Shoshe - Preservation

Two nights ago we made tomato paste from tomatoes that we grew in our garden plot. Tonight I made elderberry cordial (from elderberries we bought at the farmers' market) and pickles from the Boston Pickling Cucumbers that we grew, using my great-grandfather's recipe.

falsedan - writing my CV

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
RRRRRRRRRRRRINGGGGGGGGG

Kit - spring observations

1. Deus ex-Machina now trades at night time.
2. No column 8 online anymore!?!?!! :-(
3. Spotted the first Red-Bellied Black Snake of the season (actually, the first one I've seen in the wild). What a beauty!

Jaime - reintegrating into society

I'm still recovering from my long weekend of PAX and things are still a bit wobbly. Saw a lot of good upcoming games and played a lot of boardgames including the new BSG expansion, very cool. Also I drank a lot at the Taphouse. I advise anyone considering going to PAX to do it, much more fun than going to Vegas.

Kit - life, work update

1. Slight moment of panic this morning, as I thought I had locked myself in the secure garage, without house keys or car keys to get out. Just as I was thinking of breaking the car window to get to the roller door controller ... I found my keys. Phew!

2. In my absence from work last week (acting Dr Frankenstein), coffee truck 1 has stopped coming, and coffee truck 2 (who had given up the battle of wooing us in the month before), was less than interested in shafting his regulars for a quick profit with us less than loyal coffee drinkers.

3. Blooming Greystanes library must be the *only* library without an after-hours returns chute.

Kit's Frankenstein moment is delayed.

What was supposed to start at lunchtime yesterday started at lunchtime today. Kids! Make sure your red is connected to red, blue to blue, and white to white, otherwise you have to run around in the dark looking for phasing errors.

Shoshe - Long bugger of a day

It started out the night before, when we had no hot water.

We still had no hot water in the morning. Talked to the rental office; 3 buildings were affected. I knew I was going to miss my normal once-an-hour bus, so I walked the 10 minutes to the every-15-minutes bus.

Apparently my annual buspass had expired, even though I swear I'd renewed it months ago. The busdriver was a bitch, and I didn't have $1.50 in change, so I got off the bus and went to the bank across the road where a very nice teller gave me change for a dollar.

Ended up catching the next once-an-hour bus. Got to campus 45min later than I'd wanted to and went to the new bubble tea place that's right by my office. Put the bubble tea in the office fridge because my day was full of classes and I wouldn't have time to slurp tapioca until 4:30pm.

Rushed to class 1; had a short break; was late to class 2 because it turns out it wasn't in the room that I thought it was in, and I had to wait for the elevator because it had the nearest course poster saying where my class meets. Left class early to TA.

TAing was okay. There was a fair bit of banter between the prof and me in the "space news" section -- we kept forgetting about one after another of the several spacecraft that have had problems over the past few days. We currently have no decent weather forecasting on Mars, for the first time in a few years. And it's dangerous duststorm season.

Some of my students from last year came to visit me just after class, which rocked :)

Went back to the office with about 1/2 hr before the postgrad soc meeting. Needed to talk to my advisor, who was trying to meet with many people before they left for the day. Got my bubble tea out of the fridge. The tapioca pearls had somewhat congealed, so I shook the sealed cup a bit. Failed holding-onto-cup-while-shaking-it and dropped sugary bubble tea all over the corridor and my advisor's carpet.

I was really looking forward to that tea.

YL - Potion.

Wanted : 1 Potion of Un-weariness.
Anyone got a recipe?

Also thanks to Dante, I have a great understanding of the game of Bakugun & was able to indoctrinate another little boy into the game today! lol.

falsedan - I am more of a victim of the global credit crisis now

Being made redundant at the end of September! Not a bad thing: CEO told me in the meeting where I going to tell him that unless he could convince me that the company was going to grow & actually do something anytime this year I would be resigning.

Already had one person asking after my CV, so!

falsedan - vegetarian sausages in Berlin are pretty bad

how bad are they?
Why, they're the Wurst!

Seriously, this faux-bratwurst had bits of rice in it to give the toothiness of hard bits of gristle…

Kit has reached a milestone

End of a project ... time for a new haircut.
FRINGE!!!

Shoshe - S2K

Today is Spirit's 2000th sol* on Mars! She's old enough to go to kindy.

We're having a birthday party, and Spirit's playing in the sand (current project: examining and drilling into a soil target named Polyphemus Eye).


* A sol is a martian day, and is roughly 24 hours 39.5 minutes.

Dan ran a game

Ran my first roleplaying session in about a bajillion years last night. Discovered that google is an awesome GM's assistant for running a Vampire game.

Jaime - Feeding a baby actual food

Feeding a baby is like whack-a-mole but in reverse ... I stick by this statement.

YL - hot, cold, warm?

I had a hot summer surfing USA among other things. I put a pause on the grind of work, worrying about careers & just feeling the road running under the car while the possibility of "who knows what" approaches over the horizon. 3 packed weeks full of people, hearts and life experiences. Amazing. There is so much more to do. Not enough time!

Philosophically, where do I go next?

Job applications are now closed for next year's jobs. Who knows which direction I'm really heading in. Or am I just afraid to say it out loud? =)

Kit: Spring has sprung!

I had a nice week away from it all in Central Queensland - visited Carnarvon Gorge and Mount Moffat. A combination of "mountains" (Great Dividing Range), and desert weather. When I got back, I found that a jonquil has sprouted flowers; and the aphids have invaded and colonised my Ranuculus seedling.

Jen - Dinner and Peas

Dan's cousin and her husband visited from Brisbane this weekend. Always lovely - my favourite of his extended family. Tonight we had them over for dinner. The kids fought for their attention by seeing who could be most charming or cute. It was a nice change. As we were cleaning up I found a packet of defrosted peas which we forgot to put away earlier. I had a good laugh as I remembered Brian's stir-fry that time. Anyone else remember those weekly dinners?? We did a roast. What did you cook? I can't remember!

Kit will have Holidays!

Going on a summer holiday. Already in holiday mode. 1.5 days of work to go.

Shoshe - Google frustration

Trying to find information on how to plot a MiniTES (miniature thermal emission spectrometer) spectrum using the Davinci tool/environment/interpreted language. When you type "minites", Google assumes you meant "minutes". "davinci plot" is clearly of no use.

Ben - Internship

Just finished my first week of internship. Nice little school, unusually well behaved kids, and only a 20 minute bike ride from home. Not a bad little set up, all in all.