Dynoness

CERN

2008-09-05T09:58:00.000+10:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

Glasses

2008-08-21T11:21:00.005+10:00

I just wanted to say that the Lufthansa flight back had no in-seat screen. I nearly got off the plane!

I got reading glasses, I have an astigmatism in my left eye that is quite bad. Early in the day I can still focus with it but by the end of the day it gives up. Other than that, my eyes are perfect. Here is what a perfect eye looks like:

My eyelids, however, are not perfect. I seem to have bepheritis, causing my eyes to feel like sandpaper most of the time. Sometimes I get stabbing pains in them and have to stop trying to read things. I spend all my time slopping eyedrops in them now.

Glasses are not cheap.

I'm getting a new computer for work.

We have 2 climbers living with us for a while.

The reactor is starting up on Monday and I have lots of plans for the first few experiments, but as everything is new, everytime I do something we haven't done before (which is all of the time) I have to do a whole bunch of things to get ready. Sample cans, sample environment modifications, software modifications, even hardware modifications. Its not stop modification central around here.

I've been running - training for a 9km fun run. For those who know me, I'm a sprinter and continuing to run past the 5 minute mark, actually, past the 1 minute mark, is pain. But I run 16 km a week now and will run 8 km for the first time this evening. Wish me luck.

This is my Nephew who i visited in Singapore, and his mum, Li, who is trying to ignore him.

Cute, no?

Well how about this:

While I was in Berlin i visited Knut the baby polar bear who now looks like this and has a psychological disorder or two I think.

On the way home..

2008-07-08T01:39:00.002+10:00

Please, oh please let me have in-seat screen entertainment systems. I am never flying Lufthansa again! I'm at Berlin airport (Tegel) and am flying from Frankfurt to Singapore next, which is only 13 hours, but the most lonely 13 hours in the world without in-seat entertainment units. I know, as I flew here with none. I have my best work shirt on in a pointless attempt to get a free upgrade. Lame, I know, small chance of success, I know, but you HAVE to try. Wish me luck!

The experiment(s) went well, except the reactor went down for two of the days. Oops. I left my sample there in the hope that one of the instrument scientists will take pity on me and run it for me...

Plane food for the next day, but then I'll be back in Singapore with my nephew, the 32 degree C heat, and Singaporean food, which is generally very good and cheap. All this, plus hideous jet-lag. I forgot to mention that.

Pray to the god you don't believe in for:
1. flights to take off and land safely
2. in-seat screens, or better yet,
3. free upgrade to business class.(ha!)

Wannsee

2008-07-04T03:10:00.002+10:00

The place I am staying in Berlin is actually in Wannsee, the place that they fist made official "the final solution", for those up on their Nazi history. But the place is really quite pretty and the instrument that I am using turns out to be much better than I had hoped. Furthermore, I now have the cryostat completely under my control and all He forms shall obey me and do my bidding. But enough about exchange gas.

Sausages, potatoes, and cabbage have indeed been the order most of the time, and I am greeted by a nice big plate of meat every morning. Which suits me just fine. Although I did start eating fruit as I got a bit worried about certain things.

I've mostly just been here working, except when I am sleeping or eating. I like the experience of lunchtime at the canteen with the instrument scientists and others from around the traps, its a nice experience. When I forgot to listen to the end of the word, as I so often do in Germany (they tend to go on a bit), I heard the word for potato with my pork and though - why not? Well, the end of the word was actually salad, and potato salad I am extremely picky about, and this was my worst kind. They heaped it on. My local contact, Zunbelts, saved me and gave me hist boiled potatoes. Very nice of him!

Better go, sample change!

Berlin

2008-06-29T19:46:00.002+10:00

Berlin is quite far North, which although I knew, didn't quite illustrate the fact that the sun doesn't set until midnight and then gets up again at 4am. I am so glad that I bought by eyeshades with me!

Yesterday i worked in the morning, going through some emails and things that I needed to write, and then I headed into Berlin to see what I could see. There was a big gay pride parade on, and being from Sydney I did not think this was that interesting, and then I went on a walking tour and lean't lots about Nazi history. I knew bits and pieces, but now I know more.

Today I am finishing off an experimental plan and NOT writing a presentation that i really should finish, and of course, missing the premiere of Dr Who season 4, the Christmas special that features Kylie (Minogue) as a guest - the companian of the Doctor for that episode. Real bummer. I have been hanging out for this to come out for almost a year and now I am here and cannot watch it. I tried to find an illegal copy on the web in desperation, to no avail. Anyway - I'm finishing off my experimental plan, and then might be forced to do a bit on the stupid pesentation, or might just go to the Berlin zoo and aquarium.

Toddler Alert!

2008-06-27T20:22:00.002+10:00

Today, i am at the Hahn-Meitner Institut in Berlin, preparing for an experiment that starts on Monday.

On the way here I stopped off to visit my nephew, brother, and his wife Li in Singapore where they live. It was great to see them again, Jonathon my nephew is growing up very quickly. He is 23 months old, which makes him very amusing and his favourite words are no and car. He is car obsessed, and I mean, obsessed. Li told me she was in a taxi with him and he said his other favourite sentence "whats that mummy?" pointing to a motorbike, and she said "its a scooter", thinking it was a scooter, and Jonathon YELLED at her VERY LOUDLY "NO MUMMY, NO!" (please note excessive use of favourite word here) "NO ITS NOT MUMMY. ITS A MOTORBIKE". Li said the driver had a laughing fit that nearly caused them all to die.

My brother Richard took the day off from work and we tried to take Jonathon out of rthe day, but he usually naps between 1 and 3pm, so when 12.30 rolled around he started getting CRANKY. Big time. We didn't bring the pram, so he had nowhere to sleep, and he got progressively worse and worse until he started screaming and crying uncontrollably and my brother just picked him up and threw him over his shoulder ala caveman. I suggested we head home so he could have a nap, but he was asleep like so much dead meat before we got there. As soon as we got him into bed he woke up and demanded that we "GO OUT AND RIDE IN A CAR. NOW. NOW DADDY. NOW. I WANT THE CAR> I NEED THE CAR. I NEED IT, DADDY". He eventually went back to sleep. The first words out of his mouth when he awoke, three hours later, were "I NEED THE CAR DADDY. OUT WITH THE CAR".

Jonathon likes to arrange things obsessively to. His cars all have to be in a row, either side by side, but sometimes lengthwise in a row. Don't touch them, they are his. And you don't know how they go. When he drinks some milk before he goes to sleep, he needs:
the green turtle in his left hand which HE will put beside his head. If you do it, this will not be satisfactory. he needs the pencil case with cars on it in his right hand, and he will clutch the bottle in both hands with the pencil case in tow. he likes to have the bottle cap balanced on his right foot, for all this to work. he hasn't worked out he has two hands only, and in order to put the cap on his foot, his shoes need to be off, and the turtle has to already be behind his head. But he wants all of this to happen at once, and he wants to do it himself. So you have to trick him.

I told my brother that I expected an interesting child from his genetic stock.

Last thing - my flight from Singapore to Munich (13 hours) was on a plane with NO INSEAT SCREENS. What the?! Lufthansa. Me cranky! And two toddlers in the aisle next to me, which were no problem at all except for their mum, who was totally annoying the crap out of me. I don't know how they cope!

Wow

2008-06-08T09:20:00.008+10:00

Time flies huh!

Since January 26th (the last time I write) I have beasically been working, with a very small amount of climbing thrown in. I went to England for an experiment too, which was intersting, but great as I got to catch up with Vicky who I know from my work at NIST. Vicky works at the ISIS facility now, and is doing very well there. On the same trip I went to Switzerland and spent sometime at a workshop, but managed to go snowboarding - my friend Kat, well, her parent own a chalet near Verbier. It was awesome.

Mikl also had a significant birthday...

The reactor restarted after 10 months offline. So I can stop travelling so much (well, not really, I have an experiment in Berlin in a few weeks and possibly another one in the UK), but am very much looking forward to some Australian neutrons!

Blogger avaliable in Persian

2008-01-26T17:08:00.000+11:00

Couldn't think of a title. Its Australia day. To celebrate I was staying home and not climbing as i have been tired lately and drank a bit last night, and thought I'd get some more done on my book chapter that is due soon. Instead, i thought hey - its Australia day, I'm making Lamingtons. Which I did. They are awesome. Then I watched the Aussie Open (I'm not a big fan). Then I sat doen to work at 4.30pm and now I seem to be doing this. Hmmmm.

Mikl's gone climbing, and I'd better get dinner on before he comes back, which is less Chapter. I thought (perhaps naively) that once I had vomited the thing out then it would be easy to go and read it for clarity and improve. Nope. Not really interested.

I'm leaving for Melbourne next week for a conference - haven't written my presentation yet either. Then, I'm heading to Oxford for an experiment and then to Lausanne for a Symposium that I haven't written my presentation for, and then for 5 days of snowboarding. Yay! Need to sharpen my edges too.

The room we are puttin ginto our roof is coming along nicely, still hot as all hell up there despite the insulation and air vent. But not as hot as it was before!

chipped tooth

2007-12-05T21:03:00.000+11:00

Which is the least of all the excitement that has been throw my way lately.

Friday: Upper abdiminal ultrasound to check organs for possible problem causing crazy pain in chest, ala heart attack (or possible gall stones as the specialist says, although I've always thought I just had reflux).

Sat and Sun: Climb yer ass off.

Monday: had 400 micro Sieverts of radioactive material injected into my veins to check my gall bladder function. Scream radiation for the next two days, so to work on Tuesday afternoon and set off all the radiation detectors. Use colleagues as shielding.

Wed-Monday: Helped run a neutron scattering school at work, which was fun, but labour intensive and time consuming. But worthwhile, I think.

Tuesday: Neutron users group conference - quite good, but more work. Meanwhile, my fabulous paper got shot down in a blaze of glory. You may remember these words from a famous Bon Jovi song. Not all is lost though.

Today: Had Gastroscopy and organ biopsies. Was the sceond person ever that decided not to use any anaesthetic. the first person, according to the specialist, was an anaethatist who had to work that afternoon. There is no irony lost in this fact. I also find out that my gall bladder does NOTHING and is a wasted organ in my body.

Toodle hoo.

Tagged

2007-11-25T10:34:00.000+11:00

Rules:
1- Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2- Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
3- Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4- Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I'll play along as I see fit.

7 Weird Things About Me

1 I often pretend. Usually that I have superpowers, and I live in my own musical sometimes

2 I REALLY like fat. To eat, though, not to play with.

3 I like to have my arms held up for me.

4 I love stilettos, especially black ones with curvy heels.

5 I hate vinegar and mustard.

6 I like smart people. But how do you ever really know, right?

7 I sleep talk, fight, walk, and argue convincingly.

So I’m randomly tagging: all of my blogger links.

Seriously Happy

2007-11-25T10:22:00.000+11:00

I'm also quite impressed with the seriously ocker name.

and the first female deputy

http://www.smh.com.au

Holidays (pt II), from Seoul.

2007-11-10T23:09:00.000+11:00

Well, the rest of the Euro trip went excellently - train to Cologne, then hopped in a VW with two friends and drove to Barcelona, camping near Lyon along the way. The motorised scooter in the camper van made it all a bit squishy the first few days, but we met up with a friends of the scooters owner and offloaded the thing. We had a bunch of fun in and around climbing areas in Barcelona and the pyrenees, very picturesque.

After we gave the van back and our German friends had returned home, Mikl and I flew down to Malaga where I met up with Desiree and her boyfriend Miguel, and their cute 1 and a half year old Laura. I haven't seen Desiree since we were 10 - she used to be my neighbour when we were kids but then she moved to Queensland, and then back to Spain. We've kept in touch - albeit sporadically, and I always promised to visit if we ever went to Spain. Desiree and miguel live convieniently close to El Chorro, mega climbing destination in Southern Spain. All very fun.

On the way back to Oz, we stopped off in Singapore to visit my brother Richard, his wife Li, and my ever so cute nephew, Jonothan - who is one and a half, very cheeky, and very sociable. It was great to see him again, I saw him when he was 8 months old, and he is much more fun to play with now.

Anyway, so i write this from a hotel in Seoul, after a week long conference on Je Ju Island, off the coast of souther South Korea. The island was OK, a bit boring - its the number one destination for weddings etc.. for Koreans, so Seoul is a bit of a change from that sort of thing. I'm only here for another day - I had only been back in Sydney for a few days before leaving again so i didn't want to stay too long (plus, no more holidays and actual work to do), but i couldn't pass up the opportunity to see Soul. Today I managed to see most of the main attractions I think, my feet are quite sore from all the walking, and the air temp is coolish (about ten degrees) and I got a bit windswept. Korean food is awesome, except for kim chee, which i hate. I've finally stopped trying it to see if "this one is any better". I have a problem with vinegar, but anything that actually fizzes in your mouth is just too much for me. But everything else has been supurb.

I'm looking forward to going home though - I've been on the go for so long now!

Holidays

2007-10-08T23:30:00.001+10:00

Well, Mikl and I are currently in the middle of an overseas holiday:

Paris, Grenoble, Briancon, Grenoble, Lausanne, Frankfurt, Goettingen, the forest somewhere near Nurnberg, Pirna, Dresden, and I am currently in Berlin. Most of the trip has been climbing, and eating and drinking. I think I need to go on a diet, although for my current heavier form I seem to be climbing quite well.

Climbing in France was great, the Frankenjura was enjoyable as always, and climbing in the Elbesandstein on greasy towers without chalk or gear was suitably scary but actually not that dissimilar to Sydney sea cliff climbing, so I felt a little bit at home. I am a bit over pork and potatoes though, no matter how yummy and close to the concentration limit of fat in a food substance it gets. I had the fattiest meal that I have ever eaten in Briancon (big call, I know) at a place called, um, don't remember - St something, anyway, a meat plate - half a rabbit, two duck breasts, a T-bone and a sirloin steak, chicken, a spatchcock, lamb chops, a big piece of pork - with an assortment of fatty sauces made from oil and cream, and a vegetable dish consisting of potatoes au gratin with a ragout of veges - eggplant and zucchini etc in a vat of oil, all covered in cheese, with deep fried mash potato swirls. Very, very, nice, but i thought my heart was going to stop for a while, but surprisingly, I am still alive. We climbed a 400m route via a traversing method (we were on the wrong route and traversed almost the entire cliff to get back on route resulting in a 20 pitch climb) and when we got back to the ground I remembered that i had one of the duck breasts that i couldn't eat but couldn't bring myself to throw away stashed in my bag, so ripped into, and thought to myself what a weired thing to be doing. eating more meat than you possibly could, climbing 20 pitches, then eating some more meat for good measure. I was also surprised by how tasty and good the warm duck breast that had been in my bag overnight and all day was.

A bit of work was mixed in to our trip - i spent a few days each working in Lausanne, in Goettingen, and in Berlin. All in all a great trip so far. We are off to Cologne tomorrow (well, i am, Mikl is already there), then we pick up some friends in the Combi van and drive to Fontainbleau and onto Barcelona, then flying to Malaga. Singapore on the way home for a few days to eat some spicy food that does not contain pork or potatoes (I may be all out of p food groups by the time I return) and back to Sydney. 3 days later I head to a conference in South Korea that somehow I forgot about when I booked the holiday.

Photos to come later!...

Fluke

2007-08-24T13:40:00.000+10:00

A few weeks back we went climbing at a sea cliff area called Point Perpendicular.

AND - I saw my first whale. Like any enthused woman, I stood up and screamed at the blob - yet to be verified of its true whaleiness - "prove your whaledom" at which point the whale breached, and flapped its tale about.

Magnificient! Peaple tell me that on a good day that have seen 40 whales drifting by, some as close as 10 m to the base of the cliff where they were standing.

USA and Canadia

2007-07-23T17:45:00.000+10:00

Yes - its really called Canadia - the way that Aussies call Aluminum Aluminium. But not really, except that people always believe us and its hella fun.

So - I flew to San Francisco - fabulous city, and after a good sleep hired a car and drove 6 hours to Tuolumne Meadows to climb with some great friends our mine I was over the moon were in the area at the same time as me. Long slabs in the sun, high altitude, got a wee bit sunburnt, but had fun.

Got back into San Fran in time for the 4th of July, and after an evening of fireworks I spent some time at the University of California, Berkeley, where I had just as much fun meeting a research group and got drunk at the bar with them before chasing racoons on my way back to the uni accommodation, which was also great.

I had one last day in SF - where I went on a missing to see the Golden Gate bridge (as sooo many others have before me) only to be stopped by the famous fog. I even caught a ferry to Sausalito and went right by the bridge:

Which of course, I couldn't see. Then, I went back to the SF side and walked from the Bay bridge, which was gorgeously clear:

to the Golden Gate bridge (BIG walk - forced to buy expensive shoes on the way) to get the following stunning view:

Then I flew to Monteal - another fabulous city, where I was lucky enough to have some playmates join me...

There was LOTS of eating:

touristy observation:

Lots of partying too -
At the Jazz festival:

at the 80's club (where my bum got us free drinks):

Of course, I attended a really great conference during all of this, meeting up with some collaborators and launching a whole batch of new projects. I took Clare along to the conference dinner, where we (shock, horror!) drank:

and continued the drinking with my collaborator out to a bar and drank some more and played Clue, which I love:

There was shopping, and we found some interesting stores where miles away Mikl watched nervously as our joint account finances plummeted

We went to great circus act for the bargain price of $6 and Karin and I saw an Aussie band that I couldn't get tickets to in Australia:

Karin and I spent our last day at La Rhonde, the rollercoaster capital of Montreal

Which also included the famous "Vampire" rollercoaster:

Yay!

Yates

2007-07-23T17:34:00.000+10:00

Our favourite cat in the world belongs to a friend of ours, who's new girlfriend is hideously allergic to him. The cat, not our friend. Yates, a 14 year old fabulously wonderful Burmese has been living in our friends backyard as a result of this new girlfriend. I should point out that both the new girlfriend (well, she's not so new) and Yates are wonderful, so it was a tough choice. But we now are the proud owners of Yates, who is a total lap-slut, and knows how to present himself of a cusion when necessary:

It turns out that Yates is highly allergenic, and soon after he arrived a friend came around for dinner and promtly had one eye swollen almost shut. So, the new girlfiend, not so much lying.

It has been really cold in Sydney, particularly in our house, so we took a picture of Yates with the thermal imaging camera we borrowed from work to see if he was still alive:

In fact, this is pretty much how I spent my whole weekend. And baking, and doing home renovating projects. And knitting. Ahhh - the life!

Although, secretly - we did go bouldering for an hour, where we saw a flying fox (they sort of look like bats but aren't) wide awake wayyy to early for itself in a nearby tree. We think its a baby. Look carefully....

Australian humour in advertising

2007-06-30T11:48:00.000+10:00

WA holiday

2007-06-30T09:17:00.000+10:00

I had a lot going on, so I though I'd run away to Western Australia. Margaret River, actually. Supurb wine region near the sea. We stayed as gusts in a friend's holiday home, climbed, walked along the beaches, and drank ourselves silly.

Bouldering along the coast

which is gorgeous..

Climbing around Willyabrup

Watching dolphins

perfect waves

Our friends Richard and Sue

Richard and Sue's holiday house that we took over

Sunsets..

WA beaches

Bob's hollow climbing area - walk along the beach for many many km's to access

Walcliff area near the house in Prevely

Party Photos

2007-06-12T11:06:00.000+10:00

Costumes ranged from the truly lame ala "victim"

Through the creative (though the cardboard fangs quickly softened and had to be replaced)

To very disturbing costumes, including a guest appearance from the "Spirit of Jazz" from The Mighty Boosh. How much do I love that show!

Some people covered up their lack of serious study of the Buffyverse by being Fluffy the vampire slayer. Fluffy even had a blue fluffy stake of hand.

Happy and anaemic

As well as the Evil Nina from season 13

Best of all - the Evil Faith (BTW - thats ME) got to slay a Unicorn. Best ever!

With it’s neck hanging by a thread the last living unicorn happily exploded into a small mound of trinkets and lollies. Once again, Best Ever.

Master of Puppets

Oh yes. This one was taken at about 4am. Coneheads on the highway to hell

Make a sleepy girl happy. Do it now.

2007-05-31T22:10:00.000+10:00

Must not decide when I am awake up 4am to get up and go to work so I can go home early. What happens, is that I work until 8pm trying to fix a manuscript that I shouldn't have left to the last minute, but was forced to because of work, and now have to stay up until midnight to confer with co-authors scattered around the globe and still get the submiaaion in on time. Furthermore- do not do this the night before you have a crane dogmans exam that starts at 8am. The night before the night before your 30th birthday Buffy party. What's that i hear you say? Buffy Party? Yes, as in the vampire slayer. Guess who i am going as? Anyone who guesses Buffy is wrong. Go peoples. Go out and watch a few episodes, or the whole series and then have a guess. Just do it. You'll make a sleepy girl happy.

A weekend day away - finally !!

2007-05-14T22:45:00.000+10:00

Touch your nose if its your birthday!

2007-05-01T19:51:00.000+10:00

Broadbanded!

2007-04-18T18:09:00.000+10:00

Finally. Although i don't have a desk and all i do from home is work anyway. So here, look at a picture of me looking surley with the team that built one of the two instruments that i work on.

I know its a crappy photo. I'm not planned enough to have a post ready to go, so i had to make one up on the fly. This is what you get.

We need furniture. What are those tiny rodent-like creatures called that are related to anteaters and their whole life is spent running high-speed around a series of tracks that they must have memorised in order to avoid being eaten by flying predators? My house is like that now, without the flying predators.

And I have developed insomnia. Well, its not really insomnia - not true insomnia, but i wake up at 3 am and stay awake dreaming of being queen of the universe/inventing a new phase of matter/ finding built in wardrobes for less than a thousand bucks, etc. Usually until about 4 or 4.30 am. Its getting on my nerves. I think i need to excercise more, but I also think I'm getting sick.

Mikl is in Japan. I came home early to get broadband installed (hence the posting) and cooked myself some gluten free pasta for lunch. Not impressive on it's own, i know, but get this - i ate the cooked equivalent of 750 g of uncooked pasta with an entire (750 g) jar of pasta sauce and anchovies. I just started eating and could stop. That was at 1.30pm. Its 6.30pm and i don't think I'll ever eat again. What is happening to me?!

Anyway - I'm stressed, as usual. Any ideas for de-stressing?

The new reactor is ofiicially being opened this week - the prime minister is coming out on Friday and tomorrow is the science and buisiness opening. I am an official "ambassador" representing neutron scattering. Should be fun. Or not, whatev. We aren't allowed to eat anything in the official welcoming tent, so poo-bah to them i say.

House Pictures

2007-04-10T13:04:00.000+10:00

The house was wallpapered everywhere...

And we hired a few climbing friends to help us...

Lots of painting - I HATE painting ceilings!

Which were of course very, very, ornate. And delicate.

I was up in the ceiling fibre-glassing a panel..

When I fell through...

We needed to remove a suppoting wall too.

The carpet, line, and underlay all came off, nails were punched in.

And of course there were many cups of tea to be had..

It was all very tiring..

I was forced to escape to a cafe for a while

Renovation

2007-04-06T16:46:00.000+10:00

So hello everyone. I am alive. i have been
Commissioning instruments
Renovating the house
Climbing.

Less importantly, but of note to all my blogger fans (!!) I am having broadband installed in a few weeks at home, thus ensuing much bloggy goodness including house pictures.

Houe-warping party on the 27th of April, after 6pm. Its a BBQ.

Commissioning!

2007-03-10T08:50:00.000+11:00

Hi!

So I realise that I haven't said hello in a while. The reason for this is that my new job leaves me no spare time at all. The good thing about all of this is that I love my new job. I have two instruments to commission with the team, which means that i have two jobs, but I also learn twice as much. It has been a very exciting and rewarding time so far, although I have been working very long weeks with no time off for the past two at all, and many nights past midnight.

In other news, we get the keys to our new place in a few days time..... Yay! Then its onto cosmetic renovation for the next two weeks! Less yay!

My brother Richard and his wife Li and new baby Jonathan are visiting from Singapore too. I am very excited to be an aunty, and thankfully this is the first baby in history that sleeps straight through from 8pm until 8am. I am well shocked, especially given the carry on that my mum says my brother and I made when we were babies.

Anyway, when we are set up in our new house I should have a more premanent setupfor at home internet access and therefore can post more often. But you know what? I am not making any promises or apologies as ITS MY BLOODY BLOG and I don't have to post anything anyway.

Today I am at home - its Saturday, I don't have to work until 5pm so i am making pancakes!

Arghh. No really.

2007-01-29T19:51:00.000+11:00

So - we owe hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundredes of thousands of dollars. Alas, the wonders of home ownership in Sydney.

In other news, I ran an experiment on a stupid X-ray machine (bleehhh -X-rays. Worse still, LABORATORY X-rays. Yukky-poo). Five days, not much sleep. But that was a while ago and I have been a poor-poster due to said experiment and also the freaking out about owning a house. House is pretty, but onlyon the outside. The inside needs "work". Well, it doesn't "need" work, but if we want it to look any good then we have many many many months of peeling off wallpaper, chipping paint from cielings, ripping upcarpets, and patching, sealing, priming, painting. Argghhhhh. Will have photos later.

Circle

2006-12-18T22:35:00.000+11:00

Mikls Granny, Jean, died this week. She was 93, and a wonderful woman. Mikl doesn't have a big family, and he rang her every week. She lived in Bundaburg, up North, and although blind, lived alone and was very quick witted. She just collapsed and died. Mikl is at the funeral today, I stayed in Sydney. He has somework near there too, so he's doing that tomorrow and won't be back until Wednesday.

I learned also today that a good friend of ours lost his brother in a plane crash. I want the time to pass quickly for him, but I also want him to have a proper opportunity to say goodbye. I know that his family will support each other while this happens.

First week at work

2006-12-09T09:44:00.000+11:00

So I started at my new job this week. All is going well, the job willbe great, eventually, but right now I am swamped in setting up allmy computing things and creating an account. One word of warning - I no longer have access to extended roaming on the internet, including for blogging due to the crazy security. This also means that I can't really do my banking online from work or any other such things. What a bummer!

Anyway, we are trying to buy a house and have opened an account to link into our loan account blah blah blah but its all very annoying when I can't access stuff from work,only from my crappy home dial up connection. Yikes!

In other news, Sydney has a cockroach problem, fo rthose of you from the US of A who weren't aware of our little crawly/ HUGE FLYING creepy problems. Mikl and I have really cleared and cleaned our kitched, except for one cupboard that i hadn't opened for a while, until last night. Oh My God. It was so grose, I started screaming at the open cupboard containg the nest complete with eggs spilling out onto the floor like a crazy woman until Mikl dragged me out of there.

Can anyone tell me what the following dream means:
Last night I dreamt that I was in a toilet cubicle, and in the small waste bin on the ground I pulled out a piece of cardboard in which wascarefully hidden a VHS tape. Then I was standing on the toilet seat holding the tape hostage from the BAD MAN who was outside the cubicle with a gun, explaining that he really needed the tape. I remembered that a girl had been molested at the toilet block a week or so ago and I knew the tape contained evidence toput the BAD MAN away. So there I was, refusing to give the man with the gun the tape. Eventually my brain found a way to invent a way for me to escape, but it really sucked for quite a while in my head. What the!???

I feel really messy at the moment as my life is disorganised again, and the latest bunch of data I have is not as nice as it could be, but I think I have found a way to publish it, although I kind of am keen to start new experiments now (ones that can be associated with my new place of work), but I guess thats just a hang up from worrying about my next job.

Kylie!

2006-11-27T13:24:00.000+11:00

Went to Kylie concert last night. It was her final appearance and it was very good, but sadly, she did ot invite any surprise guests (like Bono) onto stage with her. She did sing a very gothic sexy version of Locomotion though.

In other news, I found the following toy in a store near my house:

"Everyone wants an imaginary unicorn friend that they can call forth to smite their enemies. The Avenging Unicorn Play Set has everything you need to use the power of the unicorn to rid your life of irritations."

Moonarie

2006-11-23T09:46:00.000+11:00

Preamble:

The week before our whirlwind South Australian trip I climbed a 10 pitch 18 with Mikl and Chris and on pitch 7 I sprained my finger. Silly boulder problem start off the ledge and I refrained from using the small hold on my right because of my fucked right hand and chose to use the smaller hold on my left as I haven't hurt my left hand for a while now. I proceeded through a process of flailing to hurt my left hand. I was confused as there was no popping snapping or tearing sound and I could kind of still use my hand. This was very good as I could climb out, as opposed to walking 6 hours our across the valley after 5 yukky raps. Anyhoo, it turns out it was a sprain (I think) and not a rupture, so this week finds my finger almost back to its normal fucked state. Which is odd. I now understand all those people who ever said "I sort of hurt my finger" and I though "yeah right, if you'd hurt it you'd know about it - how can you sort of hurt it?" just because I had always had the full-monty injury. Well, it did hurt to pull on my finger then, but I could still use the rest of my fingers and pull quite hard - usually my hold hand is out of comission for months - I can't even brush my hair. Standing on the ledge with Chris and Mikl I totally held it together - so proud! I though I might have a breakdown having hurt my finger again and the not knowing was driving me insane, but I managed to remain positive. I think they both only got a very small dose of my anxiety on the car drive home, and I was trying so hard to be positive. Anyway, we went to Moonarie with the plan that if I couldn't climb, we could drink wine. Good plan. At this healing rate my hand should be back to its normal fucked state in another month or two.

Moonarie!

Flew down to Adelaide (South Australia) Tuesday afternoon and picked up the campervan, which was great! Not cheap, but awesome - fridge, bed, sink, beats the hell out of car camping.

The van at Moonarie

Tuesday
After packing the van with food for our trip, I met up with Mikl and after a spot of shopping (Adelaide isn't very big, but it has the best she store in the world) we went to dinner with Mikl's pipeline engineering group, which was very, very, very blokey. But they are all rich industry types so we ate at a very expensive restaurant at their expense and i had the best Tuna tataki I have ever eaten, followed by an awesome steak. Then I got pistachio creme brulee, just to top off the close to a bottle of wine.

Wednesday
After a night in the Adelaide Hills we drove through the Barossa Valley, an awesome Shraz specialising wine district, that happens to be on the way to Moonarie. All in all we collected a case of wine, which we posted back from there: the wineries have a deal that if you get a case you can send it anywhere is Australia for free. Wednesday everning we drove to Orraroo and spent the night on a windy hillock.

Thursday
Drive the remaining 2 hours to Moornarie and headed up the hill. The "hill" being the hour long walk in. We were lucky with the weather - it was only 25 degrees ! Apparently it had been almost 40 a few days before.

Start of the walk up

Hot at top camp!

Amongst our climbing today was Garden Refuge Removes Easily (13?), which was good.

Friday
Back up the hill again - weather was also great, not even 30 today!

Climbed Pagoda (15) today, which you can see in the above picture - the flake to the right of my shoulder

Me at the top of the flake

This afternoon I got lichen in my eye and scrathed it pretty bad, so I couldn't see out of it for the evening.

Saturday
My eye was better today! Yay!
Some people Mikl had planned to hook up with arrived today - one of them had driven across the nullabor from Western Australia, and oicked up a young German tourist - Cindy (a real German name she assured us) along the way.
After climbing Vortex (17, awesome!) and Hangover Layback (15, great, but a bit dirty), it started to get actually hot. Climbed a bit more, then took Cindy back to camp with us where we drove to Brachina gorge (an hour away) to see the amazing geology - a complete history of Australian rock formations all in the one area. Even more amazing is the Ediacara stone - containing the only links between pre and post Cambrian life forms.

Ediacaran fossils just behind us

Baby Emu !!

After a HUGE dinner with the crew we were sitting around the lantern watching the insects that were drawn to the light and this montrous wolf spider appeared and started hunting the insects. It lept into the air and scored this huge moth. I was facinated, but totally freaked out too.

Sunday

Left to head back to Adelaide - we had to return the car today, and it was actually a nice 4.5 hours drive.

The drive happened to go through the Clare Valley - awesome wine region! Had lunch there, and stopped off at a few of the little towns - all very nice and cute along the way. Free standing houses from circa early 1900's in mint condition for $100K. With what we are trying to spend in Sydney we could afford a few of these, and only two hours from Adelaide!

Monday
Plane left at 6.20am, our taxi that we booked for 5.10am didn't show up. We finally managed to get a cab at 6.05am after much hassle, and got to the airport at 6.14 thinking we'd missed it for sure, and there is only 1 flight a day, we both had to work too. Thankfully, the plane was delayed, and we were the last to board. Yay! Back to work...

More Trip Photos

2006-11-02T12:33:00.000+11:00

How much stuff can you fit in a station wagon?

Holiday news

2006-11-02T11:24:00.000+11:00

News from our recent holiday:

Saturday afternoon: Drove to Canberra (ACT)
Stayed with les, she made me run. It was good, but it was also 5 kms, and I'm secrtely not a runner. Dinner at a French restaurant with Les, the duck made up for the run. We got dressed up, the "fancy" restaurant turned out not so fancy, but hell - I got to wear my new favourite dress and black pumps, so I was a happy lass. Les is in love too, which made the evening really nice, despite the service (well, I guess we were in a French restaurant).

Sunday: Climbed at Booroomba (ACT)
Excellent day out - my thighs hurt from the run, but the route (Closer In - about 21? was very good).

Monday: Drove to Melbourne (VIC)
Stayed with Tim and Clarissa, dinner near there place near St Kilda, where apparently there are loads of hookers as prostitution isn't as accepted as in Sydney, so the hookers don't have a headquarters.

Tuesday:
Shopped. Bought best jeans ever, best suit ever (70% off! - I normally could not afford a Saba suit). No shoe success, dammit. Bought a new car radio and speakers which we put in - it has an auxillary input where I can plug my ipod directly in. Yay!. Stayed with Steve and Rake

Wednesday: Great Ocean Road (VIC)
Drove the great Ocean road from melbourne all the way to Warnambool and then onto Mt Arapiles. I dove most of the way - the great ocean road is one of the best coast drives in the world, very, very windy. The driving stopped me throwing up. The road goes past Bells Beach (suppoed to be best surfing in the world) and past the twelve apostles (sea stacks). Through some great country too - the road heads back inland at one point though some great farming country - rolling green hills.
Dinner at Horsham Pub, the onto Araps for the night

Thursday: Mt Arapiles
HOT! Climbed:
o/s Dracula (1 pitch 12? - quite scary. Yelped and asked for help a lot)
o/s Rosie Shy (1 pitch 19 - great route, very staright forward)
seconded Scourge (1 pitch 20)
retired to the dam where we stood in freezing water for an hour to return core temperatures to normal
seconded Tony's Route (aka The Desired) (2 pitch 19 - 19 my ass! The rock was so smooth and slippery, perhaps it would have been easier in the cool)
Total fire ban - Cooked at Simon's place, camped at Araps.

Friday:
Not as hot, but still spicy:
o/s Libretto (2 pitch 16 - Simon took photos of me leading for the new guide, and made a mock Rock cover:)

Retired for lunch and to escape the midday heat, found a shingleback lizard (there were hundreds):

o/s Oceanoid (2 pitch 17 - really good - Simon took photos again)

Thats all we had time for at Araps this trip, the weather was a bit much

We stayed at Simons place to avoid the Friday night crowds that head in for the weekend from Melbourne

Saturday:
Drove to the Grampians, went to Van Diemens Land, where Mikl climbed a 23. As much as I wanted to climb it - I'm sure I could have, I restrained myself (yay for me) as my fingers probably needed a rest.
Headed to Melbourne for Tim's birthday celebration. Rolled into Steve and Rake's place and after a quick shower/change, off to the celebrations at "mothers Milk" watering hole, the dinner at an Indian restaurant.

Sunday:
Brekky with Rake, Mikl, and I at the "Silly Yak". I ate EVERYTHING. Shopped with Rake, Mikl went to visit an old friend, Glen.
Late lunch with the hungover Tim, Clarissa, and Kevin (who flew down for the party). After a spot of shopping, Tim got the flue, which hit him like a sack of bricks, so we went to their place and watched a movie. Later Kev and I drove back to Steve and Rake's place to meet up with everyone for dinner. Meanwhile, Mikl had spent the day drinking at Glen's place (apparently they had 5 bottles of wine between three people), and had arranged to have dinner - at a Vietnamese restaurant.

Monday:
Left for Mt Buffalo.
Drove through awesome country again - there was a biplane doing acrobatics, and we stopped to watch it. Some cows wandered over and I stood there talking to them for a few minutes. A car that was passing pulled up and wound down the window - "You talking to me?!" the woman driver yelled. "No, I was talking to the cows" I said. Realized I was sounding crazy (I normally hide it better) and backed it up with "and mu husband. Sort of. Mosty the cows" (I'm not a liar either). The woman looked at me, shook her head, and roared off. Perhaps she though the car was having problems and we were in trouble? Perhaps she was just country folk.
We drove onwards to Bright where we found a lovely B and B and ate a HUGE piece of meat for dinner.

Tuesday: Climbed at Buffalo - Eurobin falls
Mikl backed off all the 23's on the wall. He sent me up to lead "No holds barred" (21) which I did - its the slabbiest slab you've ever seen. I cried in between bolts (almost) and kissed the anchors when I got there. The twin ropes we were using fell into the cold stream that the falls next to the climb merged into during our rap. Yummy - wet ropes. On the walk down we pased some older - much older - people running up the hill. They all seemed awfully fit. A young man was huffing and puffing after them - he told us there are a walking group of 80 year olds - he was "minding" them. Well, trying to at least. It was ver inspiring. I needed to be doing more, godammit.

Drove back to Sydney

-----------

No cheese for Miss Broecker please

2006-10-24T12:53:00.000+10:00

Happy birthday to my lovely friend I miss so much, who turns 21 today! Or have I got the decade wrong - surely not....

My life is apparently good

2006-10-23T09:51:00.000+10:00

This may have something to do with the fact I just had a holiday, which I'll blog about later..

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	8.3
Mind:	8
Body:	9.1
Spirit:	7
Friends/Family:	6.5
Love:	10
Finance:	8.1
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Last weekend and... a HOLIDAY!

2006-10-06T17:53:00.000+10:00

Thought I'd write about last weekend as I hadn't already.

Saturday we went climbing in the mountains - at Mt Piddington. Awesome day - a little too spicy in the celcius department, but great nonetheless. I climbed a bunch of trad stuff, including the Judas-Messiah Exit Connection (19) which was really cool and I got pumped. Note to self (again): get comfy shoes!!

Sunday I had my mum and nan over for a roast lunch, which passed the day kind of slowly but one has to do these things. It was a very nice day, except for the fact that I had to work all Sunday night and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday...

So today is Friday, and I'm very glad to announce that tomorrow (after I come in here - AGAIN) I'm leaving for a biggish holiday. Taking out time wandering to Canberra for dinner with the fabulous Lesley, then onto Melbourne to see lots of our pals. From there we will head to Mt Arapiles for a week or so with side trips to the Coonawarra wine region (fabulous wine area) and then back to Melbourne for Timmeh's birthday! Yay once again!

New Job

2006-09-26T10:31:00.000+10:00

Instrument Scientist, Neutron Powder Diffraction (two instruments) at the Bragg Institute at Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), within the new OPAL facility. The two instruments are called Echidna and Wombat.

I start in December.

Its Global Warming

2006-09-25T09:41:00.000+10:00

I'm working quite hard at the moment trying ot get through all my work before I leave. Last weeks work was punctuated by two things - an advanced MicroSoft Excel course I ttok, which went over two days, and a student seminar day that myself and a colleague from ANSTO organised, planned, and ran. I learnt a few things at the Excel course, but mostly that I have almost zero tolerance for stupid people. I don't know when this happened exactly, but I will make an effort in the future. I think it was just because I was locked in the room with them for two days. I think under more normal circumstances I would be able to leave, or do something else for a while and still be nice to them, but more on my terms. The student seminar day went really well i thought. We both got thrown in the deep end and apparently swim quite well, but were left with a few questions as to why we were abandoned in the firsts place.

Saturday I went climbing up the hill - led four long 19-20's (5-10a/b/c) and they were great. Almost finished knitting a sock, but then realised I'd messed up and undid a few thousand rows. This is a pikky of one of the belay ledges there - just a photo I grabbed off the interweb.

In other news Sydney got its first taste of Summer - 35 degrees yesterday and 100km/hr (about 50 mph) hot winds. A few fires broke out, but nothing major. Teh freaky thing here is that its not even October! Wow - I've almost been back for a whole year!

Dirty Rotten Pig

2006-09-21T09:36:00.000+10:00

Climbed last Sunday - repeated our 3-pitch route dirt rotten pig (19/19/16). Valuable lesson learned: since retiring from difficult sport climbing do not take new pair of super tiny shoes to the bottom of a multipitch. I ended up cutting through the heels with a sharp rock in order to get them on, and then couldn't stand on my left foot for most of the way. Lucky it was only 19. Awesome route though - so much cleaner than when we first established it!

Here I am!

2006-09-16T10:57:00.000+10:00

Guess where I am? Go - on, I'll give you a clue: It's a super sunny blue sky Saturday. I've been here since 4.30am, and went to bed after midnight last night.

Thats right - I'm at WORK!

I'm running an experiment with my colleague Greg sorbing vapours into a crystal. Secretly i thought the crystal wouldn't last as we put these vapours into it, and to get them out we have to heat it to 200 degrees C, and then we cool it and put different vapours into it. Most crystals compain about this type of thing, but not mine! Its such a super trooper - we've done 20 vapours so far, and the damn thing is still alive and kicking, although Greg and I are getting quite sleepy as we have to come in every 3 hours and do 2 hrs work.

WARNING: VERY bad pun (Mikl's fault): With reference to the robust nature of my crystal: "The Neverending Sorby".

Anyhoo - off to change solvents

Update

2006-09-07T16:08:00.000+10:00

Hiya! Haven't been posting a whole heap lately - been a busy busy bee, and lets face it - I only post at work and only when I get time, which are mutually exclusive events I'm happy to say. Yes - that's right - I like being busy at work. Keeps me from beating up the students (KIDDING). Actually, the students, well, two of them at least, are struggling with something I'm very good at and its unfortunately not something I can teach them in a few hours, its more of applying accumulated experience to make decesions every few minutes to improve your result, which is hard to teach. I feel for them right now, they both have difficult problems to solve, and I'm trying my best to help them but I can also see their frustration. They are both doing very well, but their problems are just shitty, quite frankly. At least at the end they would have learn't a shitload!

So, since I posted last I've had some great news that I don't wish to share here just yet. But lets say I'm happy as I get to keep my cake and eat it too, so to speak. No actual cake, as yet. BTW - Its not babies - no babies, thats not the thing.

Been watching a shitload of Buffy. I love Buffy, well, the show, Buffy is way to teeny tiny for my tastes, but the show is really cool. I just watched the episode where Buffy's mum dies, and you get to see Willow and Tara kiss. That's the bit I really like, as it was all too "relationship censorship overload" until then. Buffy gets to snog everyone, all the heterosexual people get to snog, but noooo, the gay people have to hide. So I was very happy when they kissed. Then Spike made a fake Buffy and I laughed. Anyhoo - yes, i have an out of control raging Buffy addiction and have started to incorporate syntax from the show into my every day speech. Not particularly useful. No Biggie.

The upside of raging Buffy addiction is the extra knitting I'm getting through. I finished the fingerless gloves for Sal, with pyramids on the back of the hands. You can only tell they are pyramids once someone tells you what they are, otherwise you'll never work it out. But once they tell you, you can really see the pyramids, I promise. The pyramids are in celebration of her ancient history studies, plus she thinks the pyramids are way cool, which they are.

Tomorrow is Friday and then its going to rain for the weekend. Bummerama. Mikl has organized a dinner party for Saturday night, which should keep us entertained, but I really wanted to climb this weekend - it rained last weekend too. I might take some time off during the week next week instead.

Snowboarding Australian Style

2006-09-04T12:43:00.000+10:00

Last Friday it dumped snow at the Australian snowfields. We drove like crazycats Friday down to Canberra to stay with our good pal Les, and headed out to the snow for a glorious Saturday of green trees and probably 5 degrees C of sunshine.

Back to Canberra Saturday night, then back again on Sunday where the snow had, alas, turned to slush, but an awesome time was had by all.

In stark contrast I spend this past weekend climbing in 28 degreeC Sydney sunshine, after a 2 hour bushwalk with a new friend, Marty. Michael unfortunately had to work. I can't believe it is 28 and only the second day of Spring. Hmm, could be a taste of the hot summer to come..

Test repeat

2006-08-17T11:05:00.000+10:00

I tool the career test again today, and got a very similar result:
70%; 73%; 56%; 30%; 80%.

Bit more emotionally stable today I guess.

Apparently I should have been an engineer

2006-08-16T10:50:00.001+10:00

Extroversion |||||||||||||||||||||||| 73%
Emotional Stability ||||||||||||||||||||| 66%
Orderliness |||||||||||||||||| 60%
Altruism |||||||||||| 33%
Inquisitiveness |||||||||||||||||||||||| 80%

You are an Executive, possible professions include - program designer, attorney, administrator, office manager, chemical engineer, sales manager, logistics consultant, franchise owner, new business developer, personnel manager, investment banker, labor relations, management trainer, credit investigator, mortgage broker, corporate team trainer, environmental engineer, biomedical engineer, business consultant, educational consultant, personal financial planner, network integration specialist, media planner/buyer.

Footy Legends

2006-08-08T09:19:00.000+10:00

Went to see "Footy Legends" an Australian movie that will probably only be released in Sydney. It was awesome.

Low budget movie featuring a lot of footy fan set in Sydney's Western Suburbs. BTW - when I say "footy" I mean Rugby League. Big but somehow coordinated people running headlong into each other and trying to stop the other team scoring through the application of brute force. Made by the yong Australian of the Year - a title given to major do-gooders - its a feel good "the little engine that could" story about no-hopers who form a footy team and enter in the "Holden Cup".
The Young Aussie of the year plays a battler from Yagoona (where he grew up and I went to high school near here) who has been unemployed for months. He has looked after his asthmatic sister since their mother died. They're struggling, but very close. When he arrives home one day in high spirits, having caught a tortoise for her, Community Services is waiting. He has to show cause in court why the child should not be placed in care.

Anyway - the story is pretty lam-o, but struck a huge chord with me as it showed all the fucked-up-dom of where I grew up, the fibro houses, the messed up families, and features some awesome aussie slang. The team they form is called the Yagoona Schooners and have sponsors' logos stuck to their jerseys with tape. The locals from the pub down the road cheer them of with calls like: "Carn 'Goona, we love youse all"

In the cup they end up playing all the crazy footy greats - and even though I'm not a rugby fan now, I recognized Brett Kenny, Bradley Clyde, Cliff Lyons and Rod Wishart.

Sleepy!

2006-07-27T13:09:00.000+10:00

A friend of ours got dropped at the climbing gym a few weeks back - he shattered both his heel bones and has had surgery to wire what pieces are left back together. Thin rope and a gri gri - he was leading and fell off near a draw, so there was no shock load on the gri gri, and the person wasn't holding the rope end - lots of people belay like this, I believe it is the leaders responsibility not to use a gri gri/think rope and if they do to make sure the belayer is aware of this risk and holds the lock off end at all times.

Anyway - he is home from hospital and we wen to to his place for dinner - it was great, but I realise today that I might have had a few too many glasses of red. Not sure how too many, but everything is difficult and I still haven't been to the gym this week. Today the diffractometer was free and I loaded a crystal. The crystal is about 0.2mm in size and I have to physically transfer it using a drop of oil and a skinny metal rod from a glass slide onto a tiny fibre. This usually takes between 1 and 10 minutes depending on how you are feeling, and today it took me over an hour. This is number 1 of 10 I'm supposed to get through and man is it starting to annoy me that I had those few glasses of red.

I have to get to the gym tomorrow - I feel like a seal. At least I've been walking to and from work everyday - half an hour each way, which is better than nothing...

Whats new?

2006-07-19T11:37:00.000+10:00

Been working quite hard. Realized that I have still been climbing but not blogging. I'm not planning on making up for this now (ahem at all), instead I will post about transferring my money from the states. An opportunity to make money exists. A much, much, much bigger opportunity existed a few years ago though:

I trensferred half my money at the arrow point, which isn't bad for the past 3 years. What I really need is for the US dollar to get really strong for a bit, and then crash and burn against the AUD. You guys can all help out. Just buy loads of stuff and vote republican and everything will be hunky dory for me. Then reveal your true colours....

Zidane

2006-07-12T10:21:00.000+10:00

The scoop:

Lip reader Jessica Rees, Materazzi really inflamed Zidane by calling him “the son of a terrorist whore”

He is still beloved by football fans, winning the Golden Ball award for the tournament's best player.

And France:
"You are a virtuoso, a genius of world football. You are also a man of the heart, of commitment, of conviction, and that's why France admires and loves you," Chirac told Zidane, calling him "an exceptional captain."

Now lets make fun of it and start to heal:
http://www.wallak.net/zidan/

BTW - I find the last shot of Zidane walking past the cup off the field very difficult to watch.

Say no to shiny tan bastards

2006-07-08T17:14:00.000+10:00

Unfortunately, I am unableto watch and thus cannot support, the shiny tan Italian bastards, as my eyes keep following this guy:

Damnation, I'm going to have to support France, and must suffer the wrath of the angry local tan bastards from the suburb in which I live.

Too cold to play sport..

2006-07-07T16:46:00.000+10:00

After the tragedy of eviction from the world cup, life has returned to its usual rollercoaster of craziness.

I spent the last few weeks living in the laboratory, developing a purification process. Crude, but does the job. Except for the methanol vapours in the face part. That really, like, sucks man.

Its been cold in our house so I've been rugged up like the Michelin man:

What is scary is upon searching for a picture of the Michelin man I came across this little beauty:

Hmm. My brother used to call me fatty boombala when I was little (and fatstuff) as I think this is what I used to look like as a child. I'm slowly regaining this title as work takes over my active life. To rejuvenate the athleticism I took advantage of the alchemist's soccer tournament in the School of Chemistry and started a team - the Free Ligands ('cause we are uncoordinated. Stupid chemistry nerd type joke). Anyway, we quickly got knocked out of the tournament, but I got pilfered by other teams and now am a hot trade for chocolate for a variety of teams. This is not to say I play well, as I play crap (but aggressivly crap), just to say that I am woman (hear me roar) and worth more points and there needs to be at least one of these on the field at all times for the team to stay in the tournament. And sporty women in science are not a dime a dozen (or even the metric equivalent). At least I've been taught to really appreciate all those world cup goals instead of screaming at the TV that they never should have missed such a give away opportunity.

This is why...

2006-06-23T10:43:00.000+10:00

What was the remark of the USA team captain upon Australia's entry to the world cup? Something along the lines of why are they bothering, well, we are "bothering" because:

Although we are ranked 42nd, we beat Japan (ranked 18th) and tied with Croatia (ranked 23rd, although we scored a goal in the final few seconds that should've been our victory) to progress to the next round where we play Italy. Sadly, the USA (ranked 5) won't get to play Italy as they were knocked out of the competition through a defeat by Ghana (ranked 48th).

So sad, I'll go have a latte to celebrate.

What has been going on?

2006-06-21T11:56:00.000+10:00

Last week we said goodbye to Jody as she returned to the states.

The weekend was our first without a house guest for quite a while, and it rained, rained, and rained, and it was a long weekend too. Monday the sun came out briefly and we climbed at a crag north of Sydney called Narrabeen, where a bunch of routes have been rebolted and a few more slab routes established. I managed to get insanely pumped due to the cold rock, which was kind of nice and made me feel like I was working.

After a slow week at work trying to get some things synthesised, the next weekend rolled around, starting with a melted cheese eating party at Chris and Altheas place. 6 people, 2kgs of cheese, 6 bottles of wine. Hmmm. I got home and made the tactical error of checking the Australian Research Council website to see if the review comments for my research proposal were in, which they were. I spent the next hour running around the house yipeeing and whooping in delight as they were all pretty good really, and I really didn't know what to expect, these things can be so random. Had trouble sleeping.

Drove to Nowra early Saturday for a mass of great climbing in the yummy sun, although I seem to have lost my head:

We camped in the cold but awoke to 50 red tailed black cockatoos at our private camp, before more rock action on Sunday.

Sunday night we high-tailed it back to Sydney for the premier of Aus versus Brazil. I say high-tailed, but really, we had hours and hours and hours to wait. The game didn't start until 2am. I was pleasantly surpised when the A lister team didn't wipe the floor with us, and look forward to watching us play Croatia at the more reasonable time of 5am on Friday. On an aside, I really am turning into a soccer hooligan. The Alchemists tournament is starting at Sydney University, and I am desperately trying to get a team together...

A rainy weekend - time to go dancing

2006-06-05T12:30:00.000+10:00

Went to the Chinese Laundry to celebrate my birthday with some friends that couldn't make it to dinner earlier in the week.

The line up in the rooms:

Sandbar
9 – Jack Prest
11 – Tim Sea
1 – Steve Lind

Laundry
10:30 – Ajax
12:30 – PNAU (Club mode)
2 – Matt Nugent

Cave
11 – Synik
12:30 - Ken Cloud
2 - Mark Dynamix

We didn't go to the Sandbar. I really liked the set that Synik played, although I was alone in this and we promptly moved to the Laundry main room where Pnau had just started. I thought their live set was OK, nothing spectacular, so kept sneaking back into the Cave to listen to Ken Cloud. Meanwhile, Mark Dynamix was pretty cool later on.

We also bumped into some climbing friends, which was great.

Birthday week

2006-06-01T15:45:00.000+10:00

So I made it through the next week, and went climbing on Saturday at Nowra. First time there since my injury. i climbed a bunch of things ranging from grade 11 to grade 22, including a trad 16 (below), unusual for such a sporty area.

Monday was my birthday, and to celebrate I was taken out to a great organic restaurant, the Peasants Feast, in newtown (near where I live)

Video Tits

2006-05-20T10:07:00.000+10:00

In Australia, there is this TV show on every Saturday morning called VideoHits. Today, for some unearthly reason, they broadcasted "You are not alone" by Michael Jackson. Ewwwww. I'm going to scrub my eyes out now.

The Rollercoaster

2006-05-20T10:04:00.000+10:00

All my work projects at the moment are things that are quite difficult. I should keep reminding myself this whenever I run into walls, which I frequently do. I'm used to being energetic and solving problems quickly, but when the problems are complex I just run into the walls faster.

I had a bit of a shocker this week, starting with Monday, getting so much worse on Tuesday. Wednesday I didn’t think I could go in, but knew I would feel guilty and like I was wasting my time if I didn’t. Anyway, Friday was a long was away from Monday, and by the time it came around I felt a bit on the depleted side so I decided to spend the weekend, at least Saturday, at home regenerating my energy levels instead of going away for the entire weekend and trashing myself climbing. I’ll let you know if I make it to Monday without climbing… or if I go even madder.

W/kend Report

2006-05-15T17:24:00.000+10:00

Headed up to the mountains again this weekend and although it was meant to be cold, Saturday turned out gorgeous blue sky and sunshine. All the T-shirts came off at Shipley and the sky was black with climbers falling off their project. Alas, the cooler, more frictional weather was but another day away.

I was super happy to see Shaz and Eva out at the crag and quickly abandoned Mikl and Boer to play with the Chikkas. I scrambled my way up several 19’s before retiring to a reminiscing swear-athon with Shaz at the crag for old times sake. Before all the daylight was gone we headed to Hartley Vale School House to help jean with her painting chores. More like sanding gone mad – removing layer upon layer of toxic paint from the old walls with a variety of sanding devices, before I cracked the shits and ripped out the scraper and heat gun. But all was well again after a quick shower, visit to Coke’s place in Katoomba for a quick drink to celebrate her birthday, before getting back to the School House where we retrieved the beef stew bubbling away in the oven.

After a cold (!!) night spent in the Tuck Shop with Mikl (the old tuck shop has been converted into a much ventilated sleeping /storage area and is a separate dwelling from the main School House), Jeanie headed back to Sydney and Boer, Mikl, and I went to Cosmic County to try some classics. I proclaimed early that it was too cold to climb and would only pull on if the sky went blue. This had nothing to do with the poor sleep/amount of red wine consumed, although it might have had a bit, but more to do with the amount of climbing I did on Saturday, particularly on the crimpy Shipley numbers.

So Mikl sicked Boer onto every classic at the crag, while I knitted. By 3pm the sun miraculously came out (until then I was knitting in a down jacket and the sleeves kept catching on the needle ends). Boer started to complain it was hot and took most of his clothes off, so I decided it was just toasty enough for me to run up a few easy things. I must get back out there when I am climbing harder again.

Alas, the weekend is over and I came in to work where I discovered my synthesis of this brand new material did not work as I had planned. The scratching post is getting VERY thin.

Birthday celebration

2006-05-11T14:08:00.000+10:00

I threw a dinner party for Mikl's birthday. 19 people in our little lounge room, and I didn't even take a photo! I so need to get my shit together. In related news, despite the due date of our friends baby (she was at the party), she failed to give birth on our $5000 antique handmade Afghan rug.

Happy Birthday Honey!

2006-05-09T11:14:00.000+10:00

Not that he reads my blog, but a big happy birthday to Mikl, who today turns something or other thats not 50.

Our nations capital

2006-05-08T12:24:00.000+10:00

Went to an Australian Academy of Science symposium in Canberra on Friday, and dragged Mikl and our latest American visitor, Boer, down there too see the sights.

We stayed with Les at her new house in Narrabundah. Friday night she flew back from Tassie and met up with us at a friends place for dinner. After a late night we headed out to go climbing at Baroomba on Saturday, when the weather was nice. Baorrmba features a 150m granite dome with routes all over it. Most are naturally protected, although the route that Les and I climbed was a slab, with 2 bolts in 40 m. Nice climbing, although we were all absolutely bushed that night and went to bed early.

Sunday Les and I nicked off to visit some crafty nearby towns, which were really cool and Les bought a Wollemi pine (These tress are living dinosoaurs - they were thought extinct until a climber found some alive and well in a small section of the Blue Mountains, now you can buy them to put in your garden). The boys decided to stick it outin what was obviously going to be crap weather, which it was, and when Les and I got back to the house at 4pm, they were both tucked up on the couch with tea after a lunch of sausages and crumpets (this is what happens when you leave boys to cook).

I also made friends with Oscar, Lesley's cat, whio is extremely shy so this was a huge achievement. We also stole Les's guide book (how sneaky are we?).

I'd also like ot report that I am dizzy, and can't work out why. Hmmm.

I miss her!

2006-05-01T13:56:00.000+10:00

Happy Birthday to Miss Kelley.....

Knitting Injury

2006-04-26T18:15:00.000+10:00

It seems that after 4 pairs of socks and five pairs of babies booties I have a serious pain between my shoulder blades that I'm attributing at this point to poor knitting posture. I've discovered that if I knit whilst lying face down on the couch with my arms and head hanging off the end I can still knit. But I can't knit and watch tele. Damnation!

Bouldering after The Sickness

2006-04-24T15:08:00.000+10:00

Last Monday night the old Bruce Street crew came around for food at our place, it was a bring your own and share occasion and we all did just that. Friday morning I awoke with a HUGE hangover and a leaden stomach. I struggled into work for a meeting during which I tried not to throw up in, and then seemed to perk up a bit. After meeting with Jo for lunch and deciding that all I could stomach was a fruit frappe, I headed back to Jo's office for a nap, where I quickly realized that I may in fact be sick, and not just hungover (I didn't actually drink that much..)On the way back to my office I threw up 10 times, and only just managed to get my stuff and make it home. At home I deteriorated into a spewing shitting mess of hopelessness where I eventually fell asleep, empty and green. This went on for a few days where I couldn't really eat anything more substantial than a boiled potato.

On Wednesday I met Mikl's messy sister for the first time. She grated on my nerves, and I felt like a snob letting her habits irritate me, but Mikl pointed out that where I grew up everyone was always fucked up and I had spent my life from that starting point getting away from there, where she has spent her life moving from a very good upbringing migrating to that from which I had run away. This would explain the irritiation. I sat there, feeling green, at a "cook your own" steak place with Julia, her lovely daughter (Viv, who really is a sweetie) and her boyfriend (also a sweetie), her latest son from another father (a nice boy, hemipleigic, named Jack), Mikl, and Julia's worlds most obese person for a boyfriend. The worlds most obese person was actually very nice, which also irritated me. I sat there watching Julia, who was drunk before we even got there, order a boconcinni and basil bread, then take it over to the condiment table and add about three cups of sour cream, sweet chillie sauce, and some BBQ sauce for good measure. Then, when the bread was too hard at the edges to eat , she softened it up by pouring a bit of beer on it. Out of all the things that grated on my nerves, the total disrespect for eating as a pleasurous event was the most frustrating.

By Friday I had recovered mostly, but was eating relatively small meals and still not exercising.

Saturday was too good a day to waste. We went to the Spit, just north of Sydney (but still in Sydney) on Saturday for a spot of bouldering. I watched mostly, but pulled on a few things that didn't involve pulling really really hard with my fingers, including a juggy roof traverse and an evil mantle, which i didn't pull off but managed to scrape my arm repeatedly.

Went to work to try to make something with the fake lego bit. Mikl and I had dinner with George and Sally and the cats.

Sunday we headed to Lindfield rocks in North Sydney, where I ticked a few problems I was too scared to use my hands on last time, namely Kims arete and this traverse problem on a boulder. Very nice!

Both days the sun came out after a chilly start followed by a big blue sky. Went to North Head to admire the view and then to Manly for more sightseeing. Retired early for some knitting and Gosford Park on the tele.

The new route is actually a 20

2006-04-24T10:56:00.000+10:00

Easter long weekend

2006-04-19T17:37:00.000+10:00

Headed south to Point Perpendicular. Mikl and I had never been there, and our expectation of crappy rock based on our Sydney sea-cliffs experience was dashed by the bomber placements and consistently solid holds. Sweet!! Of the things I led, the highlight was Grey Mist, a gorgeous trad 17.

After a few days at the Point and meeting up with Kev and this dude Dave, we headed to Mollymook to play with George and Sally.

Back to Sydney on Sunday nightso we could go climbing in the blueies with Megan. Headed out to Mt Piddington (Megan had never been to the Blueies!). I climbed with Megan and Samantha, who had just started climbing. We actually climbed quite quickly as a party of 3. Mikl climbed with Kev but managed to bolt me a brand new spanking route, which I sent at 18,although it did have a mantle in it. Great day.

No shame in backing off

2006-04-11T10:31:00.000+10:00

Saturday: Mikl and I went to Mt Piddington in the Blueies. It was cold, I jumped on Taurus, a trad "16" (5-8) near the walk down track. It was in the shade. The gear is tricky on this climb, and after placing a few mediocre pieces I got scared of taking out a just too small cam to replace with something better, and headed up through the crox to what i thought would be a better placement. Then I realized that I didn't have a ny hexex and my number 4 friend I wasn't happy with. So with frozen hands/fingers/arms I came down and sent Mikl up to get my gear. Then I climbed a 17 to redeem myself (5-8+).

In the glorious afternoon sun we headed out for a photo shoot of "Hotel California" with our friend climbing photographer Simon Carter. The sky couldn't have been bluer and the light was just magical, but we all could have done without the roaring wind. We rapped in two pitches and Mikl led the third last pitch, a few times, for the camera. I led the second last pitch just as the sun was setting (no great photos there I think) and we walked out in twilight. Aside from getting out ropes snagged in the horrible wind a few times, it was a very magical climb.

Picture of Mt Arapiles (from the Grampians)

2006-04-07T12:16:00.000+10:00

Its the weekend

2006-04-07T11:45:00.000+10:00

I've had one of those slow weeks when you do a lot of thinking but not much doing. Tonight I'm meetin gup with a friends I haven;t seen for a few years, her boyfriend, and another dear friend who's just back from living in Germany for the past 2 years. To celebrate, I'm roasting a dead chicken.

My Lego bit is a fake

2006-04-04T16:31:00.000+10:00

I thought I'd found a big bottle of a ligand I needed to make a cool thing. I had ana analysis done yesterday, and the bottle is actually a mixture of the ligand, but there is a significant amount of something else in there that I don't known what it is. Bummerama dudes.

Back to my scratching post..

Charity

2006-04-04T10:47:00.000+10:00

Offwidths at Mt Piddington

2006-04-03T12:27:00.000+10:00

Ripped out the trad rack (as I have consistently been doing for the past short while) and headed up the hill Saturday morning with a Champagne hangover.

Climbed "The Spartan" a three pitch 5-8. I'd heard there was an offwidth section, but that it was easy and impossible to fall off, so I didn't bother gathering any big cams or other gear. We walked by some old blokes with a rack of number 4-5 cams, and Mikl suggested I borrow them. I started to worry a bit, and carried on about not wanting to do anything you needed anything bigger than a number 4 for, but caved in after they looked like I might die in response to my not wanting the gear but going off to climb the Spartan. Anyhoo - Mikl led the first easy pitch and I lead the crux pitch, which does indeed have a hefty offwidth start that I ver nearly did fall off after refusing point blamk to jam my foot into the section. Very nearly fell off, very very glad of cams, that were, if anything, slightly too small. Got to the jug at the top and destressed for about 20 mins. It was freezing with a howling wind, and I was pumped stupid as a result. The next bit of the pitch traversed out for 15m under a huge roof on underclimgs that I really wished I had hexes for (Mikl left them at home as we were planning on a doing a new route somewhere else but it was too cold). At the end of th etraverse you throw yourself up into a flaring chimney, get a good head /body jam, then grovel up and out onto a ledge. All this sounds grose, but it was actually OK. The next pitch was a hideous one move wonder chimney to the top which Mikl led, but I should have as I would have fitted through the chimney a lot better on lead.

Next route was a 5-8+ jam crack (Psychopath) that I absolutely hurtled up as I borrowed someones crack gloves for. Man - I am SO buying myself some of those beauties. The crack, BTW, is not considered 5-8+ by anyone normal, but more like 5-10 at least.

Last crack of the day - The Eternity - another 5-8+, except I had to give back the crack gloves and bruised the shit out of my hands as a result. Oh well

Sunday
After a night of Japanese food, wine, and watching Saturdau night fever followed by a U2 concert series at Moss and Cokes place, we headed to the Station to pick up our friend Rob to climb with.

Mikl went off bolting nearby and Rob belayed me up Tombstone Wall (5-7+) where I discovered that I was trashed from yesterday. I managed to wail my way through the crux and then decidede to drop a few grades.

Mikl came back and ran up Cafe Racer (5-8) which is not really 5-8, or even 5-9, or even 5-10 for that matter, and has no gear through the v1 roof move until you get up the wall a few metres. Quite mad. I happily seconded this.

After Rob and Mikl took off to climb some harder stuff, I ate lunch then had a well-deserved snooze. After lunch I decided top redeem my offwidthing skills by practising on Charity, a 5-5 offwidth corner with no holds on the walls either side to change your options with. I collected several large cams from nearby parties, and headed up. After desperately trying to find a better way, I accepted the obvious and stuck my foot in the crack which worked a treat. Satisfied that this technique would not have worked at all on Spartan the previous day due to the very soft shoes I was wearing, I topped out only to find that as typical for the area, the "tree" that one raps off in guide was nowhere in sigfht and I was forced to drop down around the arete at grade 5-10 to gain the rap anchors.

All in all a good weekend, and offwidthing lessons that were well learned. Perhaps I'll regain the use of my abdominal muscles by the end off the week.

Zinc is not my friend

2006-03-31T10:10:00.000+11:00

As I have had a fight with Zinc, I have been forging ahead with some Copper based compounds that seem to be progressing nicely. Secretly happy with my plans, it looks like I will actually have some results within the next few months - yay! I made one very complicated thing, which has a unit cell size of 30 x 30 x 80 (this is quite big). I think there are 60 atoms in the asymmetric unit cell. Not the most atoms I've dealt with, but as it is so porous it is very big. Thus the unit cell is very complicated. Its also not cubic - but rhombohedral (trigonal in the hexagonal setting). Anyway - I'm all excited and couldn't sleep the other night because of it.

Also happy to discover that Karins mum is Australian. Very good news, will go and eat some Pavlova to celebrate.

Went to the climbing gym last night and did some yellows. This is good for me - haven't climbed yellows in a while - my hands felt good. I didn't want to push it so I only did two before stopping for the night. I had already climbed four greens though. I think yellow is about 5-10/easy 5-11. Not sure. Its inside so its hard to tell. I also did a spin class yesterday and Mikl has been to aerobics(!!!!!!) so we were both a bit sleepy and went to bed early. I woke up to find Mikl gone and that he had spent the night on the couch. He said I was all kicky in the night. Maybe my knees were hurting me?

The weather is turning slowly here (not like it does in the northern states), but I've started sleeping with a light blanket at night and wearing long sleeves when I go out at night.

In other knitting news I bought some bright coloured yarn for a pair of socks for my friend, and a shitload of baby wool for the products of my two pregnant friends. I'm trying to make booties with bunny ears, but its slightly more friustrating that my issue with the Zinc compounds.

Thought for the day

2006-03-28T12:31:00.000+11:00

If you are so annoying to someone that they appear pissed off with you more than they laugh with you or enjoy your company it may not be the way forward for a long lasting friendship.

Like, dude, How wise am I?

Tour guiding

2006-03-28T12:20:00.000+11:00

Friday night we cooked a roast chicken dinner for the friends that Mikl and I recently stayed with - and they bought their crazy Jack Russell. I was mega impressed that he didn't pee anywhere except outside -his training is coming along nicely. Another friend whom is single and I hadn't seen for a while came along too - I thought might be nice for Jody to hang out with. It was a good evening. Afterwards the single friend, Jody and Mikl and I went out to a 30th birthday party - it was reasonably good, except for a drunk guy who kept hitting on me and then when I told him I was married and pointed to Mikl he said - no way - and went over to Mikl and slurred a bunch of stuff at him. Very amusing. Late night.

Satuday Kev, Jody and I headed to the featherdale Wildlife Park" where you can pat and play with the Australian animals. It was great, but I missed climbing, although it was kind of rainy anyway.

Sunday Kirstin and Stacy, Jody's friends arrived. After picking them up from the airport I took them back home for tea and showers, then to a cafe for brunch, then to the zoo. The weather was magical - blue skies and crazy looking clouds. We took the ferry over to the zoo, which has amazing views back to the city skyline, and they saw loads of Aussie animals. Back across gorgeous harbour to the city, and to a cafe for dinner near my place. I drove them to their very swanky looking hotel in the city.

Monday I worked, but knocked off early to go with Mikl and the girls to the beach, which was awesome. I took them on my favourite walk along the seacliffs, and a recent cyclone was sitting off the coastline creating some really cool waves that some silly people were trying to surf, and a crowd had gatehred to watch them die. After ending with the sun setting over Bondi beach, we headed to an Italian sector of Sydney for dinner. Many bottles of wine were had, but mostly by me and Jody I think. After dropping the girls back to their hotel, Jody and Mikl and I went home for some much appreciated snoozing.

Zinc is annoying

2006-03-24T15:39:00.000+11:00

Cu, however, is really very nice and friendly. It makes and breaks bonds when I merely suggest it. Zn is strong willed and rather grumpy.

Weekend update

2006-03-20T14:24:00.000+11:00

The past week has been taken up mostly by preparations for a presentation I’m giving at the University this afternoon. I can’t wait to move onto something else, I’ve been very distracted with preparing the talk. I had a minor success in the lab last week, where I synthesized the other thing that I’ve been trying to make, but I haven’t had a chance to confirm that the thing is what its supposed to be, so I’m kind of keen. I have that all planned for tomorrow. I’ll let you know how I go.

I did mange to get away for the weekend, Mikl , Jody, and I went up to the blue mountains. Jody drove our second car awith me, and Mikl took our primary car up, that way when we left Jody up there she could drive between all the cute single climbers places. After a great days climbing on Saturday, we headed to Jean Jeanies place in Hartley Vale for an evening of much red wine and curry. Mikl and I, Mike and Robyn, Penny, Jean, and Jody all were there. Drank much and went to bed late. Sunday Jean went off sailing, Mikl went off climbing, and Jody went to look at the famous caves near the area, the Jenolan caves, while I sat around and went through the bloody presentation yet again.

That evening we drove back to ydney, stopping at Shaz’z place to watch her roll around the floor feeling sick (she is a month pregnant) with her daughter Emily jumping up and down on top of her. They are staying with Shaz’z parents for the moment but may have just rented a new place nearby all of their own, and I for one can appreciate (as I’m sure at leats Karin can too) that having their own space will be a truly great thing. I’m very exited for them.

We also stopped by George and Sally’s place and had dinner with them. I suddenly got very tired early on (all the stressing about the presentation, and perhaps a bit to do with the wine) and we left about 9.30pm. Shower, and straight to bed for me!

Now I’m back in at work and have found time to procrastinate in the form of writing this, a couple of hours befor ethe presentation. I also found out that many of the people I wanted to impress will not actually be here, so I’m a little disappointed, but that’s OK.

Weekend at home

2006-03-13T15:49:00.000+11:00

I spent the entire weekend hanging not too far from my house, which is the first time I have done this in almost forever. With Mikl and Jody away and me being sick, I thought it the perfect time to catch up on house-cleaning, knitting, and some dedicated TV watching. I started out with good intentions, a friend dropped by and tried to take me to a movie. I said no, so they decided to stay, and we ordered in take-away food. Then two other friends called around, and they brough with them two other New Zealand friends who have been living in France for the past 2 years, so we all had a lot of catching up to do. Everyone except me got drunk, and one of the New Zealanders got very drunk, and it was very amusing.

I resolved to have a more productive day of vegetation on Saturday, but was forced to head into town to buy some skincare products on sale. But I returned early and baked some cookies that i couldn't smell were burning as I had lost my sense of smell, and made a big mess. I had just settled down to some serious bootie knitting (friends all having kids) when George and Sally and Imelda arrived, and we all went out for a Vietnamese meal. This was great, the restaurant is very close and food excellent. Besides, I didn't feel like cooking. They got drunk, it was fun.

Sunday - ahh, finally some house cleaning. Then a neighbour friend Jen dropped by during the ironing, then my friends Jims and Kev came over and we had tea and chats, followed by takeaway dinner.

All in all I knitted two sets of booties, cleaned the house and was reminded what a great bunch o friends I have!

Blokeb bose

2006-03-09T13:21:00.000+11:00

So I apparently am sick. Jody and Mikl went away to to Araps, and although I was dissapointed to be missing out I was also looking forward to working really hard so I can get it out of my system and won't feel guilty leaving eary to spend timje with Jody when she gets back. But Nooooo, thats aparently not what fate has in stall for me - apparently I'm to spend two days with the flu and a nose so blocked I can't breathe or (god help me) taste any food.

To ease my pain I purchased a new set of knitting needles, some lilac baby wool, and a book of patterns for booties. Bloody friends having babies - hrumpf. Secretly happy they are as its a great excuse to knit new stuff. As I was in the store checking out the wool the owners dog came over and tried to hump my leg. I feel so violated! I ordered some sock colour too for another friend who wants "bright warm colour" so she feels extra toasty in winter in her socks. Her birthday is soon, so I'd better hurry up, although I think the booties will be quick.

I hope Mikl isn't wearing out Jody too much - he does try to climb a lot at Araps. I also hope Jody is having an awesome time - its so beautiful down there..

I'm trying to make my first sample in the lab today - I hope it works out, I'll get to see the "product" tomorrow. Fingers crossed...

The proposal is over!

2006-03-06T16:05:00.000+11:00

I handed in the Evil Proposal Thursday last week and Jody and I did in fact get facials to celebrate and also for the hell of it. We hen caught a Sydney ferry to Manly and walked on the sand, then ate hot chips (fries) and tomato sauce (ketchup). Some friends came over for dinner (we have been doing a LOT of entertaining lately in an effort to introduce our friends to Jody) and drank champage (fake sparkling white at least) followed by copius amounts of red wine.

Saturday Jody and I went bouldering, which was awesome, with delphine my friend I haven't seen in ages who has transformed from skinny waif into boulder chick 3000 in the past two years, and then back home for a quick meal of stir fried kangaroo and then out to a(nother) meal with Kev and Mikl and us two , then off to Mardi Gras. We bought crates, and through some clever seat stealing by Jody got a brilliant vantage point to watch the parade from.

Sunday we went climbing, Blue Mountains. Back down this hill Sunday night and dinner with my friend Lesley who moved to Canberra but was in Sydney for the day, and some other mutual friends who live nearby. More champage and red wine.

Taday I have started RESEARCHING and its great. Its also my mums birthday, so I baked a cake last night and will deliver this with some flowers this evening. If Jody comes with she will get to experience OUT WEST. I have adequately warned her (not). She'll be OK (if she decides to come).

2006-03-01T09:31:00.000+11:00

Oh - I finished my other sock too, and have requests for a pair of booties and another pair of socks in a "happy warm" colour. Hmmm... Perhaps I can knit in meetings at work.

Jody is here!

2006-03-01T09:23:00.000+11:00

So my friend Jody arrived from the States a few days ago. She is already all set up with her own room, phone, and a job working at the climbing gym. I, on the other hand, have been a bad hostess, and hiding at work until the wee hours. The "get money from the government" hellish proposal I'm writing is due in a few days and I've been running around seeing the important Uni people who are responsible for helping me get the best chance possible of success. It will all be over in a few days! I'm taking Friday off to celebrate and Jody and I will get facials...

We did sneak in a new route in the Blue mountains on Sunday though, it went at 19 (5-9+), 19, 17 (5-8+). The last pitch was ver loose. Mikl, Jody, and I went, and it was pretty fun, although Jody has been getting very sleepy early on, understandably so.

Back to the grindstone for me....

Those amusing Floridians...

2006-02-28T17:04:00.000+11:00

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/13861456.htm

The Sock

2006-02-16T14:43:00.000+11:00

This is me (in my new kitchen) looking adoringly at my perfectly fitting, but perhaps not perfectly formed, sock. Please note how shiny my hair still is despite giving up gloss colouring.

I'm working on the other one now. It took me a while to remember how to cast on. Although I'm still not sure if I did this correctly, I'm proceeding with the sock anyway. It seems to be holding together.

My Arms Hurt

2006-02-13T17:30:00.000+11:00

Went up the hill all this weekend.

Saturday:
A trad cliff ticking off more easy classics:
The Carthaginian, a two pitch grade 15 (5-7+), was super easy, even for a 15.
The first pitch of Joseph, 12 (5-6)
The Great Unwashed, 10 (5-5), which was awesome – is a flaring open corner/with a small chimney section
The Bonatti Crack, 10 (5-5), which is very short but only features a crack, that goes through an overhang. About 5 grades harder than the Cartheginian.

Retired for a "wine tasting" evening in celebration of the Big Kev's 40th birthday that was about two weeks ago. I made an array of excellent salads that I stored in an Esky full of ice from the night before. I ate gluten free organic beef sausages until my eyes popped out and some bitch baked a brie with maple syrup and almonds that I was forced to eat most of. Jeanie, Julian (the new sailor boyfriend), Kev, Catherine (who is not Kev's girlfriend apparently.., Pommie Mick, Penny, Mikl, and I, all had blind wine tastings where we got blind. Jeanie and Julian kicked us out of the Hartley Vale School house so they could have what we can only imagine to be noisy sex, and Mikl and I camped in the yard and got woken early by crazy cockatoos.

Sunday:
Adventure new route:

9-pitch grade 18 (5-9) new sports route in the Grose Valley with Mikl.

Access : Walk in 30 mins, do two abseils, bash another 10 mins around the base of the cliff.

We swung leads, but the rock was covered in dirt and sand from the extensive cleaning and drilling (which will wash off in the next storm) and the smaller footholds were often crumbly and liked to disappear from under me. All this is fine for those taller folks with good fingers (Mikl), but for those trying to use their feet instead of hands (me) it was kind of nerve-wrecking. Besides, I haven’t climbed that much in ages. The top three pitches are consistent grade 17 jug-hauling up a vertical wall, but this goes on for about 80m and I thought my arms were going to fall off. Besides, we left all the bolting gear and ropes out there on pitch 4, so we had to haul stuff. All together Mikl and I had the lead rope, a skinny hauling rope attached to a bag with shoes and water in it, a 100m static rope, an old fluffy 50m dynamic rope, two other skinny ropes, and the drill. So my arms are a wee bit sore today, and I have NO SKIN at all.

Skipped my weight lifting class with Jo today in favour of a Thai food for lunch with Jims (Jemima). Finished off the first draft of the bloody proposal for money from the government. Yay!

Give me the money!!!

2006-02-07T15:53:00.000+11:00

The latest thing for me is that I am adjusting to working at a university instead of a research institute in a country that invests in science and research. All this means is that I have to beg with the Australian government for them to part with multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars to support me in my quest for science. There isn't, however, a simple sytem whereby I can ask for money and they can say yes or no, but a complicated system of proposing research whereby you are required to suffer from an extreme overinflation of how good you and your friends are, and how you will chnage the world thus propelling Oz into stardom and a position of internmational envy. This apparently happend every year, where researchers ask for 3 or 5 years worth of money and reapply every year for more to stash away for the many times they are rejected. So far I have spent one solid week writing mine, which is looking very full of itself and in my opinion suffers from a feasibity flaw. Changing the world is a big claim.

We have aquired a variety of interesting furniture from council pick ups, where people throw out unwanted pieces because they are truly crap, or (these are the ones we go for) are hideously ugly but in perfect working order or fail to fit in with the new colour scheme. Our little house is looking more homely, but nowhere near completed. We also built a bed in the guest room, with plently of storage underneath, which involved much swearing.

Good sock news. After locating a knitting shop with older ladies keen to solve my problem, I prompty went home and worked the sock knitting dilemma out all by myself. I later recieved am email from karin instructing that I had done exactly the right thing. I am now happily zipping through the foot of the sock, and all should go well for at least a few days.

In interesting other news, our back neighbours had very loud sex and apparently are both screamers. It really was a carry on that amused for 5 minutes, and then got really silly. Who cares if everybody knows your having sex? Have a couple of screams and then get on with it.

Sock Probs

2006-02-02T09:46:00.000+11:00

Ok, so I have been knitting a sock. I have done the leg, turned the heel, and have no fucking idea what a heel flap is. I need to transfer 15 stitches from the heel onto another needle according to the pattern (I also have 30 stitches on the other needle at this point), but the problem is that I only have 17 stitches in total on this needle to begin with. Hence my dilemma.

HELP

These tests are bullshit

2006-01-30T14:56:00.000+11:00

Apparently I'm an executive.

Extroversion

76%
Emotional Stability

46%
Orderliness

63%
Altruism

33%
Inquisitiveness

83%

You are an Executive, possible professions include - program designer, attorney, administrator, office manager, chemical engineer, sales manager, logistics consultant, franchise owner, new business developer, personnel manager, investment banker, labor relations, management trainer, credit investigator, mortgage broker, corporate team trainer, environmental engineer, biomedical engineer, business consultant, educational consultant, personal financial planner, network integration specialist, media planner/buyer.

New house; new job

2006-01-30T14:40:00.000+11:00

So since I last wrote we moved back to George and sally's place, and then after another week into our own new tiny 2 bedroom single story terrace house. Its nice, but we have no furniture, and no internet or home phone. So until i started my new job today, I was without reliable internet.

Sydney University is a beatutiful campus, but I share an office with about 10 others in a huge room with only one phone. They did buy me a laptop, which hasn't arrived, and I hope that it comes soon as I have to give this one back in a few days time to Dan, my previous boss from DC. Dan is coming out for a few meetings, but also to meet with me and discuss the work that I believe was stolen from me. It wasn't really stolen, as the person was on the project, they are just trying to claim first authorship now that I've buggered off down here.

In other news, I've been climbing heaps, but mostly easy chimneys which is why my legs look like overhandled mangoes at the moment. Man, are my abs getting strong. I also onsighted a 19 (5-9+), which made me feel like I can still climb, even without good finger ligaments.

Well, I have to go, as my career depends on my abaility to write a 20 page research funding proposal in the next week. Argghh, possibly without a computer.

I promise that I will put pictures in soon, too.

I'm sorry I've been a bad blogger. Not really my fault, though.

Mt Buffalo!

2006-01-19T18:16:00.000+11:00

So we headed to Victoria the past week, to a climbing area 7 hours away called Mt Buffalo. Gorgeous area, granite, loads of slabs and cracks, so chances of me re-injuring my fingees were minimal. C
Getting there: Very hot. Sat around in undies in the car with truck drivers perving on me. Need airconditioning.
Day 1: Climbed heaps. Saw a rock wallaby, cockatoos (white and black), galahs, king parrots, rosallas. Got attacked by fire ants.
Day 2: Rode our road bikes down the 30km hill - 40 mins drive up, 12 mins down by bike, going very fast. Belayed Mikl on a few scary things. Saw a lyre bird.
Day 3: More climbing, then headed to the local alpine wine festival and gave myself a headache as I hadn't hydrated enough.
Day 4: More climbing, stumbled around looking for things for many hours as the guidebook sucks dogs bottoms. Got attacked by fire ants (again), although not as bad as Mikl did. Was on the slipperyest corner known by man and was half way up when it started raining. Couldn't use any of the walls, managed to crawl up the crack without putting any more gear in. Got scared. Saw a black snake.
Day 5: Drove back at 130km/h in driving rain (remnants of a cyclone). Got scared again (possibly scarred for life)

We have since put air conditioning in the car - converted the old freon system for a many hundreds of consecutive dollars.

In other news, someone from my recently departed job stole the work from my research project and tried to publish it as primary author. This from the person who many times refused to discuss the work with me, said they weren't intersted at all in the research, but at the same time stopped me from doing an experiment by running away with the equipment and insulting my gender. Also refused to let any one else in on the project, even when they were actually interested in contributing. Spent today re-writing their ridiculous manuscript and most of last night drafting angry but politically correct letters to my nice ex-boss. Will see where I get, this could get messy.....

moving again, but not into our house, yet.

2006-01-11T09:05:00.000+11:00

Monday I went for a ride with Shaz. i think she may have forgiven me for abandoning her on our last planned ride. Anyway, we drove out to a so called less hilly area, where our ride started with a hill. Perhaps she has not forgiven me. We rode for about 35 mins all up, arriving back at the car after being saturated by rogue rain we thought we had avoided. 35 mins at warp speed shaz was still enough to cause me to shake and almost pass out a few times whilst loading the car back up. Hmmm. Must get better at revovery on the bike.

Dropped my bike into Panther Cycles, where our pal Andy works, to get all my cables tightened, and my seat fixed (it started coming apart).

Yeserday the weather turned hot again (steamy, actually) and I went for a swim with George and Sally in Clovelly beach. Its an artificial reef where loads of fish hang out, and we got snorkels and cruised around looking for gropers. We eventually found a small one, which was still pretty big, and i followed it around until my ears hurt from swimming down to it. We only stayed for an hour as the water was disgusting due to runoff from the recent rains.

Tomorrow I'll pick up my bike, go for a ride with Shaz, then Mikl and I are leaving for Mt Boffalo in Victoria for 7 days. We got the news yesterday that we can't move in until next Thursday at the earliest, so I'll move all my stuff back to George and Sallys (we have worn out our welcome here). I have a lot to do today, and the weather god has decided to make it 38 degrees (hot!).

Back up the hill..

2006-01-08T19:57:00.000+11:00

This weekend was spent back in the blueies. It pissed rain Saturday, so we went for a 5 hour hike into the Grose valley with Kevan, Catherine (the new girlfriend), Penny (who lives with Catherine - actually, its Penny's house) , Penny's friend Wendy, me and Mikl. All good, it rained. We got wet. Unexpected: leach infestations! Apparently i am terrified of leaches and emit girly screams when they are anywhere near, or on, me.

Sunday we slept in, camping back in Jeanies place in hartley Vale - she's not back from Tassie, aparently she sailed back slowly and is enjoying roasts, wine and amazing views as they sail up the coast. She also got to be skipper. So after a lateish start, we headed out to Mt York, which is normally too hot to climb after 7am but was great in the overcast and cool weather. Mikl did a bunch, and I lead a "14 (5-7)", but it was a crack corner and I found it quite taxing. Then I seconded a 19 (5-10a), which was good as it was covered in flat edges that I could strengthen my ligaments on. Mikl did a few other things, then we drove back down the hill, stopping on the way to visit Mikl's niece who is back from her overseas travels where she picked up a boyfriend, and is now living with him and his parents. They are desperately trying to rent a plcae with a few friends, and less parents.

He goes!

2006-01-06T12:14:00.000+11:00

Well, we put the lemon (or lime) back together again, and started him up (this one is definitely a boy). After two goes, he purred into action. Mission complete!

We drove to the climbing gym where I flew up some overhanging blue routes (very easy, but satisfying). Sore finger today though...

In other news, my old work email account has ceased to be!! Please contact me at my dynoness email account.

I really still don't think it's a lemon

2006-01-05T08:54:00.000+11:00

The engine head is sitting on our friends front porch - they get back tomorrow, so we'd better get this done quickly. Mikl decided that while it was out he would replace all the valve seals. Unfortunately you need a compression tool to do this, but he just rheamed his hand apart and did it using BRUTE strength.

BTW I have a cute little dog on my lap (George). He really is a good boy, but overly needy and has taken to licking my arm while I type. Its gross - stop it.

Whilst Mikl changed the valve seals, I replaced the air filter, fuel filter, most of the hoses, the distributer cap seal (and cleaned out all the oil in there!), the radiator water bottle seals, the thermostat for the radiator, and cleaned the engine block and cylinder shafts (really should get it shaved but that would cost money, so i shaved it using a blunt knife. I really hope that it fits together with the head again!).

Hours later we went to "Incas Peruvian restaurant" a little dive on ParramattaRoad in Stanmore - just down from where we used to and our friends still, live, and also not too far from where we are now. Its anew restaurant, our friends Big John and Nina had been there twice before, and Kevarn also came along. We drank a shitload of red wine and ate an even bigger shitload of meat. We had grilled pork, beef, lamb, sausages, and the two huge grills came out with half a chicken each on them too. We ate everything, and I had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet (desperately needed the room). There were two small salads, and two bowls of chips (fries godammit) which we also polished off. Two sauces - desperately hot red chillie and a very mild green sauce that had herbs and chilli in it, and a bucketload of salt. Must go to the gym. getting fatty boom ba lah.

I discovered also that one of the Sydney Uni gyms has spinning classes - yay! and step classes - yay! and yoga classes - yay! Might do a spinning class today, if I don't go to the climbing gym with Mikl who just got back from the hardware store and is now sawing something outide - scary, seeing as it is for the car...

I still don't think it's a lemon

2006-01-04T10:15:00.000+11:00

Our $2000 car is turning out to be full of intersting issues. We busted a radiator hose up the hill a few days ago, which Mikl was able to fix by shortening the hose. We notices an interesting smell which has turned out to be a leaky head seal. So yesterday, we took the head off the engine. Whilst I was taking the distrubuter out I noticed that the cap was full of oil. Yet another leak! Mikl bought a "seal kit" for the car, however, we think the manufacturers must have a sense of humour as none of the seals or gaskets are labelled. So we don't actually know if the secondary shaft seal for the distrubuter is in the kit or not. I used to have a job working as a grease monkey in a second hand car parts megastore, as a kid. My job involved pulling whatever I could off anything, and I knew which parts would sell and were worth more than others. I think I got paid about $4 an hour. Other perks involved getting to ride on upside down car bonnetts tied onto and dragged behind the back of the ute (like a truck, often has a dog in the back) - this was the way they moved engines, gearboxes, and the kids that worked their around. It was a huge property with hundreds of wrecks. They would come an get me whenever they neede little hands to get out fiddly things or things in hard to reach places. The problem was that I wasn't very strong - I tried to be, but I just didn't have the bulk. So i would crawl under nd up into the cavities of engines and put the socket/screwdriver/ring spanner/whatev. on the bolt/screw/nut in question, but then would be completely unable to crack the seal. I got very good at lever physics, really quick. Ahh the memories.

So the engine head is open and all the bits and in the back of the wagon. The problem is that its raining now.... Hopefully this afternoon we'll be able to put it all back together. Hopefully we we will be able to put it all back together....

Sleepy Girl

2006-01-03T09:53:00.001+11:00

Well, although it was a holiday, Mikl worked yesterday and I stayed at home. We have the place to ourselves for the week - Renee and Scott have gone to Thredbo in southern NSW for a holiday. Unfortunately, we have George (the Jack Russell x with separation anxiety) to look after. As soon as they left he did four huge shits in the hallway. What a good boy! I cracked and threw him outside and went shopping - direct factory outlets - where I found a pair of three quarter leg pants. When I got back George was harassing the neighbours yelping and crying, as he probably had been the whole time.

I cooked dinner, Mikl came home and said he wasn't hungry. It was good, I got to eat more. I got to eat so much more that I got reflux and couldn't sleep. The good thing about this was that there were Buffy reruns on and so I watched two whole episodes from 2 until 4am. My reflux medication had kicked in and so I went to bed, but George woke up (sleeping just outside our door) and I had to take him out as although the back door is open he gets confused and pees everywhere. On the way back in to bed I walked into the fan and stacked it big time, waking Mikl up and making George yelp. I'd just crawled into bed at 4.30 when there were these awful awful bangs that sounded like gunshots, I realised they were firecrackers - some idiot is letting them off outside. Its a sleepy street in a sleepy suburb, so I am surprised. I thought maybe they were doing in at night as its such a fire danger during the heat of the day. Anyway - I go to sleep again, and then the garbage men come. I go to sleep again, and George starts yelping. I work out that its about 8am, and although we were supposed to go climbing today, Mikl has gone to work and left George outside. Apparently, he was yelping inside too..

Hippy New Ear

2006-01-02T09:11:00.000+11:00

The day before NYE we drove back up the hill and met Chris at a crag in the mountains (Mt York). I lead up two easy things (a 5-8 corner on gear, with a 5-9 unprotectable start) and a 5-8 overhang on bolts, very runout. It was a good morning. Chris followed these routes, and mikl just hung around, at one stage he soloed up the bolted 5-8. he was basically at the top when a huge huntsman spider ran out and over his body. After much wriggling and yelping, the spider eventually fell and scrambled away. There are loads of these spiders, I have probably seen close to 80 at close range since I've been back. In fact, on the way to Katoomba shops a couple of hours later (Mikl went to check out a new crag and Chris went to find Sue) theer was one inside the car, and I stopped and had to get it out. Ther are roughly the size of your hand and look like this:

The ones in the mountains are striped black and white, really weird looking. Anyway, they are totally harmless (they can bite - but it just hurts a bit), only thing is they scare you to death.

NYE was spent at Moss and Coke's place in Katoomba. Chris and Sue, Robyn and Mike were there for dinner (which was awesome), and then Monique and Simon turned up for drinks later on. I was tired from the previous night (bad sleep) and struggled to stay awake, although Mikl just caved in and slept on the floor, much to my horror. The new year came,a nd we all hugged each other and then retired to the outside deck where there was this hot north westerly wind blowing - at 2am!! It was odd - I started to tell the spider story 9spider in the car) and as I was telling it I noticed there was another huge huntsman just on the railing where I was standing. Spooky. We talked about how hot NY day must be going to be.. well, it was yesterday and it was the 2nd hottest day in Sydney ever. 45degrees - which is 113 degrees form those Ceciusly challenged. Inland and country towns often reach these temps, but not Sydney! Most city folk spent the day in their undies getting in and out of a cold bath or shower. Mikl and i were meant to drive back from the mountains, but it was too hot and our car has no air con. Eventually we drove down, and it was a mightily hot drive at 7pm. We stopped off at my mum's place to check out the new air con I bought her - she was sitting in the loungeroom having a cigarette with the fan on! i whined and complained and put the air con on and she asked if i was tired - my mum can see staright through me sometimes (with respect to mood).

The day in between our mountains trips we also found a place to rent - a nice 2bdrm house in Enmore - a very trendy part of Sydney, close to Newtown restaurants, the organic co-op, and the uni I'm working at. Excellent! The house wasn't being showed by the real estate until the 9th Jan, but mikl and I went over there and knocked on the door, and on our second visit (we didn't ask the first time) the tenants let us look through the house, whoch is excellent - and even better for $330 a week (good deal for that part of town!). We ran to the real estate and put a deposit down with an application - they won't show the place to anyone else now. Yay! the house even has a smeg oven, polished floorboards, and a nice courtyard. yay again!

Tag

2006-01-02T08:49:00.000+11:00

A game of tag? I've been tagged by "K1" as DC Jen would put it...

4 jobs you've had in your life
1. Chocolate/dessert restaurant waitress
2. Neutron scatterer
3. Nude model
4. Developing an illegal copy of a pipe sealing compound

4 movies you could watch over and over
1. Donnie Darko
2. Napolean Dynamite
3. Life is Beautiful (the first half - I can only watch the second half some of the time)
4. The Pianist

4 places you've lived
1. Gaithersburg and Germantown, MD, USA
2. Stanmore, NSW, Australia
3. Chippendale, NSW, Australia
4. Busby, NSW, Australia

4 TV shows you love to watch
1. Charmed
2. Buffy
3. Veronica Mars
4. Desperate Housewives

4 places you've been on vacation (OK - I get 4, lets see how well I can consolodate..)
1. South Africa
2. Western and Eastern Europe
3. Very North (Canada), North, and South America
4. Japan

4 websites you visit daily
1. https://mail.nist.gov
2. http://www.yahoo.com/
3. http://blogspot.com/
4. http://smh.com.au/

4 of your favorite foods
1. Lamb fat
2. Duck fat
3. Milk fat
4. Chocolate

4 places you'd rather be
1. Travelling through asia
2. In my new home
3. Here with new finger ligaments
4. Another inhabitable part of the universe that most people don't know about

Back down the hill for a day..

2005-12-30T07:42:00.000+11:00

After spending yesterday with Chris and Sue in the mountains (they Ness sitted while Mikl climbed some horrifficly hot and hard thing) I decided it was time to come back, check email, look for more houses and such. Chris and Sue move at a slower pace than me (and the driving, good lord!) andyhow, whilst the Norman Linsday gallery was OK, the gardens that followed were just too much for me, and I was starving hungry. Mikl, although rpomising to come back at 2.30pm, didn't show until 6.30pm.

We stay overnight at HartleyVale and then drive helter skelter down the hill in the morning. I check some blogs and find that PoofyGoo thinks pandas are cute. Well, I know they atre, but looky here:

Taronga Zoo’s (Sydney) new Snow Leopard cubs were born to male Leon and female Samarra on the 14 October 2005. The species is endangered. Father Leon is from Nindorf Zoo, Germany and mother Samarra came to Taronga from Mulhouse Zoo in France. The pair arrived in mid-2003 and the proud parents are now about five years old. A baby at 5, wow.

Christmas at Hartley Vale

2005-12-29T10:17:00.000+11:00

We went up the hill for the festive season:

Xmas eve I belayed Mikl on a few things at Logan Brae (overhanging, but very cool and relatively fly free), before we headed to a BBQ at Moss and Coke's (and their dughter Jemma's) place in Katoomba. We ate (all organic of course) BBQ'd lamb sausages, lamb chops, chicken wings, roasted vege salad, noodle salad, and finished it off with a pavlova Moss and I had thirds of the pavlova.

Moss with "the Pav". Also note: what is he drinking?

There was also a variety of "Xmassy beverages" to be had. They all had bubbles, but some of them had strawberry flavours instead of chanpagne, and some were red, some were pink, and some were classic white. Very good. Mmmmm. That evening we drove down to Hartley Vale where af friend of ours own the old school house, and has refurbished some of it so it had a bathroom, sleeping and lounge room, and functional kitchen. We had a few beverages there with Jeanie McBeanie (the owner - Jean is her real name, the rest someone made up), Kevan (real name Kevin), and this other really nice sailor dude. Not sailor, as in the army, but sailor, as in lives in the Whitsundays (really cool islands) and sails yachts. Late bedtime.

Xmas morning! yay! I made gluten free all organic pancakes, with maple syrup and a mango salad made by Jean. We had chanpagne and orange juice, and ate outside on a broken but sufficient table with a cloth. Under huge blue skies with cliffs all around, and flocks of screeching cockatoos.

Afterwards, Mikl whip-a-snipped, while i cooked a roast chicken luinch (mikl had made HUGE spinnach and cheese pie also). We ate lunch, once again, outside, this time with our other friends Chris and Sue (from melbourne), and Penny Cooper, who I had met one although she was living in Squamish BC until recently. Kevs been spending a lot of time at her place recently, and we got a Xmas confession out of him that he is actually dating Penny's flatmate, Catherine (Katherine?). We were all really offended that he didn't tell us sooner, of his own free will. Ate too much too. More champange. Flies, flies, flies, flies, flies. Really annoying, biting flies. In our food, hair, ears, eyes, pissing me right off, actually. In the afternoon we went for a walk, driving at first up to the top of a nearby big hill (that is also a climbing area - Mt York), and then descending along a windy track that used to be the main thoroughfare through the area - great for mountainbikers and hikers now. We walked to the base which, incidently, finished at the schoolhouse. Chris is quite sick with many cancers, and is slow to walk, so the outing took nearly an hour and a half. After that we all went our separate ways. Jeanie and her sailing friend went off to town to prepare for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race the next day (quite a big event - jeanie is safety officer on one of the smaller yachts - but still a big one!). Mikl and I ate leftovers and read books, and i had fights with the mozzies.

Boxing day (the day after Xmas)
Woke late and prepared to go for a short hike with Chris, Sue, Moss, and Coke. Mikl said we'd be about 2 or 3 hours, so i allowed 4 and arranged to meet my friends Shaz at 3pm for a bike ride. Well, the "short hike" was really an event. Way to hard for chris, i don't know what mikl was thinking, and Moss had just had a shoulder operation and shouldn't have been walking that far either. 7 hours later we found ourselves at the bottom of the Grose valley, and thankfully, the creek was full to the brim with fresh water.

Chris, then Sue, then me, then Moss (Mikl taking photo) Bluegum forest, Grose valley, blue mountains.

We bathed there for a while, and the group looked like they would stay there for an hour, so I pannicked and sprinted up the nearest exit to gain height, and hopefully get recention and call Shaz, who was now waiting over an hour and a half. I killed myself on the run up the hill. Seriously was a BAD idea. It was stinking hot and I nearly collapsed. i didn't find reception, but I did remember that there was a creek nearby the top I could drink from, as i didn't have any water with me (I'd been done over an hour). It was about this time that I thought Chris might need water, too (the hill was CRAZY), so I headed from the top back down to intercept someone with an empty bottle, which turned out to be Moss and Coke. I left them there, and took the refilled bottle down further to Chris, who was really struggling, and had advanced 50m in the last hour. We were all really worried. At this time, I remember that I left my Oakleys (expensive) at the river. After much swaering, I bolted doen the hill again, thinking that if i didn't leave now I wouldn't go. It was a LONG way back down. Still no water, and you can't drink the river water, only the stream at the top. On the way back up, i think I may have gotten heat exhaustion, as I started collapsing ans was really sick a few times. After another hour Mikl came down the hill again top see if i was OK, and met me almost at the top, where I had expired, mostly, and needed to be pushed the final 20 mins. Sandbagged again. I felt terrible about Shaz, calling her eventually whjen we got reception back at the car, at about 7.30pm. She was at home, and has since forgiven me, although she is yet to read and hear the story. On the way back to Moss and Cokes we got Indian take-away and I ate so much so quickly I burnt the roof of my mouth.

The day after Boxing day:

Slept in, as best we could given that the cockatoos come a screeching at 6am. Ate breakfast, the headed out climbing. Did a scary 3-pitch grade 15 offwidth (5-8), in the sun that Mikl had an epic on when he was 12. To gain access to this area (narrowneck) you rap in until you raech some old ladders on the side of a cliff - the council put them in as it allows access to the main water supply pipes for the Blur Mountains. You follow thease ladders all the was to the base, the bash around on a good track to get to the climbing. By the time we did this, the sun was ablazing, and the bloody biting flies were out. I sworw my way up the first pitch, which was a poorly protected start with grit and sun and flies. very exposed, a bit loose, and crumble in spots. made a belay, swore a bit more. Mikl came up after me, and headed up the next pitch, which looked horrible - I didn't realize it was an offwidth when I started up, until it was starring me in the face. Any way, we both got up it, I was carrying on the whole way - "watch me", a few "help-help"s, and a bit of crying too, the flies were really bugging me, I was exhausted from yesterday, and we'd run out of water (again). Anyway, the last pitch is a chimney and i said no fucking way, so we climbing a bit of random rock nearby to get out. At the top we found some othetr climbers and I nicked their gatorade, which was awesome. Had dinner with chris and Sue, and saw the best painting in the world, was already sole, for $3400. I might have bought it.

Still searching..

2005-12-23T08:17:00.000+11:00

I guess I will always be searching for something, but at the moment it is a place to rent. This is particularly frustrating, but also entertaining. I had trouble sleeping last night as I kept envisaging what the inside of one partcular place I'm interested in might look like - how big the rooms were, the advantages of built-ins, gas stove, open plan dining leading to a courtyard, etc. Kind of fun, but badly timed at 5am.

Went to the climbing gym yesterday and saw a whole bunch of people I hadn't seen in ages. All the young boys I used to climb with are grown up and handome, and some of the older ones are very nice to look at when they are bouldering. There are some new women climbers in the field too, one that everyone says is too skinny, but I think she's fine, she has enough muscle to get by... All my single friends from the US should immediately head down here before they are all snapped up. Perfect age to train, too!

I climbed a few easy things, 5 in fact, juggy things on overhanging walls with round holds, and even some 1 1/2- inch flat holds, my hands felt very resonable, and my back muscles were loving it! I tried not to do too many as I want to moderate carefully the volume of climbing that I do getting back into it this time round from re-injury(ies). I lead one of the routes, which was very satisfying, but there were too many clips!

Spent yesterday evening at Sallys and georges place, had a glass of wine and then champers as Sally just handed in her PhD after 8 and a 1/2 years. She gave me a Xmas present - its in a big silver box and apparently is breakable. I am very excited, this is the first time i have actually wanted to open a present early.