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!

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 is tempted...

The second coffee truck man told me today that he can do iced coffee (rather, he offered it to me). Real coffee shot, vanilla icecream, choice of flavoured syrup, whipped cream, chocolate on top.

My one (of many) weakness!!

Shoshe - Snow with bad timing

My qualifying exam was supposed to be yesterday at midday, but it was delayed due to boot-deep snow (the top of the boot, not the bottom. The kind of snow that, for example, closes multiple airports and flight paths so half of your examination committee can't make it to town before your exam should have been halfway over). We postponed it till 3pm, and eventually until this morning. Saturday morning! It's an oral exam, where your committee members get to ask you whatever they want that might be remotely related to your research project or (very loosely defined) field of study. For 2 hours. Except that mine ended up taking 2 1/2 hours. It went okay though -- they weren't as mean as I expected.

In related news, one of the local coffee companies will give you a half-gallon of coffee in a nifty thermos/urn for $10 if you give them 24 hours notice, and apparently just trusts that you'll return the urn (they don't actually ask you to). Another local coffee company charges $24 for the same amount of coffee in a box, and a third charges $14 for a box of coffee, a variety of sweeteners, cups, and milk.

Decisions, decisions

Do I get up early before drving to work tomorrow to go geocaching, or to get my one decent coffee of the week?

Happy Days

Looking forward to a long weekend in Melbourne, and lots of food & wine festival events. Expect to come back looking like a stuffed piglet.

Went past the deli on the way to work. Bought 4 coffees, and had 2 spare. I almost was, tempted to auction them off, but wouldn't have survived the scrum.

YL - coffee and strings

Blah. Got confirmation for trial violin lesson in Coffs on Mon evening but snapped my A string trying to tune it tonight! Grrrr. Need shop to fix it. Must travel to Chatswood.

Learned today that there's decent free coffee at Blacktown Hospital!! And 2 new doctor/friends who I spent "working" day with, took time to ask about my past over lunch. Then marvelled & complimented me. Oh awww.

Coffee drought

Coffee drought endures. People here are wilting. There was a tone of outrage this morning when my boss asked me "Where did you get your coffee from?", and I had to admit that I stopped in at Maccas en-route to work.

Withdrawal bites hard

Stinking coffee truck is still a no-show. That's 4 working days without it. Had to make a break for it at lunchtime, and head for the deli (15km round trip) to get some caffienated nectar.

Withdrawal

The coffee truck didn't make it to work today. Normally you can tell the city-office refugees, by the enmasse rising from seats as soon as the horn toots its merry tune.

Instead, there were a lot of suffering people.

Pub on Friday?

Anna : Zing!

Feeling (literally) whacked today after a pump session yesterday afternoon and had to give back keyboard and mouse so they could go back with lease equipment and left using the keyboard and track pad on laptop which seems to have reduced productivity by *cough* percent.

Solution? My first coffee in over a month.
Result? The caffeine is hitting me hard, like a hammer wielded by a humming bird. Concentration, slightly increased, focus, spread thin as I jump from unfinished tought to unfinished email to unfinished ITSM job and back again. And I have a feeling I'm going to crash just before my meeting with the boss ... meep! WHAT HAVE I DONE!