Christmas and Mum's Visit

I felt that five weeks flew by pretty quickly as we dropped mum off at the airport last night. I haven't been spending much time on the computer for blogging and the like while she was out here so I figured it's about time now to catch up on things.

Most of our time with mum was spent, as is expected in this family, discussing and consuming copious amounts of food. There were lots of favourites from home that Alison and I both missed and thought to replicate with mum's guidance over here in Brisbane, one of the simpler ones being Tau Suan which we had the last time we were back in Malaysia. Now that we discovered a source of pandan leaf in the packed freezers of a grocery store in Sunnybank along with deep fried bread from the same provisioner, we should be able to make our own batch as we need.



Even minor improvements to the house were with the view of expanding our culinary options. Alsie and I have often discussed the merits of having an outdoor stove for all the stir fries and oil splatters that accompany mum's efforts in the kitchen. While the results are often great for the taste buds it does little for our figure and wooden floor boards. Simply buying an outdoor cooker would have been insufficient without accommodating for the fatty projectiles of enthusiastic wok-manship, which was why finding a cheap splash back solution was a necessity. A quick trip to Ikea solved this for us as we picked up a half dozen DIY kitchen panels that we could affix with liquid nails to protect the wooden enclosure and introduce a fiery highlight of its own. While there we also picked up a handy side table which now completes the outdoor kitchen.



Mum made full use of the area to prepare a bevy of delicious dinners, much to the contentment of our bellies and polished wood floors. Char Keuy Teow showed up on the menu a couple of times now that we were finally cooking with gas.



The eating certainly wasn't confined to Brisbane, as we were also treated to the annual Christmas feast in Toowoomba. It's always a treat to spend the season with mum around but this year was a little smaller with some uncles and aunts with other commitments. The volume of food however had not diminished to account for fewer mouths so there were considerable left overs. John's ham was juicy, succulent and expertly cut as always. Mum contributed an asian prawn salad with a beautiful spicy bite. Sheena's terrine was under appreciated by the party but I devoured as much as my belt would permit. It was a wonderful way to top off a little over a month of indulgent eating that must now cease as I've put on at least 1.5KG according to our scrutinising scales. Well... we'll stop once the last of the Christmas chocolates have been dealt with of course.



Time certainly does seem to fly when you're having fun. Mum will be out again in May for a short visit and I'm sure it'll be a blink before it's next Christmas, which she hopes to once again celebrate with us in the Southern Hemisphere. This visit was certainly good fun, but something tells me that the next few will be even more special. For mothers and grandmothers alike.

Jolly Old England

Just spent the majority of the last week in the air bouncing between Australia and the UK for a little bit of work. It seems glamorous but I could probably do without the jet setting lifestyle, far more comfortable staying at home with the family and my own bed. Not that I didn't take advantage of this trip back to blighty of course to catch up on some food that I've missed.

When I was a spoiled undergraduate student in Canterbury I used to cycle to the local Tesco supermarket to pick up bags full of these candy yoghurts that had far too much sugar to be healthy for me. The attraction was a super sweet crumble or crunchy mix in and a tub of similarly sweet flavored yoghurt, my favorite combination being toffee yoghurt with caramel encrusted cheerio-like cereal. I couldn't find it this time but got a few tubs of other varieties to get my fix.



Flight Centre are looking to build a few websites in the UK so I was flown over (cattle class as per company policy) to have a chat with some of the businesses over there. Unfortunately the business in question weren't based in some classy district in downtown London, rather the sleepy town of Ipswich some two hours drive out of the city and civilisation. Weather was less than pleasant, though survivable thanks to warm clothing loaned by concerned parents and cautious packing by the family. We barely had time to wander about in the cold aside from scampering between pubs and places for dinner, not that there was much to see in the area. The one landmark in town was a manor house converted into a museum that we covered during a lunch break one afternoon.



After three days in Ipswich we got to spend an afternoon in London before flying back home. Sightseeing was postponed for far more important duties, in this case making a bee line for Selfridges to continue mum's tradition for chowing down beef sandwiches in the food hall there. I got a large portion with a mixture of tongue and pastrami which was awesome.



For dessert I scoffed a cookie from Ben's Cookies, a new fixation that was recommended by Ross at work. Soft and chewy goodness, in this case milk chocolate and orange. Probably not the sort of thing one would eat at an oyster and champagne bar but I get my sweets where I can.



Sufficiently stuffed we slowly made our way back to the Flight Centre offices with a stop by South Bank to check out the London Eye and spy Big Ben across the river. It was a pretty sunset but the temperature soon dropped so we didn't stay out for long.



It was a short trip and I think I would have spent as much time in the air as on the ground but it was kind of nice to be back in the country for a while. Still couldn't wait to get out of the cold and come back to warm and sunny Brisbane. I made a decision a long time ago not to work in the UK and I'm still pretty happy with my choice, don't think I could handle the weather, but it's a nice place to visit from time to time.

The Most Beautiful Girl in the World

Such an exciting week. We picked mum up from the airport on Wednesday and rushed her home to show off all the changes to the house since she'd last been out. She's thoroughly impressed and intends to show her appreciation by fattening us up with great food for the next five weeks. I can already hear the people at work grumbling with jealousy at the packed lunches to come.

The big news this week however has to be our visit to the hospital on Friday for the "big scan". We've been asked a few times if we intended on finding out the sex of the baby and thankfully Alison and I both see eye to eye on this issue. We figure there are more than enough surprises in parenting that saving this one for the birthday seems unnecessary. Just incase the title of the post weren't enough of a clue, the next addition to the Chua clan will be a girl.

The report was once again totally positive, in fact she seems to be growing a lot faster than expected with quite a few measurements ahead of the curve. That's my girl, excelling already.

Biparietal Diameter	44.6 mm
Occipitofrontal Diamater	59.6 mm
Head Circumference	169 mm
Transcerebellar Diameter	20.1 mm
Abdominal Circumeference	142.8 mm
Femur Length	33.3 mm

We were given a DVD to take home that included a recording of the entire scan. Of course I couldn't resist the urge to edit this and put a few highlights on YouTube. Do you need to get a fetus to sign a consent form?



Future baby purchases should be a lot easier now that we have confirmation of gender, as will selecting a name obviously. The final moniker will have to wait till we meet face to face without sonographic assistance; till then we have decided to keep the potential candidates a secret too until the final selection has been made. People seem a little too candid with their appraisal of names if they think it hasn't been finalised and it's enough of a challenge as it is for Alison and me to reach consensus. Regardless, I imagine that I'll continue to refer to "Daddy's little girl" for as long as she'll let me.

Accumulating Stuff

It's funny how life seems to work against your best intentions. I would be the first to admit that my love for all things shiny and new does little to help our bank account or mortgage, but I've honestly been trying over the last few months to keep the gadgetry purchases to a minimum. Sure, it hasn't been that hard given that most of my luxury time has been spent on playing just one game but I reckon I deserve points for effort.

Of course this would be the month that threw us some mandatory roof repairs, a financial screw up where I transferred a significant amount of dosh to the wrong account, a car that refused to start, obstetrician bills, a large dentist bill for a crown to replace my fractured molar and to top it off... our Topfield Set Top Box decided to break. Granted not the most financially damaging event by comparison but I'll put up with practically anything except for a threat to my personal entertainment.

My view on extended warranties has centered around the philosophy that defective products would likely break in the first year, which means that it's a fairly rare case where I pick up the extra two years offered at the check out. Kinda ironic then that the two big purchases that I opted to buy into the extended warranty have both broken down, one of which thankfully was the latest Topfield blow up. There was a moment of panic when I couldn't find the receipt from the Good Guys but I eventually pulled it out of a completely unrelated folder in our filing cabinet (perhaps it's time to get a new system). The warranty company took their sweet time processing the request which meant that we had to cope with the horror of unpausable live TV or recording ability for a good three weeks (gasp). This weekend however they finally came through and we were asked to pop down to the local store to pick up a replacement, not a Topfield but what I hope to be a far more reliable Beyonwiz DP-Lite



The system will take some getting used to but so far it seems to be doing the job. I certainly like the improvements to the EPG and a bump to the amount of storage from 320GB to 500GB is welcome. Hopefully history won't repeat itself but I once again grabbed an extended two year warranty so we'll see if this turns into a self fulfilling prophecy.

Our other purchases this weekend have all been for the bub, and it's kind of scary how much we've gathered in a short afternoon. A colleague of Alsie's has been desperate to offload the majority of her baby gear now that her two sons have no need for rattles and wraps, so we took a drive out to their house to have a peek at what was available. In the end we pretty much picked up the whole lot for a very reasonable price, which means that our place is now filled to the brim with a subset of work tools for parenthood. These include:

• Cot
• Four wheeled super transforming stroller
• Nappy bag
• Diaper dispenser
• Baby bottle sanitiser
• Assorted colourful toys to keep Daddy and Baby entertained

I'm sure there's a good reason for it but surely there must be an easier way to design a stroller. We unfolded it when we got back home and it took the next ten minutes of straining, pushing and twisting to get the darn thing to collapse again. It was a nostalgic moment for me as I thought of my childhood Transformers (tm) toys that required a degree in Mechanical Engineering to work out.

Most of the goodies have been tucked away in the study now, but one acquisition that's made me take stock of this experience was setting up the cot in the back room. We now have a nursery, along with stuff toys that I've had for years to be passed on. It's the first of what I'm sure will be many new bits of furniture and decorations the baby's room and I can already feel the house changing into a family home.



Mum's flying in on Wednesday and this will be the first time she's seen the house since the renovations and changes. Boy is it going to seem different.

Keeping busy

Babies, house keeping and Starcraft. That's pretty much all I've been up to outside of work for the past few weeks. Which is actually a nice change as things have been frightfully busy at work with lots of conferences and activity going on at the office and no sign of the schedule slowing down as we approach the Christmas period. In fact I'm likely going to have to make a trip to the UK in December for a week to gather some requirements for our applications, which would be an exciting opportunity if it didn't coincide with mum's visit and a concert that Alsie and I were planning on going to. Such is life I guess.

This latest Flight Centre conference had us on the ferry to Moreton Island for a nice sunny break and the usual corporate review. Shame that all but the last day had us stuck indoors as the clouds dumped on us, perfect weather for the pub but not all that conducive to dolphin feeding or sailing. Saturday night was a fancy dress buzz night where we had to come as a Tarantino or Spielberg character, so the team rocked up in attire inspired by the Lost Boys from Steve's triumphant work, Hook. Oh how many times I watched that movie as a kid.



Sunday was a little nicer outdoors so we got a chance to do some quad biking. Didn't end up being as awesome as I thought it would be which was a shame. I'd pick go-karting over that any day but it was nice being able to do something in the sun.



Call us overenthusiastic but we somehow found ourselves buying baby Chua's first bit of clothing the other week at Myer. What started out as a trek across this store to find an extra item to purchase to qualify for a discount ended up with the two of us cooing at baby socks and prints of anthropomorphic animals on jump suits. One of which we purchased as it had a cow on it, adding this to the small collection that started with some lovely presents from Krit for the bun in the oven.



The fixation with Starcraft has not begun to wane as yet, with most nights dedicated to frantic mouse clicking in the attempt to best some random 13 year old kid in Singapore that obviously knows what he's doing compared to me. Oh if only one didn't have to work to support a family. Never one to take responsibility for my failures I decided to blame my gross uncoordinated flailing mouse cursor on my wireless mouse, and splurged on getting a "proper" corded gaming peripheral. It glows in the dark and has 10 different options for customization that I don't understand so I'm sure my performance is about to rise to a whole new level of incompetence.



On the odd occasion Alison has successfully dragged me off the computer to do something constructive around the house, or you know... spend some time with the mother of my child. This weekend we busted out the sand paper and started preparing the outdoor table for a future paint session. Even with a smooth finish it's looking a lot better than it did before so we can't wait to see how it turns up after a fresh coat of paint.



Aside from that it's just been normal house work and infrequent yard mowing while we wait for mum's upcoming visit in November. The place is looking pretty established now though neglect has resulted in a few weeds popping up here and there. Personally I blame the warming weather and freakish level of rain we have experienced in the last month. Better get those gardening gloves on again.

Fatherhood

Being the sappy and clucky guy that I am, I've been thinking about this blog post for many years. Next to the announcement of nuptials over three years ago, this would be the next logical milestone to chronicle on this little weblog of events. Though I'm sure I could drag the buildup for a few more labored sentences, I think I'll save everyone time by coming right out and saying this; Alison and I are going to be parents in April next year.



It's been hard to keep this all under wraps for the past 12 weeks while we waited for the socially appropriate time to spread the word. Friday was the first of many tests that this child will have to endure in it's life and I'm pleased to say that it's already excelling all standard benchmarks. Admittedly my assessment could be considered marginally biased.



That's a beautifully formed left hand I think. Absolutely perfect for playing the guitar and video games as you would expect. One thing that doesn't come across in the pictures is how much the baby moves during the ultrasound. We were absolutely transfixed on the screen, watching in awe as the baby (a mere 5.5cm from crown to rump at this point) floated around and danced on the screen. I'd buy one of those machines to take home if I could.



There were also 3D pictures taken but they didn't come out as well. I'm going to be taking a lot of photos over the next few years so this kid better not be camera shy. Fascinating that it sleeps the same way I do with my arm over and face against the wall. Well... I found it fascinating anyway.

The new grandparents and family are suitably excited about all of this, with mum booking trips out in November and April to be with us. We may even get Uncle Wing to drag himself away from work for once with the promise of being able to hold a new bubbie. The estimated due date at the moment is the 12th of April 2011, which would be an Aries. Another Tauren in the family wouldn't have gone amiss but I'm sure we'll manage.

It's still too early to tell the sex of the baby though Alison and I both plan on finding out. Names on the other hand will have to be a surprise for April. Rest assured that there will be posts to follow our upcoming adventure.

Starcraft and Stuff for Home

Been spending pretty much every opportunity to play Starcraft 2 lately much to Alison's disgust. I finished the Terran campaign a while ago and absolutely can't wait until the second game (Heart of the Swarm) comes out to go through the Zerg chapter of the story. Of course the one I really want is the third expansion (Legacy of the Void) which will cover Protoss but that's bound to be a while away.

With the campaign complete I turned my attentions towards the multiplayer game. Back in SC1 days I had quite a bit of fun playing multiplayer at LAN parties but never really got into playing online on Battle.net, due to the age of the game and the justifiable fear of getting my ass whooped. After watching a bunch of shoutcasted videos online and losing lots of matches myself I can clearly see how this is Korea's number one competitive sport to play and spectate. I've certainly become an addict. You can keep tabs of my progress through the multiplayer ladder here.

I've been playing Terran mainly but plan on switching to Protoss at some point. The new match making system is really great and most of my games have been with opponents of a similar skill level which has been great fun. Blizzard really got things right with the design with heaps of achievements to collect, automatically saved replays of games to learn from and a really fun ladder system. Then of course there are all the improvements they made to the game mechanics compared to the first one with automining, larger unit groups, smart casting... oh I could so go on. I love this game, the last time I was this into something was that other game from Blizzard.

There are heaps of channels on YouTube to get started with SC2 that I've been following religiously. Husky and HD both do great coverage of professional and high level matches while Day9 breaks down games into what we can learn from the play. Superb stuff.

• HD Starcraft
• Husky Starcraft
• Day9 TV

Alison did manage to drag me away from the computer this weekend for a few social events with family and friends (where I exercised extreme restraint to not talk about Starcraft). While out Alsie managed to pick up a coffee table for our outdoor setting which should make a pretty nifty weekend project and we grabbed a painting for the hallway while at the Portside market.



It should just take a bit of sanding and a new coat of glossy paint to restore this antique. Alsie found it for a steal while out with Elizabeth and it's the perfect size and style that we've been looking for.



Our walls are pretty bare and we are always on the lookout for art to hang, except that being cheapskates we rarely agree with the price tag. Thankfully this one wasn't too pricey and fills out the entrance way nicely. Welcoming and colourful for when I come through the door after work... to play Starcraft...

Final Touches and More Macs

Yowzas, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. I'd like to blame it all on how busy and difficult things have been at work, which certainly hasn't been a picnic over the last few weeks. In truth, it's really because we haven't done all that much of interest, and no one wants to hear someone whinge on end about how hard they think they have it at the office. This weekend we managed to get into something a lot more constructive, which I can comfortably share with the greater Internet.

The last section of the house in our renovation plan that has been demanding attention was the little corner under the verandah, next to the storage shed and where the rubbish bins live. As the lowest point on the property, the ground there has always had drainage issues and been damp from run off from the porch. Not particularly nice when you have to take the bins out to be collected after a night of rain. It's not an area of the house where we spend a lot of time so we've managed to ignore it up till now. Thankfully John refused to let us rest on our laurels and forced the team to regroup and roll up our collective sleeves to get stuck into fixing this problem.



Our main challenge with this mini project has always been finding a retaining wall block that looked reasonable and was easy for us to install. Numerous trips to the nearby landscaping place always ended with disappointment or uncomfortable compromises, at least until we found this little block. Simple to stack, looks the part and it didn't cost all that much either. With John's practiced method of smoothing bedding sand he and Alison had the start of a retaining wall up in no time.



Next came the paving of the area to allow us (well... me really) to take the mower and tools in and out of the storage area). We have become really familiar with these 400mm blocks by now and if I'd be quite happy if I never have to lay another one of these ever again.



All this took pretty much all of Saturday and we were stuffed by the end of it. I know I've definitely lost all my landscaping stamina in the extended break we took from manual labour. Things were looking a whole lot better at least, though we still had the steps and some tidying up to do.



How lucky are we that John and Sheena sacrificed their Sunday morning to help us finish things off. With the steps in, more mulch and a small trailer load of gravel we now have a properly tidied corner of the house that we'd be happy to show to visitors. There's even a new garden bed for us to plant where Alison has visions of a passion fruit vine, given that the one we had out the back has been ravaged by possums and never really got enough sun to begin with. Rather pleased with the results though some of the steps may need a bit of concrete later on to hold them in tightly. Hopefully our efforts will survive the first down pour we get.



The other project I had this weekend was to get my new computer setup finished. I've noticed that since I got the iPad I've been using my MacBook less and less, aside from firing up XCode every now and again to have a play. In fact, I've been using my old Toshiba a lot more, which had been relegated to Torrent duty, especially to do development work and play the odd PC game. I still needed my MacBook plugged in to sync the various iDevices around the house though, but it became pretty obvious that I was using both machines inefficiently.

Always one to try and simplify (and keen for an excuse to get a machine capable of running the recently released Starcraft 2), I decided to sell the two laptops to consolidate down to a single desktop. Portability shouldn't be as important anymore with the iPad and I know that I'll want something that's always on to serve media and download torrents. The newly revamped Mac Mini appeared to be the best choice. Now that it supports HDMI out of the box I've even been able to connect it up to the old Hitachi TV as a second monitor.



Not a bad rig really, though I've become so used to having more RAM with OSX (the machine comes with a default of 2GB installed) so I immediately placed an order for 8GB of RAM which should be arriving next week. Also picked up a 1TB Firewire 800 hard drive for a fantastic price to serve as the main media store, with my old 1TB as a secondary and the 500GB as a Time Machine drive. The internal 320GB drive is pretty slow so I'm eventually going to swap that out for a 64 or 128GB SSD to keep things running nice and smooth. All up that should serve as a pretty nice server to store content, cut some code (IntelliJ and XCode should run pretty nicely with 8GB of RAM I would hope) and play the odd game.

Of course this is even better now that we get Steam on OSX. Starcraft 2 is freaking fabulous so far and I can see myself sinking an unhealthy amount of time into it. Hopefully the machine should be grunty enough to run Diablo 3 when that comes out too. Oh, another great thing I love about this little baby is how quiet it is. I haven't heard the fan kick in once when playing games or watching YouTube. Power consumption is supposed to be brilliant too which is a great feature for a device that will be on all the time.

There was supposed to be another big purchase this week with the release of the iPhone 4 in Australia. Unfortunately I didn't attend the midnight launch this time and am now paying for that lack of commitment with a three week wait for the phone to come back into stock. I did however manage to get one month off my phone bill by signing up to the raincheck option at Optus so I guess it's not all that bad. At least I'll have my Mac Mini to keep me busy in the mean time.

That's about it from here. Alison and I will be off to Adelaide for a little holiday to see Kath and Andrew next week which we're super excited about. Can't wait to try all the food, see Frankie (the dog) and just have a chance to relax. Feel like we certainly need it.

Three Years of Wine and Cheese

Well, considerably more than three years in reality but it has been three wonderful years since Alsie and I tied the knot. Celebrating a little early this year granted, but we managed to get a killer booking at Spicers Peak Lodge so we had to jump at the opportunity. It took us about two hours, a minor squabble regarding my dirt road driving and a Mexican stand off with a herd of cattle but we finally arrived just past midday at the most awesome lodge house I've ever seen. The view of the surrounding wilderness would have been magnificent if not for the heavy fog that enveloped the peak when we got there, but a roaring fire and an offer to trade our car keys for a cold beer didn't leave time for disappointment.



Chilled glass in hand, we both descended onto one of many plush couches surrounding the stone hearth in the lounge room and began flipping through a picture book that chronicled the construction of the lodge. The task was a mammoth one at we could well appreciate from the long, windy dirt track we had to navigate after the Cunningham highway. It made the opulent decor, fine trimmings, an extensive game loft with a pool table and the sonorous tones of Simon and Garfunkle streaming through ubiquitous Bose speakers even more impressive.

Lunch was very nice and the matching wines helped us choke down the confit of duck and pan fried squid we were served. Immaculately presented with wonderful produce, though Alison and I both felt that the chef had a penchant for over seasoning his dishes which was a minor blemish on the experience. Even so, I would have happily wolfed down another serving of that beautifully bitter chocolate fondant with caramelized pineapple.

After lunch we headed out into the cold to explore he surrounding countryside. Driving on the road up to the lodge we spied two chairs invitingly perched on the edge of the lawn, overlooking the surrounding field and hills so we headed in that direction first.



A short stroll and we found a table at the northern lookout that would have been gorgeous to have a picnic if not for the inclement weather. After savouring the view for a moment, we headed back to check out the tennis court and helipad before reviewing our room for the night. Our eye was immediately drawn to the fireplace but I think the room was pretty nice in general.



The rest of the afternoon was wasted away playing a few games of pool and taking advantage of the complimentary WIFI with our iPads. As a side note, Carcassonne for the iPhone is a most impressive port of the game and works really well on an iPad for two people. Two more glasses of wine later and we were being served canapes to ease us into dinner; a seven course degustation with matching wines.

To start with we were served an unbelievably rich globe artichoke demitasse, coupled with a Reiseling that I actually enjoyed. The rest of the dishes that followed were good, though not especially memorable until we got to the steak; a 9+ wagyu sirloin with leek tarte tatin and babaganoush. A trifle over seasoned once again but the flavours worked wonderfully in concert. By the dessert course the wine had certainly compromised my ability to enjoy the food so I could only stomach a spoonful of panna cotta and a bite of the pistachio praline before retreating to bed.

We woke up a few times throughout the night to scavenge for food and tend the fire but still ended up having a relaxing sleep by breakfast the next day. Good thing too as the breakfast menu was quite exciting. Alison ended up ordering a smoked haddock omelet with minted peas and creme fraiche, fabulously rich and smooth. I on the other hand, feeling a little worse for wear from the night before, opted what was basically a sophisticated big breakfast; free range scrambled eggs, roasted tomatoes, wilted spinach, mushrooms with hollandaise sauce, bacon and amazingly earthy black pudding. The tomatoes could have probably been roasted a little longer but everything else hit the spot.



We were having such a good time that we'd love to have stayed another night, but all good things must come to an end. Handing in the room keys earned us a pot of honey from the on site bee hive as a parting gift, then it was time for us to head down back to civilization.

A quick stop by Aratula for some antiquing on the way back home and that was pretty much the end of our little trip away. Thankfully our return to Brisbane still left us with lots to look forward to. Naomi and Nat were going to host a raclette party at their swish city apartment. The meal was described as a reverse fondue, though as I'd never had the pleasure of trying fondue that wasn't much help. In saying that, any meal which involves a bowel clenching quantity of cheese is alright in my book.

We rocked up with a semi chilled bottle of chardonnay and were treated to a smorgasbord of cured meats, vegetables, bread and assorted cheeses to melt and drizzle. The idea was to place a blend of soft cheese on your personal raclette pan and stick this under the grill for the cheese reduce to a bubbling pool of melted goodness, a simple concept with fabulous results. Our hosts had peeled and boiled a pot of Dutch Cream potatoes (just recently my discovered spud of choice) that were beautiful sliced up and combined with sour cream, chives, paprika and smothered with a velvet blanket of raclette cheese, gruyere and gorgonzola. I would have paid more attention to my arteries hardening if my taste buds weren't screaming maniacally with pleasure.



So all up a good night with friends and food. The only mild sour note was that we were too full to enjoy the dessert that Nat and Naomi had whipped up.

Sunday was a day of necessary jobs, as the house had somehow degenerated into a state of gross untidiness. At least we got things back on course before lunch and had time to pop out to Bunnings to pick up a few things for an afternoon in the garden. The little animals we picked up when antiquing in Aratula found a home by the fence.




Our vegetable patch has been decimated several times by possums much to our dismay, so we're fighting back by improving our agricultural defenses. The netting seems quite fragile but we hope it will prove to be enough of a bother to deter mischievous marsupials from causing trouble. With luck we might actually bring a tomato to full term for us to eat.



A long weekend with one more to enjoy next week. Had lots of fun with my baby and it's nice to celebrate this special milestone, which is leather this year I believe. Happy anniversary darling.

iPad, nay iPads

It's almost hard to believe that the iPad has finally reached our shores. Friday was a pretty exciting day in the office for those of us that either had a device ordered or planned to try their luck at the store. I eagerly checked the mail room for deliveries several times that morning before giving up to head out for a run. In fact while jogging through the luscious pathways of the botanical gardens I happened to glance at my phone nonchalantly, before sprinting the rest of the way back to the office at Queen Street. My delivery you see, had come.

Having had a few days to play with it my conclusions are unsurprisingly positive. The device is uncompromisingly attractive to the eye and unfortunately, fingerprints. I had the good fortune to play with one beforehand so the heft of the machine, due no doubt to the two oversized batteries, wasn't all that shocking. You do eventually learn how to hold it and distribute the weight of the screen with efficiency. Battery life by all accounts is absolutely amazing. I've hardly put the thing down and have used it for well over five hour stints at a time between brief charges and the battery indicator hasn't fallen below 56%.

The first thing that you notice after turning it on is how vibrant the screen is. It's marvelous to play games, read books and enjoy photos with other people as the viewing angle remarkably wide. I have no problem leaving it flat on the table to read something free handed, something I would not be able to do with the screen of the iPhone.

Applications of course are the real draw of the iPad. I've been doing a fair bit of research into the standout apps and loaded them up beforehand.

Evernote - I couldn't live without this at work. I'm even composing this post in it
iBooks - there's not much choice in the iBook store at the moment but it's ok with ePub support
Comiczeal - a great app for reading comics in cbz/cbr format is made infinitely better by removing the need to scroll to see the whole page
Numbers - I'm a bit of an Excel geek so I need my spreadsheets. Was a little disappointed that they didn't have pivot tables but the function list isn't too bad overall
Wired magazine - more of a gimmick and a tech demo but it's interesting to see where the publications may go in the future
Instapaper - brilliant for taking long articles out to read. Especially as I don't have the 3G version of the iPad

Typing on the full sized onscreen keyboard in landscape has been an interesting experience. It's certainly large enough that you expect to be able to use your normal touch typing skills, but the lack of physical keys means that you have to be a lot more cautious about accidental touches, not an easy thing when one is used to resting fingers on the home row of the keyboard. The layout is also certainly different from a traditional keyboard so that is taking some getting used to as well. I'd almost liken it to using a mechanical typewriter, where the timing the release of a key before typing the next letter is crucial to maintaining a consistent tempo and speed. The auto correction in iPhone OS is pretty useful once you start trusting it again.

I've been showing the new toy to everyone that exhibited the mildest note of interest so Alison has had to listen to me parrot on non-stop all weekend. She's had little opportunity to actually use it but had grudgingly admitted that she was impressed and could see herself getting one in the future. Since I knew we were going to be in Chermside to check out the Apple store, I decided to strike while the iron was hot. This would be the only way I could guarantee that my iPad remained solely for my use.



I also picked up a wireless bluetooth keyboard just incase I need to type longer reports, though in truth I really want to give the virtual one a good go first. Now that we've been a little indulgent and splurged for an iPad each I doubt we'll be using the laptop for much aside from downloading files and work. Still early though so it should be interesting to see how our habits change over time. All in all definitely no regrets.

Although, it would be nice to be able to watch Masterchef on the iPad which can't be done as it doesn't support Flash video. In saying that, the channel Ten website has been crap lately with streaming video so it makes little difference in the end. Story for another time perhaps.

Week Twelve and it's over!

The weekend came and with it my Everest for the 12 week challenge. A gruelling 20K walk from Currumbin to Main Beach which would serve as the last charge before the final weigh in on Monday. It didn't seem like a long distance numerically, but boy does it look like a long way on the map.



Imagine how crazy it would be then to walk the full distance of 30K from Coolangatta! That's what John signed up for along with Steve and Linda for company. Alison, Sheena and myself missed out on the elite blue bibs and reconciled ourselves to ordinary orange. There was also an option for the 10K distance, appropriately accompanied by yellow labels as this was obviously the choice for chickens and wussies - I jest of course.

We could barely make out our destination in the distance from the 20K starting line. There was a brief wave of despair as the enormity of the task sank in before we resigned ourselves to close the gap between us and a promised sausage sizzle, one step at a time.



The walk turned out to be a lot more pleasant and manageable than any of us would have thought. I think at some point around Burleigh, just past the 10K mark perhaps, my left calf started to feel pretty sore and tight from the strain. To stretch the muscle out I took to jogging in brief spurts which was unintuitively remedial. So much so that I bade my darling wife and mother-in-law goodbye and ran the last 5K to the finish, earning me the splendid honour of being the first to complete amongst the 20K participants. Being a glutton for punishment and wracked with the guilt of abandoning my walking partners, I handed my bib in and ran back to rejoin Alsie and Sheena for the last bit of their walk. As a result I think I would have travelled over 26K all up and I'm certainly paying for it dearly with sore legs. At least we got across the line in good spirits if somewhat battered by the ordeal. A total time of 3 hours and 50 minutes.



What's amazing is that John kept up a remarkable pace, passing us early on to complete his 30K in about 3 hours and 15 minutes. A stunning achievement really.

So surely this must have had some effect on my final results for the challenge. My initial goal was to lose 10KG in the twelve weeks and I still had quite a bit to make up the last time I stepped on the scales a fortnight ago. I'm terribly pleased to announce that the numbers I received on Monday didn't disappoint.



In the strictest sense I didn't achieve my target weight lost, but I'd say that 200 grams isn't worth fretting over. My other measurements that evening turned out to be pretty favourable too. Particularly chuffed about an 11cm reduction around my belly which I'm definitely seeing with my clothes.



So it's all over, I just need to put my final measurements into the system and hope for the best with the competition. Of course I already feel like a winner and fully intend to continue with the exercise. My discipline with eating may change a little though as I rediscover my love for all things chewable. I just so happened to have some left over lasagne from Sheena, that I rudely refused the night before the weigh in, and gladly demolished for lunch after stepping off the scales. Ah carbohydrates, how I've missed thee.



Oh... about those before and after photos, I'd say the improvement is startling and something to be proud of, but I'd feel like a right twit if I posted them online. Probably best given the longevity of internet documents.

Urgh, what a week

Well that was quite an interesting week. Things started with a bang on Saturday when I went to the shooting range with some of the guys from work. I'd never fired a gun before so this was certainly going to be a new experience. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing and I was beginning to feel a little uncoordinated.



I found it pretty hard to actually get any feedback for where my shots were landing (perhaps because they didn't actually hit the target?) so I wasn't sure how to improve. The novelty of shooting a gun beyond the 22 calibre - which had the kick of a pea shooter - was pretty sweet at first but sharp recoil can only keep one amused for so long. In hindsight I probably should have worn longer socks too...



There were a couple of shotguns around so we got a chance to do some clay pigeon shooting too. I fired off two shots and managed to score a lucky hit on my second round. I'm quite happy to retire with a 50% success rate. Not a bad day to spend with mates but I think I'll stick to the driving range personally.

The week pretty much went downhill from there. I was supposed to have a new team member start on Monday which involved a bucket load of work to prepare for. Imagine my disappointment when I got an email at 8:00 saying that she had decided to take another job elsewhere - yes folks she did it by email. Needless to say this has put my whole plan for resourcing into a tailspin which we're still reeling from, not to mention slamming our recruitment efforts back to square one and wasting two weeks of lost interviewing time. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Felt so rotten about this on Monday evening that I decided to forgo the weekly weigh in. Worse yet, we went out for pizza at Dominos which was probably not the best idea in the last week of the 12 week challenge. At least they were the healthy options on the menu.

Things are looking up though. Alison and I will be doing a walk with the family for the heart foundation this weekend, which should give me a final boost before the weigh in on Monday. My iPad should also be getting delivered in about a week and I've already started downloading apps in preparation. Just after that we'll be heading to Spicers Peak Lodge for a night of indulgence to celebrate three years of happy matrimony. Always helps when there are nice things to look forward to.

I Got Worms

I originally thought that my birthday this year would be fairly low key, especially considering that I'm supposed to be in the middle of the twelve week challenge and watching what I eat. In the end I sorta threw caution to the wind and that's ok. Because it's my birthday dammit! (29 if you must know)

As is traditional in our household, the special treatment started early I'm the morning with a shower of presents from Alison and family. Got some pretty darn cool gear including funky sleep mask (need my beauty rest as I age), a great set of steak knives, some gardening soap and a wine cooler. No real theme to the collection but all will be put to good use.



Had to turn up to work unfortunately as i've hit rock bottom in the annual leave bucket. We did manage to get out of the office for lunch to try out this place that does a four course degustation for $20 which is insane value. They are a hospitality training school so I guess the students need to practice their craft and they might as well sell the results to discerning customers. Overall there was a lack of polish but that's forgivable at such a great price.

On returning home I got another surprise birthday gift waiting for me. A little bit of well crafted misdirection had me guessing exactly what Alsie had bought but a quick trip out to the garden revealed that I'm now the proud owner of a trendy worm cafe. Our previous composting efforts weren't overly successful so I look forward to putting these little invetebretes to good use.



Dinner had us going out to Southbank to try out a new Taiwanese restaurant that we'd heard about. We've been hankering for Siu Long Bao since our trip back to Malaysia so we were pretty excited when we got there.



Alas the juicy morsels didn't live up to our expectations. Just too thick and dry with the skin and the meat was pretty coarse and gristly. Tasty meal nonetheless and we'll probably still go back if we're in the area.

Alison took me down the road to Gunshop Cafe for dessert. I ordered a poached pear with maple panna cotta and chocolate sauce, which my darling wife further adorned with a candle when the plate came out. Who ever said you needed cake?