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.