A Month & a Half of Birthday, Shows, Movies, Dancin' and Cake!

Hi!

Well. Been a while, hasn't it? Missed all of July and most of August....... Very sorry. There hasn't been a lot to report, but still..... I know. Am sorry. If I thought more than none person ever read this, and if I actually did super exciting things besides just go to work, I might check in more often. But never mind. Either way, if I check in or not, Sunday afternoons aren't quite the same if I don't sit here and at least think about recapping the week(s)!

But we're here now! It's the last gasps of winter, tho unusually rainy and cloudy for what is meant to be the "dry season".... At least it's nice and warm (73 degrees, overcast, with a bit of a breeze). Supposed to get thunderstorms the rest of this week, which is weird for this time of year.... But am not complaining because the hot and muggy furnace of summer will fire up before we know it! So for now, have got the chores all done, the laundry is out there flapping around on the breeze outside (please birds, don't poop all over mah clean sheets), the kittehs were fighting but seem to have tired themselves out from it, the birds are out there chattering away - trying to be heard over the very annoying crows, got some hip old New Wave tunes from RadioTunes (I still totally like the SkyFM name so much better), and to top it all off I have a nice cool glass of the beer I brewed mahself (you might remember from an earlier post) - and it's not too bad! It's an Australian Wattle Pale Ale - very nice, hoppy but not overly so (the longer I let it set the mellower the hops will get), not too bubbly just a nice little fizz - all and all not a bad first attempt at brewing my own beer! Yes, life is good!

So work. Yep. It's pretty good. It's quiet but I've been busy, as usual. Well, it's not quiet because we work in an infernal open plan office and the noisiest person on the floor, hands down, is the head of HR - lordy can she shriek from 50 feet away..... Cuts right through my noise-cancelling headphones, which is a pretty impressive feat because those little headphones are really super good. Our CEO is leaving (after four and a half years) to go back to wherever it was he came from, Australian Federal Government, some Defence-flavored department of some kind... I don't know, I tuned out. So now it's pretty funny watching all these people scramble to be the top dog. Whatever. As long as they don't go crazy and get rid of my job. I think stuff like corporate management reshuffles are only interesting and exciting for people who earn six-figure paychecks and get their clothes dry cleaned every week. But otherwise work is good. Always a relief to have a decent, stable job and place to be every day!

And then there were more than a few weekends in there... Including mah Birthday! Meh, it was on a Thursday this year, so all I really did was take the

day off..... Didn't get up to much because this year was a low-budget birthday in light of saving (time and monies) to go to Scandinavia next December..... So, I took the day off and did a little shopping in town (new pair of work pants - wooohooo), took myself over to Cove Bar & Dining at Southbank for a little lunch of oysters and fanceeee French champagne (oh my god it was goooood!), then wandered back towards home and the Palace Cinema at the Barracks to see my free birthday movie, saw Far From the Madding Crowd (slightly mushy but I really liked it). After that it was pushing dinner time so I wandered up to Kookaburra Cafe for my favorite dinner ever - Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo with Strawberries, and ended up eating with the owner, Steve and his cousin and her husband who's birthday it was too! And then it was finally home to the cake I'd baked for mahself - a big ass chocolate cake with strawberries - NOM! For a low-budget Birthday, it was a great day!!!!

Then, that next Friday or so, I met up with my friends Jan and Trich to go see the musical Anything Goes (yeah, I know, but it wasn't as bad as I expected because I like Cole Porter, and the costumes....!). It was pretty good! It moved, like, there wasn't a dull bit in it. Oh, I really liked it, I surprised myself because I hate musicals, like, a lot. That was a really nice night. Had dinner with the girls at Lyrebird Restaurant beforehand (pretty place, nice, professional staff, boring food in tiny, artsy portions... meh). I don't get to catch up with Trich very often (her husband had a stroke so can't be left alone), so on the rare occasions we do catch up, it just flies past so quickly. Ahhh, it was a good night, great to see her and Jan. 

And then about a week after that I got two tickets to go see the (sold out) sneak preview screening (and Q&A afterwards with Bill Bryson himself!!!) of A Walk in the Woods - the movie from the book by Bill Bryson, one of my absolute favorite writers evereverever. If you haven't read any of his stuff, well, I highly recommend any of it, and you can start with A Walk in the Woods - interesting and funny, funny stuff. The Q&A with Bill Bryson after the movie was pretty short but I managed to get in one question before they wrapped it up, and out of all the questions, he liked mine the best! I asked him if doing the walk they did was better in 1996, with none of the technology we have now or if it would've been better with no technology, y'know, with GPS and satellite phones, etc. He basically replied that it would've been more comfortable if he'd been able to call his wife every night rather than have to wait once a week or so until they got to the next little town, just to let her and his family know that all was well, that they hadn't been eaten by bears yet. Then afterwards, on his way out, he stopped by me and thanked me for my question and asked where I was from! I said San Diego, he asked how long I'd been here, I said 9 & a 1/2 years, he asked if I liked it here, I said I loved it, and he smiled really big and said "Yeah, it's pretty good here, isn't it?" Oh I was so happy. He's the coolest - so down-to-earth and normal, and very very funny. That was a great night. Over the years I've missed every single time he'd come to town, and I'd miss it by like a night. So this was the first time I actually had advance notice and scored a ticket, because tickets to his talks sell out in no time! YAY!

And then, a week or so after that I met up with my friend Jan again and two of her good friends (both named Judy - that was easy to remember) to go see Australian comedienne Kitty Flanagan at the Powerhouse, one of my favorite venues. Oh man was she funny. I hadn't heard of her before that night and I thanked Jan for the belated birthday ticket because she was damn funny!

And wouldn't you know it, through most of those shows and dinners and catch ups, I was suffering from the worst flu I've had in years and years and years (apologies to everyone I may have passed it onto). I even had to get on antibiotics it was that bad. I'm still hacking up my lungs two weeks later but it's not nearly as bad as it was, thankfully. Drugs are good! But yes, being that sick just makes being a social butterfly just that much trickier, sheesh! Oh, and also throughout all of this I was still going to mah swing dance classes! Of which I've since graduated and moved on to the Intermediate classes! Goooo me! I can't say I'm ready for performing or competitions but I'm getting better than I was when I started (as one would hope) and I still really like it. I like the teachers and the people in class are pretty nice, and never mind the music! It's been really, really good, tho I have yet to attend one of their social dance nights..... They have them every two weeks on a Friday evening and most Fridays I was either out being a social butterfly or sick, or basically too chicken. But now that I'm getting a little better, I'd feel a bit more confident walking into a room full of semi-strangers and having a dance or two - and not screwing up too badly, I hope! 

So there you go! Huh. Looking at it, I guess I have been up to a little bit.......! Am sorry for not checking in. I know it's been nine and a half years and most stuff you've heard already, and it doesn't help that my routine doesn't change much, like most folks - work, home, work, home, weekend, work, home...... But I have tried to shake it up a bit with the swing class and going to shows and stuff..... It's tough because I want to get out and do stuff, catch up with the gals, but I've really got to be good and save for this trip, 'cos it's gonna be one of the most expensive trips I've ever gone on.... Put it this way, the one 15 day tour I really, really want to do costs about $10,000 (curse the stupid "single supplement"!)!!!!! So, yeah, gotta save money and vacation time! But still, a girl has to get out and catch up with folks so there's no use living like a nun.... Perhaps I'll just eat microwave food over my week in Denmark instead to save money...!

So yes, there you go. Apologies again for not checking in. I hope you've all been

well up there and are busy planning your trip down here... one day... never mind that I've been here nearly ten years.....! C'mon people! Tho it's a bit late in the season now unless you're interested in Florida-hot weather....... Otherwise, like I've said, any time from March until November the place is great to visit! Get down here already - you're missing a great time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BYE!
J!

Dancin' Through a Fine Dam Weekend(s)!

Hi!

Well. Time sure flies, eh? Sorry about that. I could've sworn I'd only missed a weekend or two....! Apologies for the radio silence. All's well here tho - the weather is lovely, bright and cool, the birds are happy out there flitting around running (flying) bird errands, got most of the chores done, laundry is happy spinning around in the dryer, kittehs are holding the chairs down on the balcony, I have a very nice sparkling rose from Jacob's Creek, got the hip n' groovy jazz tunes - yep, life is good!

So work. Yep. It's good. Not as busy as we've been in the past but we do have a very important bid to respond to, the one where we find out if we have jobs after the 20th of this December........! So we're all trying to help our Manager write the response. I can't say I'm any good at stuff like estimates and explaining our data management capabilities and processes, etc, but am trying. It's kind of nerve-wracking this whole 'sing for your supper' thing, but we can only respond as best we can and hope for the best....... Otherwise, I guess it's good that there are a few other successful programs around the place a few of us might find work in.... Gee, I hope I don't have to jump ship to another program (project), but if the alternative is "unemployed", another project it will be! But hopefully we say all the right things and the customer realizes they'd be fools to let us go! Otherwise, work is good. I work with some good folks (for the most part) and that makes everything bearable. And y'know, after what, nearly five years with the same job (!), the fact I still even have a good job to come to everyday is way bitchin' - gainful employment just never gets old!

And then there were a fair few weekends in there..... Hmmm.... I might start with this weekend and work back..... So, this weekend was pretty good. Friday night I headed over to my friend Julian's house for pizza and wine so we could get up stupid early to go on a hike (6am. For me, on weekends, getting up any earlier than 9am I consider stupid early)! We drove about 45 minutes south-west towards Beaudesert, to

a place called Wyaralong Dam, where we at first took the easy walk to warm up, then when the paths split and we had to decide between easy and uphill, I picked uphill - and it was worth it for the views once we got to the top! Turned out we'd picked the path that went along the Mt. Joyce ridgeline, which we later discovered, was one of their more "advanced" trails - and it hadn't even seemed that hard! Coooool! And I happily learned I am not as unfit as I expected, with only walking around town all the time and not in and over nature. Bitchin'.

It was fun. We had a great day. And the even cooler thing of it was, besides having perfect weather, was that it didn't take as long as I expected, only 3 or so hours. And another even more bitchin' thing is I'm not even sore! Tired, but not sore. Cooooool! So hopefully we'll go on another one sooner rather than later - I really liked it! And then we came back to his place where our friend Linus joined us for BBQ and beers. It was a very good day.

And then earlier this past week, on Monday, I had my first class of swing dancing (Lindy hop, Charleston, etc)! The class goes once a week for 8 weeks,

and it was fun! I'd done a swing/ballroom class back in NYC for a few months but haven't done it since. And the best part is, it's just at the top of the hill from my house, so not even two minutes away (that link says Fortitude Valley, but I'm doing the Paddington one, same class different venue (and dates))! And another good thing about the class is, it's pretty relaxed, the teachers (guy and a gal) are really cool, not snobby, and the other folks in the class all seem all right (so far); lots of different ages and quite a few folks showed up, maybe 30 or so? I'm not good at guessing that stuff (and I wasn't about to take pictures and feel even geekier). Who knows, maybe there'll be less folks this week, or more........ Either way, it only goes for an hour once a week and it's two minutes away - I can totally do this!

Otherwise, aside from a cool hike and fun dance class, there's not been a lot happenin'. Same ol' crap - work, home, work, home, chores and spacing out on the weekend..... You haven't missed much. But I'll try to check in more often and give you the update with how the class is going and with hopefully more hikes!

Anyways, hope you're all well up there. Qantas was recently having a sale on flights to here, flying in April next year or thereabouts. I thought that was

exciting. Well, what I thought was exciting was that it was actually kind of affordable to come down here for once, and even better, the exchange rate is in the US dollar's favor - bonus! Because it's gonna be awhile until I can get up there again - am planning a biiig trip to Scandinavia over next Xmas! Yay for Winter Adventure! Well, all depending on how it pans out with work and if we get the project work or not....... But for now, I'll be here until next Xmas, so you have a whole year and a half, with the help of a good Qantas sale, to get yer butts down here! Yeeehaw, mates!

BYE!
J!

Happy Credit Cards + BBQ Chicken = Quiet Weekends

Hi!

Well. Here we are and a month hasn't passed! Hooray! Still, it's not as good as checking in every week, yeah I know....... All is well tho, Autumn has finally arrived with much cooler temperatures and less humidity - I actually ran the heater last night, and do you know why? Yes, yes it was chilly (a bone-numbing 51.6 - hey, after months and months and months of 80-90s, 52 is freakin' freezing!), and yes there was a bit of a 'chilly' breeze, no, I ran the heater because A) I bloody well pay for it and B) Because I can!!!! It was awesome, even if I felt like a wimp. But really, living in a 'modern' apartment, well, one built 25+ years ago versus 75+, this just doesn't get old. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! So yes, the weather has been perfect, the sun is shiny and bright, the birds are happier because they can get stuff done without having to dive from shady branch to shady branch, hell, I can get stuff done without melting into an overheated, muggy puddle, the kittehs are happy because they can spend more time lounging out on the balcony...... So, yes, the chores have all been done, even the ironing, the dishes are waiting patiently in the dishwasher for their weekly shower, got a nice cool glass of the new standby sparkling, and of course, checking in without the hip n' groovy jazz tunes would be a crime - yes, life is good!

So. Work. Yep. Is good. Still pretty quiet but it's a nice change from the last year or two. Don't get me wrong, I do like being busy, hell, it's the only thing that really makes the day zip past, but having a bit of time to sort out files, empty three year-old emails, etc, that's good too. There're always little jobs that need doing so quiet time is good for that too. Some folks don't deal with quiet time well at all, like a pseduo-coworker who just buzzes around (loudly) and pesters anyone with a pulse; thankfully other folks in my group use the time to troubleshoot stuff that has given us grief - like little mysteries in our software, creating new, quicker ways of doing stuff, that sort of thing. It's a pretty good little group I work with. And yes, so far so good having a decent gig to come to everyday (although a massive lotto win would be even more good!)!!!!

And then there were the weekends...... Quiet (nice). Feeling a need for some education, I bought that 'new' series Cosmos on blu-ray - pretty freakin' neat,and that's only the first two episodes! I highly recommend it - and Neil deGrasse Tyson is an awesome host, Carl Sagan would be proud. Otherwise....... Haven't thought of any cool dinners to make since the awesome chicken pot pie.... I'm open to suggestions?! Keeping in mind I am not even a dim shadow of Julia Childs.... Sundays I should plan to cook a good meal with leftovers when I know I have a quiet weekend. I like having good, real food to eat during the week.... Tho last week I did make my Dad's BBQ chicken - NOM is all I need to say about that. Cleaned my grill really good, hadn't done it in so long the grill had gone a little rusty. Never mind, sorted it right out with the wire brush and canola oil - just like new (almost)! I even roasted some potato and asparagus in the little toaster oven. Somehow through life I've never actually cooked roasted veggies... note to self: asparagus does not go in at the same time the potatoes do, but they came out pretty good (except for the wilted asparagus, but it was still good enough to eat!). Even used the leftover potatoes in scrambled eggs the next day - NOM! Man, I should cook real food more often..... Send meal suggestions (ummm, and tips)!

And well, that's been about it. Nice and quiet, which may be pretty dull for most but I like it. And really, if I'm being honest, my bank and the credit cards like my quiet weekends too, probably more than I do. The scooter is still loads and loads of fun but I have noticed one very small downside to riding it to work all the time - I don't get as much exercise as when I walk in... which is a bummer for mah butt! So I think I need to walk to work and back more often, now that my knee is feeling better....... Sorry scooter, but mah butt needs the exercise!

And that really is all. Dullsville, Queensland! But hey, all is well, everyone here at the Hacienda is healthy and happy. Even more so now that the weather hascooled off, finally. We'll enjoy it while we can because it'll only be here for a month or so then it'll be back to hot and humid. Just kidding. But that's about how it feels. So until then, hope you're all well up there, and to those of you in California, if you want a nice, long shower, c'mon down, we have plenty of water, and green yards everywhere!!!!!!!!!!

BYE!
J!

Scooting Around Weekends Full of Chicken Pot Pies!

Hi!

Well. Time, she sure do fly, don't she? Jeeeeez. Sorry about that. Hopefully the weekends should clear up from now on (finally finished Breaking Bad) and I will have more free time to check in, and hopefully take more photos! Sorry for the radio silence...... But we're here now. The weekend has been good, weather has been nice, tho still a bit warm and muggy, been busy with chores, catching up with folks (yay Skype!), and this afternoon I even baked two chicken pot pies from scratch! Woooohooooo! They don't do them here, you see, and when I had an urge for a Marie Callender's chicken pot pie, which they don't sell here either, what else was a girl supposed

to do? That's right, make it herself! So they're currently cooling on the counter in all their lovely golden glory while I check in. Dinner tonight is gonna be soooo awesome! And when I freeze the rest - more awesomeness! The kittehs have chicken bones to gnaw on, the hacienda is clean, the laundry is hanging around being all clean, got mahself some hip n' groovy jazz tunes, even got a very nice, cool glass of Jacob's Creek sparkling rose - yep, life is good!

So work. Yep. Is good. Was real busy there for a few weeks but that little project has wrapped up and now it's over to housekeeping and waiting for the next wave..... All is well. Our customer is happy, we're happy, well, we'd be happier if our little lottery pool actually won enough to retire on, the bosses ignore us (under the radar is gooood!), all is well, which is awesome. What's even more awesome is having a decent, stable job and a place to be everyday that pays me a livable wage - hooray!!!!

And then there were some weekends in there. Which were mainly filled with much Breaking Bad, pizza and beer. I got on the scale the other day and yeah, pizza and beer - quick and easy to go on, ever so slow to come off........ Still, it was neat to watch the show again - sooooo good, you have to see it if you haven't already.  And what else...... Oh, I know, I did manage a trip to Ikea on this past Tuesday (took the day off, 'cos I could), I hadn't been there in ages and ages, and I have to say, this was one of those rare trips where I liked nothing in there. I spent only $39.97(!) and managed to walk out with three (OK, technically five) things - four little storage boxes (to replace the crappy photo-copier boxes that I stash stuff in and hide under the bed, which are falling apart) and a king-sized, fairly light, duvet insert, for lack of a better term. It'll be good for the light winters here. The comforter I have is all feather and made for living in NYC through the winter (coulda used it then!) and nine times out of ten I kick it off, dying of heat-stroke. So a lighter one was in order. But yes, got in and out of Ikea under $40 bucks - ahhhh-mazing. But was disappointed in their lack of neat stuff. Harrumph. Tho I could hear my bank laughing merrily as I drove away.....

And let's see, what else............. Oh! I know! Duuuuh. I got a new mode of transport for getting to and from work! I was inspired by my friend Amaru who has a similar one and my cranky knee..... Got it on the 19th of March (sorry for the delay in the announcement). It's a Revo Sprint electric scooter (I have the 2015 model, which doesn't appear to be on their website yet)! And the thing goes like mad! 1000 watt lithium battery that I swear I've only charged once, in addition to the initial out-of-the-box charge. It's AWESOME! Soooo zippy! From door-to-door takes about 15 minutes, where to walk takes me about 40-45 minutes (which I really don't mind tho my knee currently does) and the bus can take anywhere from 20-30 minutes, depending, which'll cost nearly $10 bucks round-trip. Coooool. I

can't ride it on days where it might/will rain because nothing in it is water-proof. According to the guys at work, if even a tiny bit of water gets in the cables to the battery I'll have one nice, hot hot hot fire. Eeeek. So on those days I'll walk in and take the bus home. Same with grocery store day - impossible to haul groceries on the little thing. It takes a bit of getting used to with the balancing and all, and you have to get good with the throttle 'cos that sucker is ON or off, basically, and when it's on, hang on or it'll leave without you! I love it. It's

loads of fun and gets the odd look now and then. And don't worry, am safe, I have a cool skater helmet. After having ridden it off and on over the last month, and varying my ways to and from work, I have to say the bike paths in this town suck - they begin randomly and end randomly. And the state of the sidewalks? Oy vey. Good thing the little scooter has decent shocks - and boy do they get a workout sometimes! But yes, it's awesome and heaps of fun.

At work I have to lock it up in the basement of our building with all the bicycles, but it's totally secure, employee swipe card and cameras and everything. And when I get it home, I take the battery out (because it weighs like 10 pounds on its own), fold it up and put it in the back of mah car - perfect! Saves me hauling it up and down three flights of stairs every time! It's just awesome. I highly, highly recommend it!!!!!!

So, apart from a disappointing trip to Ikealand and a way awesome little electric scooter to zip back and forth to work on, that's been about it! The kittehs are getting along a little better, less knock-down drag-out fights, which is nice. The car was happy to have had the run to Ikealand, hauling stuff back or not. The hacienda is still awesome but am thinking, seeing as it's been a year May 1st, I might shove some of the furniture around, shake the place up a little..... Ooooh yeah, exciting times here in Brisbane.........! 

Gee, now I think I know why no one I know reads the little blog aside from mah folks! Ahhhh well, for the few, the interested, the bored to tears, it's really just

to let everyone know all is well down here at the almost bottom of the world. Hope you're all well up there. I think I'll give up trying to get anyone to come down for a visit - it's been nine years and only my Mom and my friend Sheldon and his wife Scarlett have come to visit...... Sigh. Trust me - if I could get back to San Diego and live, I'd be there like a shot (with mah little e-scooter)!!! Anyways, hope you're all well, and hey, I hear Qantas is having a sale on flights down here! HAAA!

BYE!

J!

P.S. I had a piece of mah chicken pot pie...... and it was awesome! OK, a little bland, but nothing a dash of salt and pepper can't fix! First-time success! NOM!

It's Been Too Long and Much BBQ Had.....!

Hi!

Well. Here we are, over a month late....... Wow. Am really sorry. I do have a couple half-decent excuses, which, now that I look, they're pretty much the same as last time's.... but more on that later. All is well here tho! The weekend has been lovely and perfect - low humidity (well, today it has been), lovely bright sunny skies and cool breezes - ahhhhh autumn really wants to arrive, even if it is a couple weeks late! Tho I noticed the weather for the end of this week is meant to get back up into the mid-90s again. Yikes. So much for autumn. Guess our weather here will be down to two seasons - cool and hot and humid, with hot and humid for most of the year. Look, we've had summer since the end of October, am sooooooo tired of it - I want to put blankets on the bed and sleep 'til 10am on weekends! Hell, I'd like to sleep 'til 10am any day of the week! Annnyways, all is well here - the birds are flitting around out there, running their errands and catching up on the latest bird-gossip, and probably gossiping about humans too for all we know.....! Have a nice cool-ish breeze, a very nice, cold, standby Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (lately, all white wine tries to kill me with headaches. I'm scared of them now. Tho champagne seems strangely, thankfully safe.....), got some lively guitar tunes from SkyFM, the chores have been done and the kitties are resting - it's hard work doing chores when you're that short with no thumbs. They get along better but still have to figure out the whole play versus kill concept. It'll take time...... But yes, all in all, life is good!

So, work. Yep. It's good. I'm busy, but not as busy as I usually seem to be, which is a nice change of pace. Still waiting for the day when our tiny little group gets moved to a quieter floor.... HR are hiring like it's a fad going out of style, so more and more folks are moving in - our fingers and toes are crossed they're all more important than us and we get shuffled away from the action! I know, I shouldn't complain - the folks I work with are pretty nice, the work won't kill me with boredom and frankly, there are worse jobs out there. Yay for decent employment!!!!

And then there were a few weekends in there. Well. Can't quite pick out any stand-alone exciting action moments, but suffice to say, errands were run, gave mah car its annual and much needed bath and wax (soooooo pretty), watched a lot of Breaking Bad with Bruce (just starting season 5), went out to lunch and dinner a fair bit with a few folks, oddly enough, to lots of "American style" BBQ places. I won't bore you with detailed reviews, but suffice to say the food just ain't like back home. And honestly, I walk into these places with high hopes and an open mind - not all BBQ can be like my Dad's, and he's The BBQ King. And I'm also painfully aware of how far away we are from the US, and the ingredients, while nothing you can't find here (or via the interwebs), just aren't quite the same as home, somehow. So, popular dishes seem to be sliders, wings, ribs, "southern" fried chicken, pulled pork (practically every place in town has pulled pork these days. Meh, it's post roast, yawn), hoagies, and chili cheese fries. There's more but you get the picture, nothing very special. Places I've been to recently include Tippler's Tap, Pit Boss American BBQ, Red Hook (hell, I used to live in the real-life Red Hook!!!!) and Carolina Kitchen (even when cooked by a North Carolina native it still wasn't all that great, tho the corn bread sure was). This whole American style BBQ n' wings is THE latest food fad to hit Brisbane, sort of along with the Mexican style craze, tho I also have yet to find any Mexico-Mexican places, it's mainly South America's take on Mexican....... Hey, again, not complaining because with allll these new places opening, at some point one of them has to be good...... Right? Right??? I live in hope. That or my Dad moves here and sets up his own restaurant. MMmmmmmm!

And really, that's about it. Oh, one of my excuses, in addition to weekends taken up with Breaking Bad and eating crappy but well-meaning American style BBQ,

is my poor little ol' trooper of a ten year-old laptop has had something go wrong with its hard drive and won't boot up. It starts to but then gets caught in a loop. So, it's currently on its way to hopefully be repaired......... The thing is, most of my photos are in there. Oh, sure, I have most of them on an external hard drive (well, as of August last year. Oops), but it's not just that, I love typing on it. No offense ASUS, but your keyboard sucks. Takes me too long to hammer out what I want to say. But I guess it's just getting used to it still...... So, that's sad. This new laptop isn't too bad, I guess I should use it more - to check in with the little blog perhaps?! Heh, yeah yeah yeah, hint taken computers!

Anyways, there you have it. See? Told you you haven't missed much! But yes, all is well here and I really will try to check in more often, dullsville or not! And hey, if you really want to know, get on down here and see it all for yourself! I'm not paying all this rent to have this little spare room be just an office!!! Don't make me get a little foreign exchange student, 'cos then you really will have to sleep on the sofa bed (hey - beats just the couch, which is all I had before)! So, c'mon down!

BYE!
J!

Happy New Year (Little Late)!

Hi!

Well. Look at that, haven't checked in in months, and am very sorry. Every Sunday afternoon I thought about it though, it's become that much of a habit! But life and the holidays conspired against me - if I wasn't busy that day I was too tired from being busy to write. And as you can see it all started at the end of November when I hosted my first house guests here at the Hacienda, Emily and Ian, and from there the crazy busy period of the holidays kicked in, time flew by, and now here we are, end of January. Sheeessssh! But, all is well - the birds are out there happily chattering away, doing the chores, tidying their nests, going to the store, catching up on all the day's gossip. And as always, have the hip n' groovy jazz tunes from the new Radio Tunes (I still like name SkyFM better, less lame). And seeing as it's the middle of summer, I've got a nice cool beer, a very easy-to-drink James Squire's The Constable Copper Ale. The sun is shining in bright blue skies, the humidity is actually starting to dip (temporarily) for the first time in months (yay!) - life is good! Now I'll just try to dust off the memory and give you the latest.....!
 

So work. Yep. Is good. Busy, which is standard for me most of the time. The publication am working on is giving me wicked headaches, literally, but I finally got it to a point where it was off my desk Friday, and that's awesome, so I could actually do some of the other work piling up. The headache book will come back after its reviews, but it shouldn't give me headaches next time around. Still, always happy to have the work! Our open plan office is still stupid and myself and my cell mate got moved away from directly in front of the kitchen to across from where we were sitting, next to the kitchen. It's better, but people are still noisy. Open plan is just an all-around bad idea for what we do. But HR are reportedly needing to hire 200-300 people over this year to staff all the new contracts we're apparently winning, which will eventually, hopefully mean our tiny group will be deemed so insignificant that we'll be moved to make way for all the HR people they'll have to hire to hire all the new people. So hopefully they'll move us far, far, far away from HR and onto a quieter floor. Ahhh, typical work woes! Otherwise, all is very well. Yay for a good gig!

And then there were the weekends, including Xmas and New Year's! Let's see.... So, Emily and Ian's visit was good, tho a bit hotter than the snow they'd just left behind. I hope they had a good time even tho it was only for a couple of days. It was Ian's first visit to Australia, and tho we were on a limited budget, I hope the little bit of local sight-seeing we did gave him a rough idea of how diverse Southern Queensland can be - from forests of gum trees to tropical forests with towering leafy trees and ferns galore!

And then what was happening.... We had our work Xmas lunch at a nice enough place called the Waterloo Hotel. That was fun, food was pretty good. It was just nice to get out of the office with everyone, have a few drinks and just hang out. It was a good afternoon.

And then there was Xmas. This year was again spent with the foster family (The Adcocks) but was a little different in that we spent it at their son Russell and his wife Kim's newly-built house - with a pool! Really nice place, tho a bit far out in the 'burbs for me. But hey, Brisbane being the over-inflated property market that it is, it was one of the few places they could afford to build a nice, big house (in one of those planned development community thingys). And tons of their family came up from Sydney and Adelaide. Everyone that I've met over the years has been really, really nice, and so tolerant of an interloping American orphan every year. And this year was no different - the food was awesome (we had turducken!), the conversations were fun, it was great to catch up with everyone, and the afternoon simply flew by. It was lovely as always. Tho Margaret (foster Mom) mentioned something about this Xmas they might go down to Sydney to spend it with her sister and her family. Fair enough. If I didn't go around to theirs for Xmas, it would be totally fine, really it'd be like any other day. Hell, probably take myself out for a good walk to enjoy the city while it's so quiet. So we'll see. But yes, Xmas was very, very nice. So nice of them to have me crash their day! And New Year's was pretty quiet, didn't feel like doing anything, pretty much like every year. I don't like the crowds, the cost and I don't like trying to get home. So best to just stay in, watch movies and drink my own nice wine!

And then as soon as it all had come, it was finished and it was back to work. Oddly enough, lots of people didn't take a lot of time off like they usually seem to. So it was kinda like business as usual. Which was fine by me. The quicker the holidays are over with, the better!

And then these last few weekends have just been catching up with my friend
Bruce, well, he was my old boss from my days at Fire but we've always stayed in touch. We haven't caught up in a very long time so we've just been hanging out, going on fun 4x4 drives in his whiz-bang Toyota FJ Cruiser and watching Breaking Bad (he's never seen it). It's been fun. Tho I don't think my waistline appreciates all the beer and pizza, still, it's been good to re-watch the show with someone who's not seen it. If you haven't seen it yet, I can't recommend it enough!

And then last weekend I adopted the newest member to the family. Her name is Lola and she's about nine months old (Kona will be nine years old in March). She and Kona seem to get along well enough tho haven't figured out the difference between playing and killing each other. They like each other well enough to be in the same room and eat in the kitchen at the same time, they just have to work out actually playing together. They'll get there. I'd been wanting to get him a friend for a long time but couldn't, mainly because I wasn't even supposed to have a cat at the Palace and I didn't want two cats to worry about being outside. But now that we're here and we're legal (tho don't think I'm allowed to have two cats), he can't go outside, so I dare say at times he's gotten a bit of cabin-fever. And I also hoped with a girlfriend around he wouldn't be so shy when people come around. So she's been here a week and so far so good. Bruce came around last night and we watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad and Kona actually came out and hung out. Ah-mazing. He NEVER does that when anyone is here. So my plan could well work! But she's a cutie and fulla beans, just like he was/is. So, hopefully they'll learn how to play and not rip each other to shreds. Time will tell!

And there you have it! I hope you're all well and happy up there. If you get tired of that cold, wet or snowy weather, c'mon down! I gots me pleeeenty o' space!!!!!

BYE!

J!

P.S. No idea what's up with the highlighted font - can't seem to turn it off. Hmm. Sorry 'bout that. Stoopid computers.