOTRO. I also sorted through my old car files - I found the original receipt for the car I bought in 1995, I also shredded a lot of the paperwork. Thats it really. Perhaps there's a reason I forgot.

new car

Dad is impressed because the back seats can recline to several angles and they have an arm rest with cup holder. I'm impressed with the power of the airconditioner. That and I'm now up there with all the 4WD wagons looking down on everyone else. I also shifted a bunch of budgies and leveled Bindy to 45....oh, and I did some filing.

both day and night

...church, coffee with mum, 2 skirts and a new pillow bought at the 50% off sales, nanna nap in the afternoon on my new pillow, finished the mowing and played LOTRO. I also started cleaning up all the misc. paperwork in my back room and planning what to do tomorrow, apart from picking up my NEW CAR!!!!

and so it continued

Today I went shopping. I bought a book, some shorts and got a watch battery replaced. Then I got some photos printed - plus some screenshots from LOTRO. They turn out nice as photos. I ate sushi for lunch. After doing some reading, I scrubbed the bath and mowed the lawn...fun so far yes? I'm watching howls moving castle tonight between getting bindy to forochel to look for the behemoth again. More exciting fun planned tomorrow.

The week off adventure

I've decided to note what I do each day on my week off. This way you can see how dull my breaks are if I don't go away. Let's see how long this pre-new years resolution lasts.
Since I'm starting on the 26th and technically I started my break on the 25th, I'll briefly note what happened yesterday...
Up at 6:30am, church, opened presents (opened Andreas first in the privacy of my room in case she'd sent something highly inappropriate). She hadn't. Read my new Robin McKinley book till 11:30am. Went to Brother and Sister-in-laws place for cold Christmas lunch in air-conditioned comfort, opened more presents, ate King prawns, ham, gingerbread house and ice cream cake, spent the rest of my time putting together a 3D puzzle robot for my 6yr old nephew. All went well, both kids were happy, everyone was relaxed...I didn't expect it but am putting it down to aircon. Came home, read the rest of the book in a long soaking bath full of coconut bathfizzer from the Fellowses.
Today: Got up, watched the Seeker on DVD, finished concreting the base of the aviary & moved two budgies, took my mum post christmas shopping and spent $130 on miscellaneous stuff, came home, put away stuff (including budgie breeding boxes - I'm not letting them breed over summer, it gets too hot), installed my new zippy, glowy gamers mouse...so fast! Decided not to install Crysis until I do some more of the housework I need to do, avoided housework and surfed the web then typed this up...may do more cleaning and putting away now....or go try more bath stuff and reread The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper in the only cool spot around - the bathtub.

Previously on....

I've just had a week off to buy a new car. I bought (though I haven't had the finance go through yet so its not in my hot little hands) a Hyundai Tucson City. Not 4WD sadly. I like everything else about it. The 4WD version only comes in automatic v6 - boo hiss - neither of which I need or want & they cause the interest rate on the loan to go up. I also shovelled sand till I blistered and poured concrete till I threw up. Its really hot up here right now and it took longer than expected. Once you start concreting, you have to finish so we worked till 1pm, through the hottest part of a stinky hot day....in the sun. I really didn't get all that much else done...except the gingerbread houses, made from scratch, finished last night.

Ptang!

This is the sound my heart rate datalogger made after it fell off my belt at the same time I pulled the mower backwards. The Ptang noise was the sound of a logger shooting off in pieces from under the mower :(

I wasn't using this because I have a heart problem - its purely exercise. I have discovered that mowing my 1/4 acre property with a push mower actually burns more calories and keeps my heart in the cardio zone better than walking up and down Castle Hill. Now I can mow instead of going for a walk :) Of course, I also need a new datalogger. My heart rate monitor watch only gives me totals, not minute by minute logging :(

day off

I had a day off yesterday and had a massage and lots of naps...plus some supreme farming and cooking on LOTRO. I feel rather floaty and relaxed today. I'm wondering if this is how I should feel normally and I've just forgotten due to long periods of stress and overwork. Sad really. Did I used to be floaty and relaxed?

blah

headache, stiff neck, queezy, tired. Doesn't bode well for seeing Australia tonight

rain rain and more rain

I took possession of some more birds yesterday. Five peach faces and four budgerigars. Maybe the timing could have been better. I put their cages under trees and so it rained last night. At 3am I went downstairs with a torch and checked on them. They were still pretty dry but I put some marine ply on the top of the cages anyway & then I went back to bed. At 5 am I got up again and pulled out the powerplugs since the rain was gushing down and the thunder was very, very loud. I was glad I'd done the covering earlier. Then the power went out...woke at 7:15am to the news our street was flooded and I wasn't going anywhere. This gave me some time to wander round in the rain making more thorough covers for the quite damp birds and taking out all their food, which was an inch deep in rain water. By that time the road had cleared..so now I'm at work...Its very black out west, so this might be a short day.
There were hour long delays on the highway north of Townsville this morning for the people coming in to work. My office mate decided she just wouldn't bother. There was also a truck jackknifed on the university round-about, but it had been cleared away before I got there. I only saw one car up on a median strip this morning. So it can't have been too bad, but several cars that were parked on the road in our street have several inches of water in them.

new software

4th times the charm.
I finally got round to installing Dragon. I was testing the tutorial and it took me 4 tries to get the test question right. Even so, overall its better than my typing skills or lack thereof.

Harry I heard that you were starting a new job in San Francisco, Wenders's new jobs start? I would love to have lunch with you before you leave.

Harriet I heard that you were starting a new job in San Francisco, Wenders in the new job start? I would love to have lunch with you before you leave

Harriet I heard he was starting a new job in San Francisco. When does the new job start? I would love to have lunch with you before you leave

Harriet I heard that you are starting a new job in San Francisco. When does the new job start? I would love to have lunch with you before you leave

marking exams

must..stop..procrastinating

must..stop..blogging

I wos robd!

Someone stole money from my top drawer at work....in an envelope at the back of the drawer. It was most likely after hours through a locked door since my purse was not taken from my open handbag that would have been in view during the day. I also keep my door locked when I'm not there during the day, so it probably wasn't someone just walking in. Someone across the corridor had the same thing happen (probably same night). She too had her handbag in view during the day. We both had stuff like digital cameras and new mobile phones etc etc (also computers) and none of this was taken.
I now lock my drawers as well as the door. There are very few keys floating around that will open my door, so I thought I'd be OK with just the door locked. The other woman who shares my office suggested we get a guard snake...she has a python we could keep in the office, but its a bit cold for it.

roll on wet season

It rained last night. I hope its the start of a lot more. I stayed up waaaay too late reading, so I got to fall asleep to the sound.

Science note: the smell of rain that you get after its been dry is caused by Actinomycetes . I'm not 100% sure of whether the spores have their own smell, or whether the geosmin they produce is fully responsible. Theres also a few other causes, such as petrichor, but the smell I like is Actinomycetes related.

Basically, when the soil dries, actinomyetes bacteria form spores. The new rain aerosolises these spores and they enter the atmosphere where we breathe them in.

I haven't read it...but I have

This time I got a book called "The declaration" by Gemma Malley
I start reading it and something rings a bell....I've read this before too - argh - but I know I read it many years ago and I thought this one was newly published.

I check the publication date...it is new. This makes no sense. So I start stretching my mind back. The other book was darker, less young-adulty, and had a different basis for the "unwanted children locked in institution" theme. The other book had an overpopulated earth being run by an AI that was trying to drop the population. This book has a resource poor earth with an immortality drug that means you can't have children because they won't replace you, they'll just add to the demand on resources. The other book also had more complex twists and a male protagonist. But its interesting how many of the little events at the start of the book are similar or identical.
If I remembered the name of the other book I could compare them.

some people go grey

I'm going silver. I seem to be shedding the occasional hair that is not so much grey as glowing whiter than white. I'd assumed I was going grey (I have Elvira streaks at the temples), but I think I'm going to go straight from brown to silver. I shouldn't be surprised. All my mums siblings are silver haired. If only it would hurry up, I could have that expensive Norwegian blonde look without any effort.

When you can't remember what books you've already read, you're doing too much

I already have "Dark Alchemy" edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois (with stories by Garth Nix, Eoin Colfer and Neil Gaiman), I'd be happy to pass on the second copy I bought the other week.

The internet has some truly weird sites

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