The Dog's Breakfast

One of those rare days

2012-01-28T23:12:00.002+11:00

One of those rare days that I wouldn't mind having over and over.

First, brunch with a friend at Bistro Flor which was fabbo.

Then we went looked at three houses that were having open inspections. We're not looking to buy just yet, just kind of practicing for when it gets real, maybe in a year or so. Still it was fun.

Then, fantastic Thai massages at Vigorous Thai Massage.

On to a swim at the Fitzroy pool.

To our usual dog park, Darling Gardens, with perfect timing as Hamish's good friends Banjo, Tyra, and Grover were all just arriving. Hamish is completely smitten with Banjo (a border collie).

Home, and pork chops on the grill with a nice Dal Zotto rosé in the backyard while we watched the lorikeets in the neighbor's tree, followed by "bat o'clock". For music we dug back into our CD collection for four fantastic chill-out albums that we had neglected for a while. Here's an sample song from each - each irreproachable, I would say.

Peace Like A River - Paul Simon - from "Paul Simon"

Into Temptation - Crowded House - from "Temple of Low Men"

Angeles - Elliott Smith - from "Either/Or"

Lover, You Should Have Come Over - Jeff Buckley - from "Grace"

Quite the dog park

2012-01-15T22:55:00.001+11:00

An impressive dog park in our neighborhood. Well, it's a dog park when there's no footy or cricket going on.

(I know the last panorama wasn't really viewable - we'll see if this turns out any better.)

Donor

2012-01-09T21:37:00.001+11:00

I'm also a blood donor now! This was my third time.

Birthday

2012-01-09T21:32:00.001+11:00

It was our friends' birthday party last weekend in the park. Hamish met a friend who is a bit more purebred red heeler - I took a shot of them together just to compare.

Guerrilla garden

2012-01-09T21:30:00.001+11:00

Just found this awesome guerrilla garden just blocks away from our house that I never knew was there. It has compost and worm bins and everything. Love it!

Catch up, or not...

2012-01-09T21:07:00.002+11:00

The problem with having an ongoing blog is that when you haven't posted in a while, it means you have a lot to post about, which makes putting it off that much easier. So to heck with it. If there's some big things I didn't post about -- like, say, a trip to Europe -- I'm just going to forget about them and move on.

I will at least mention that the book I contributed a chapter to -- Mindhacker: 60 Tips, Tricks, and Games to Take Your Mind to the Next Level -- is out. I think it's even better than the first one (Mind Performance Hacks (that I contributed a couple of chapters to)) and the reviews seem to bear that out.

Not to be outdone, a high school friend of mine has written a whole book, and the reviews have been phenomenal. I knew him when.

Oh, and somehow all the comments you all submitted recently were sitting there waiting for me to approve them for months but I never got email notification. So they're approved now, sorry.

Mid-summer here now but it's been a pretty cool season so far. Lots of fun parties and such, and trips to the park with Hamish. He's settled in and accepts us now as his pack, but is still pretty cheeky. But he has lots of dog friends at the park. His favorite game is chasing other dogs who are chasing a ball, and try to run ahead of them and cut them off. It's good because it means other dogs' owners exercise our dog for us.

Hamish

2011-12-16T22:50:00.001+11:00

...is settled in fully. He's really never uncomfortable in any situation we throw him into. He's been into wrestling with other dogs lately and has lots of doggy friends. This is his buddy Cody, who I think is lab + huskie.

Skyline

2011-12-15T17:49:00.001+11:00

A panoramic shot I took from the top of the hill in Northcote while out for a jog. Note the skyline in the background.

My office

2011-12-15T17:47:00.001+11:00

We've let the blog languish for a while now, but it's too valuable as a reference for our past that it would a shame to let die... I'll post some catch-up before long but in the meanwhile I'll get back to posting images. Here's my office; my desk is right behind the B in building.

Sandwich

2011-09-02T12:15:00.002+10:00

I was lying in my lounge chair. Marjorie came and laid on top of me. And so Hamish decided he had to be on top.

New dog

2011-07-17T20:16:00.000+10:00

Okay, cobwebs are forming here. Let's dust things off a bit. Even if no one even reads this anymore, it's still been an invaluable resource to refer back to over the years, so I really need to get back on it.

We took a trip to Europe, which was great, but I'll get back to that eventually. As for now, the big news is a new pup in our life!

His name is Hamish, and we got him via Pet Rescue, though they were calling him Roger at his foster home. We think he's painfully cute. He's smart and funny and has lots of personality, but is still rather laid back, especially compared to Laika. He's different in several other ways to Laika too. We're still trying to figure out all his quirks but we like him a whole lot.

We decided to sign him (and us) up for obedience classes, just to be sure we could take him out to cafes and such. We had the first class on Saturday (my birthday). The instructor was good, but strict. So far the biggest result is a lot of stress in our household -- it's hard to be strict and you can bet Hamish isn't a fan either. We're wondering whether we want to even pursue this route. I mean, the instructor was able to get instant results with Hamish (even when we couldn't) but will we still like the dog that he becomes? Or are we just being soft because we don't want to dole out punishment to our cute little doggy? The whole thing is just not a lot of fun.

Since the class yesterday we've been defying our instructor a bit. We've found we've gotten better results with a little bit of sugar anyway instead of the hard line approach. Or maybe that's just us being manipulated. The instructor did say that Hamish is smart and is going to be a handful to train.

Some more pictures!

Trees

2011-05-10T08:51:00.001+10:00

On to happier topics. I got mad recently when the council came and ripped out all the trees on our street. It turns out it was all part of a big replanting job though. They came back a week later and put new trees where the old ones had been. Then, this week, they came back again and dug up the street to add even more trees! They'll look fairly slight for the short term but I heartily approve of the long term plan.

Laika is no more - Part 2

2011-05-02T21:30:00.000+10:00

The other horrible thing I had to do on Friday was to dig the hole in the backyard. My hands got fully blistered from the shovel, but I didn't care, and it was cathartic in the end.

On Saturday the vet was scheduled to come by at 2pm I think, but in the morning Laika seemed a tiny bit brighter so we decided to take her to another of her favorite parks, Edinburgh Gardens. She had a last jump at her favorite tree, the one with the hole in it that she would always check for possums. She didn't have a lot left after that so we just sat in the grass with her for an hour or so and let her sniff the wind while we cried. We eventually took her home, and gave her all the little bits of kangaroo jerky -- the only thing she would still eat -- that she wanted.

The vet came by on schedule, and of course Laika had a bark at the door, which we didn't think she still had in her. We knew we had to go forward with it though; she might've held on for another day or two, but it wouldn't be happy times for her, especially through the nights. Laika went back and flopped down by the back door while the vet explained the procedure to us. She was really outstanding and compassionate; I don't know how people can do that for a living, but I'm glad there are people that are willing. She started things with an IV that first made Laika unconscious, and as she was putting it in, heartbreakingly, Laika put her head up and gave her a kiss. From there we only had a minute or two and so we went out on the back porch while it took effect. The neighborhood dogs gave one last bark at a passerby, and Laika gave a last bark with them, defending her territory to the last. She went to sleep lying on the back porch, with the two of us holding her and telling her what a good girl she is, while the vet came and administered the final shot that would stop her heart. We took a snip of her fur for a keepsake, and each took a last deep smell of her. Our baby was dead.

Such a good dog. Half crazy, but that only made us love her more. I think we did everything we could for her, which is the least we could offer a dog that we had no doubt would have taken a bullet for us. I've had people I love die before, and have been greatly saddened, but this I would have to call my first experience with "grief". We spent days and days afterwards just going through the motions. To me, the world had a weird tilt on it, like everything was shifted six inches, and I had to force myself to do all the little things you do in life that typically come by force of habit. And there is no place within miles of here that doesn't have some memory of her associated with it.

We were, and are, still torn between wanting to run out and get a new dog, just to fill the hole in our lives, and wanting to hold on to her memory and mourn her loss. Marjorie goes back and forth between wanting to wait, and showing me pictures of cute dogs on dog rescue web sites. I suspect after our upcoming trip, we'll go inflict our lives once again on some unsuspecting dog.

Laika is no more - Part 1

2011-03-21T21:23:00.000+11:00

(For obvious reasons, this has taken a long time to write. It's not a pleasant thing to relive, and so I've decided to just post what I've written so far and finish the rest later.)

Right. Well. Most of you will have heard the news about our beloved fur-child Laika. Sorry that it took me so long to write about it but I really just couldn't.

We learned she had cancer (of the worst sort) back in August and so knew we could only buy time for her. We kept picking dates that we hope she'd make it to -- first Christmas, which was a happy time, then her birthday in mid-February, by which time she was really struggling. Each new symptom or drop in her energy sent us deeper into sadness about the coming inevitability. By the final days she was not getting up when we'd come home; her breathing was labored and raspy, and she was not keeping her food down. She was still interested in food, largely because at that point shelved the standard dog food and were giving her nothing but the tastiest of treats.

On Thursday the 17th we took her to a nice park we had discovered recently, that had big wide open grounds (good for us to be able to spot problem dogs approaching) that she seemed to like. This place we had started calling the Island of Misfit Dogs as it seems lots of people brought their old or infirm dogs there. We let her do a bit of exploring, and she managed to find a nice pile of semi-dry horse manure to roll in. We can recognize her smile, and we saw it then for the first time in a while, so how could we be mad?

But we knew the end was nigh, so I took off Friday to spend the day with her. We went back to the same park, thinking it would be her last day. Indeed, she seemed a lot more listless than the previous day, and didn't manage to do much more than flop down on the grass. She seemed content enough to sit there and sniff the wind, but we knew things were over.

We had been in contact with the "Doggie Kevorkian", and so we arranged for her to come by the house the next day to put her down. (It's great that there are people who do that, I just don't know how they can do it; it would kill me.)

Jackpot

2011-01-15T21:38:00.000+11:00

I had been pondering a subscription to ancestry.com to search out my relatives. They play a ton of commercials for them here (as I hear they do in the States) and it started to wear me down. I was just... suspicious of them, because they give you two weeks, and then it's so many dollars a month -- but they don't tell you that they charge you for a whole year when the two weeks is up unless you look at the fine print. Also, while you sign up online, you can only cancel over the phone, which is never a good sign.

I mentioned this all to a coworker, and he suggested checking out the library - he had heard that a lot of them had free access to ancestry.com. So I looked into it a little, and found that the State Library of Victoria here in the middle of Melbourne offered it. So I went to check it out today, and wow! They have a big beautiful room dedicated to genealogy, with lots of computer terminals, shelves and shelves of books, and a helpful staff of actual genealogists.

I only had a short time to do it today, so I availed myself of the ancestry.com access, and took some "screen shots" (literally, camera-phone pictures of the screen). Found this World War 2 draft registration card from my second great uncle, as well as this 1930 Census record showing my then-12-year-old grandmother and her family. (I found a 1920 record as well that I forgot to take a picture of that had most of the same people.)

I can't wait to go back. Clearly this is my obsession at the moment; I don't know why. I'm just fascinated by history, and researching my ancestry is just a good excuse. Like the commercial says, it's like being a detective. I will note that I'm doing this all with two main rules:

No pride (or shame) at anything I find. My ancestors were all individuals who made their own choices through life and there's no reason I should take any credit for their successes any more than I should feel ashamed at their failings.
No bias towards the patrilineal paths. The women in my family tree contributed just as much to my genetic makeup as the men, and I'm sure worked just as hard if not harder for their families.

Tidbits

2010-12-31T10:18:00.000+11:00

A few more tidbits have trickled in from my mother, which seem to confirm that the ship's manifest actually lists my great-grandparents. She says that they came over twice, and that only one of their children was born in Poland. She said this before even noticing the "Were you ever in the United States before" column in the manifest, which shows them in the US from 1899 to 1905 (which were ages 24-30 and her ages 20-26). The date ranges lists for the children only show the dates they were alive, so this gives some indication of their birth dates too. The youngest child listed on the manifest, Wojciech, would have been born during the two years they were back in Poland, which agrees with what my mother said about only one child being born in Poland.

She remembers hearing that they didn't come through Ellis Island, but now we're pretty sure they did. She assumed they came through the port of Philadelphia, but I'm thinking this is probably where they came through the first time. Which means that maybe they did actually see the Statue of Liberty for the first time when they came for good in 1907!

Huddled masses yearning to breathe free

2010-12-29T22:09:00.001+11:00

More on the family tree. Years ago my Uncle Bill tracked down the genealogy of my father's side of the family, all the way back to the 1600s, and found that most of my ancestors there come from Krov, Germany. He flew out one year, then many times after that, and I ended up going out for a wonderful family reunion as a result.

Lately I had been considering tracking down my mother's side. I did this once back in the '80s, interviewing all my relatives and drawing up a family tree. This still exists somewhere in my parents' house, but I wasn't able to find it last time I was home.

So recently I asked my mom to fill me in on some of this information, figuring that once I had a few names I'd be able to fill in a lot more with the help of the internet. So I was able to fill out a lot more of the family tree that I posted a link to yesterday as a result (it doesn't show you much there unless you become a member of the site).

But there's more. Searching on a few names on the internet, I found some discussion on a genealogy forum dating back to 2001 that let me fill in a few more names. But then I hit the jackpot (I think) on the Ellis Island site.

I wasn't able to find my mother's father's parents, but searching on my mother's mother's parents turned up this awesome find: the ship manifest that I'm pretty sure shows them arriving in America from Poland. Lines 4 through 9 show Agata and Jan Gasior and their entourage; these are my grandmother's parents, I'm convinced. There's actually quite a lot of information on the manifest, and combined with other information I've gathered previously and with some help from the internet, I can piece together the story pretty well:

They had already spent six years on a previous visit in Camden, New Jersey where they would eventually settle. They went back to Poland for two years, then decided to come over for good. Probably they waited until their fourth child (Wojciech) was born - he's listed as age 0. They brought along a housemaid, Kunegunda (great name), presumably to help with the children; she was twenty and shares the same last name, so was likely a relative. No doubt some tears there, leaving all of her friends and family at such a young age.

And so Jan (age 32) and Agata (age 28), their maid, and the four kids (ages 7, 4, 3, and 0) would have packed up all their belongings and taken a train from their small farming village of Będziemyśl, Poland to Hamburg, Germany to catch the transport ship, the S. S. Amerika, leaving on 8 May 1907.

Arriving in New York twelve days later, the Statue of Liberty would probably have been a familiar site to Jan and Agata, having taken the previous trip over, but the maid and the kids would have looked on with interest. At Ellis Island they would be interviewed by the guy whose handwriting you see on the manifest, and asked a number of strange questions, including, "Are you an anarchist?" Jan had the princely sum of $320 on his person. (Actually, is that a lot, for that time? I don't know.) From there it would be another train to Camden, NJ, to join their uncle Josef Pilas, according to the ledger.

The names (parents Jan and Agata, children Josef, Marianna, Anton, Wojciech) seem to match the family information supplied by my mother - though each of the names has been anglicized (parents became John and Agatha, children Joseph, Mary, Anthony, and... Walter?). It also matches that Joseph is the oldest. Combined that all with the destination of Camden NJ and I'm pretty confident this is them. They went on to have eight more children, including my mom's mother Helen.

I find this all tremendously fascinating.

Rellies

2010-12-28T13:18:00.002+11:00

My cousin has been posting old family pictures of my ancestors (on my dad's side at least) to the share genealogy website where I keep my family tree. Some of the shots I don't think I've seen before.

Here are my dad's parents. His mother lived until I was in my twenties, but his dad died when I was only six. I remember visiting him in the hospital.

Frances Rose Schnitzius (Szymanski)

John Alphonse Schnitzius

Here are their parents, comprising four of my eight great-grandparents:

Alphonse J. Schnitzius

Catherine Schnitzius (Schick)

Felix "Phillip" Szymanski

Margaret Szymansi (Basinski)

Any of them look like me?

Our Christmas

2010-12-25T23:15:00.001+11:00

Woke up, exchanged presents, walked the dog. Marjorie started a pork roast with homemade mac-and-cheese. Per Christmas tradition, we exercised, to assuage a little of the guilt of gorging ourselves the rest of the day. Made a pitcher of blue curacao margaritas and had the pork roast, which was really, unbelievably good.

I put together Marjorie's Christmas present - a turntable that's capable of recording to USB - and we broke out our albums that we haven't heard in ten years or so (and argued a bit about whose were whose!). But it has stereo output cables and our only speakers are for the computer and only take a headphone jack. Tried to play it through the TV but it would only play really quietly -- needs some sort of amplification obviously. And the USB output (which is made to record to a memory stick) wouldn't work with my Linux-y memory stick. So we have to wait a little longer to hear our vinyl!

All week they were saying the weather was going to be nice. Then yesterday they changed it to "becoming cloudy". Still way off -- it was grey and cool all day, save for a half hour in the evening that we spent out watching the rainbow lorikeets in our neighbor's apricot tree. Nice day, altogether.

Cherry Hill

2010-12-10T23:25:00.000+11:00

Found some pictures on a real estate site of the house where I grew up (ages 0-10) in Cherry Hill NJ. Very evocative!

Front view - my bedroom I shared with Kevin on the upper right. There used to be those super tall bushes in front of our window that I used to plan to jump out to and slide down in case of fire (fire was my big fear as a child). Otherwise it all looks pretty much the same!

The view as you walk in. The red color scheme is all new. The biggest memory this dredges up is Danielle sneaking out of her bed and sleeping on the steps when my parents had dinner parties.

The kitchen has been remodeled too. The phone hung on the wall beside the door in the right rear. Memory for this one (among many): burning my finger on a popcorn popper next to the sink on the left (after being told not to touch it).

Family room, remodeled as well, but they kept the fireplace (even if they've painted the wood). This was the fireplace where I tied the screen shut one Christmas eve with a piece of yarn. When the yarn was still there in the morning, I KNEW.

The downstairs bathroom. How's this for an early memory: I remember asking to use it shortly after being potty trained, and being told by my mom that I didn't need to ask. Revelation!

The living room. Piano was against the left wall. Couch against the back wall. Ceramic elephant and various chairs to the right side. My parents used to have bridge parties here with folding card tables.

That's all! Wish there were more, like pictures of the yard, or my bedroom.

Amazing Australians

2010-11-03T22:27:00.001+11:00

Here are four Australians that are amazing, in my opinion.

Chris Lilley - Creator of Summer Heights High (which was picked up in the States by HBO) and several other Australian series. Amazingly creative in his writing, but on top of that I think he is maybe the best actor I've ever seen. He completely inhabits his roles like no one else I know, so much so that he can even play a schoolgirl and pull it off. Here's a sample, but be warned, lots of colourful language... clip

Terrence Tao - Mathematician. More than that, he's a mathematician's mathematician. A child prodigy, he's now at a level where other mathematicians compete to interest him in their problems. I read his blog but to be honest, don't understand much. Thankfully he sometimes writes simpler stuff for dilettantes like myself. He may be the best mathematician working today (though he would probably tell you that non-working mathematician is tops).

Tommy Emmanuel - Australia is also home to maybe the top acoustic guitar player in the world as well. I'm not usually a blues fan, but this clip is typical. My hands hurt just watching.

Tim Minchin - Comedian usually situated at a piano, and with eye makeup and no shoes. Marjorie might disagree with me here; we first saw him a couple years back and he was decidedly unfunny. But I've seen some of his recent work and it's amazingly clever. Some samples (be warned, plenty of off-colour language here as well): Storm, Taboo, If I Didn't Have You.

Home invader

2010-10-31T19:14:00.003+11:00

Today's wildlife rescue. Got trapped in our house but just hopped on my finger when I tried to rescue him and didn't want to let go.

BTW, that's not snow on the ground - our backyard tree is dumping pollen like mad right now.

Balloon

2010-10-04T00:51:00.002+11:00

So, yeah. We went ballooning for Marjorie's birthday, and it was amazing. Spent almost exactly an hour in the air, taking off from Fisherman's bend and flying over our old neighborhood. Totally peaceful in the air and not scary at all, despite ranging from maybe twice the height of the skyscrapers in the CBD (which we skirted just South of) down to almost street level. We practically landed on the roof of one of our favorite restaurants and then continued straight down the street it was on, to the amusement of many passers-by and people having breakfast on their deck. The city was particularly quiet since the previous night was the (Australian Rules Football) Grand Final (which ended in a tie). We set down in Elsternwick Park leaving several dogs nonplussed. This was followed by a champagne breakfast at the cafe in the botanical gardens.

More pics to come.

Hoddle Street massacre

2010-10-04T00:30:00.000+11:00

A tragedy that occurred in our neighborhood 23 years ago. We walk Laika through this same area several times a week.

View

2010-09-06T19:45:00.003+10:00

The view from my desk in our new office:

Looming up above is the highest office building in the Southern Hemisphere, the Rialto Towers, which used to have an observation deck (that Marjorie and I went to on our first visit to Melbourne) which is now apparently a restaurant.

Office

2010-09-03T23:47:00.001+10:00

The startup Mark is working for finally has an office:

Quite grateful to be back working in the CBD - I wasn't too keen on working from home. Here's my desk:

I love that the windows actually open; that's rare in an office building. There's a little balcony out there too but you have to go out the window to get to it.

New Car!

2010-09-03T23:43:00.001+10:00

After nearly eight years without, we finally have a car!

2010 Subaru RX hatchback. We're looking forward to the change in lifestyle.

Heart

2010-09-03T23:41:00.001+10:00

After our last soccer match of the season, I went with a couple of teammates to watch Melbourne's new soccer team, the Heart, play against Perth Glory in Melbourne's new dedicated soccer stadium:

Small crowd but it was good fun and the stadium is fabbo. Bummer was that Former English Premier Leaguer Robbie Fowler scored a penalty kick equalizer for Perth in extra time, and the match finished 2-2.

New car... almost

2010-08-28T23:05:00.000+10:00

So last week we went by the Subaru dealership and ended up putting some money down on a car that they had in stock at a different location, on the condition we could still reject it after it arrived and we had a test drive.

We had the test drive today, and everything was great, except that when we went to switch drivers, we smelled something burning. So we checked the oil, and it had way too MUCH. Some must've been spilling out onto the engine block, or something.

What can that do to a car? I'm not exactly sure, but now we are going to have an independent mechanic check it out before we buy. Bummer.

Soup

2010-08-26T23:20:00.001+10:00

Had this soup at an Indonesian restaurant:

Any guess on the mystery vegetable? It was about as appetizing as it looked, and the flavor stayed with me all afternoon.

Balloons

2010-08-26T23:17:00.001+10:00

Spotted this balloon hovering up the street:

Wow, that's really close, I thought. Then I looked up over our house and saw this:

News

2010-08-26T22:50:00.000+10:00

We recently got some scary news about a family member, which I won't go into details on, but which today we were overjoyed to learn is not as bad as it could have been. It's an enormous relief. Enough said.

Running almost simultaneously to that drama we have been dealing with a tumor on our dog Laika. She got it removed two weeks ago but all the signs were bad. Last week we learned she had a stage 3 mast cell tumor, which is about the worst kind you can have - very aggressive. And today Marjorie took her to a specialist to find out more. An aspiration of her lymph node indicated that it indeed had spread, and so she got her first round of chemotherapy straight away, and has to go back maybe five more times. This will give her a 60% chance of surviving a year. We are still reeling from this, but will do whatever it takes to give her a full life in the time she has left.

So, whatever the Chinese calendar may say, we're declaring this the Year of the Dog. We've actually bought a car (contingent on a final test drive we'll take on Saturday) that will let us take her around.

Stephen Fry

2010-08-01T13:19:00.001+10:00

We caught a talk given by Stephen Fry yesterday, which was fantastic. Just him on stage with a microphone for two hours and ten minutes. He was lured to Melbourne by a grassroots campaign, and the show we saw was a second one that was added after the first sold out (in a pretty big venue). Here's the article from the local paper about it, which is a little overly-fawning (but then so am I).

Did you know he played Lord Snot in that famous Young Ones game show episode? Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson are also down there with him.

Tortillas

2010-07-24T13:35:00.002+10:00

I made these! Using actual lard. They rocked.

Trip

2010-07-24T13:29:00.000+10:00

The more I have to blog about, the less inclined I am to do it. So you know this long hiatus means that a lot has been going on.

I'm still going to be brief about it. After Montreal we went down the Florida to see my side of the family plus Marjorie's sister's gang, including a fun day at Blizzard Beach, and the USA's awesome win over Algeria in the World Cup. Then to Atlanta to see Marjorie's parents and our old friends. I got to see USA get knocked out of the World Cup with a bunch of my old friends in a bar that was wall-to-wall people. Finally, we spent one last day in Los Angeles filling up our suitcases with cheap and hard-to-find-in-Australia goods.

My birthday was soon after we got back. Marjorie got me a slow cooker, which I'm excited about, though it tends to require a major grocery shop beforehand, which is difficult sans car. That's the other news, we're back in the market for getting one. It's been too long without.

I'll be posting various pictures from all this when I get around to it.

Montreal

2010-06-16T07:23:00.000+10:00

We are in Montreal now, and enjoying it muchly.

We're hoping to have a refresher on our high school French as much as possible on our visit, and it's certainly a good place for that. I wasn't sure exactly how French it would be, but it certainly seems to dominate. What makes it a great learning opportunity is that just about everything that's written comes in both French and English versions, so it's like having flash cards everywhere. My vocabulary has been skyrocketing in just a few days here. And people typically will greet you in French, so you always have the opportunity to respond in kind. Unfortunately, we've typically been getting the polite thanks-for-trying smile followed by a response in English.

Yesterday was rainy and so we mostly just putzed around and did some shopping. In the evening we went to a lovely French restaurant, Restaurant Le Mas Des Oliviers, chosen largely because their menu posted on the street had no English translation, but again we were spoken to in English. They were very nice though - we have yet to encounter the notorious French snottiness - and the food was delicious.

Today we walked to the Parc du Mont-Royal overlooking the city. We had lunch at a Montreal institution, Schwarz's Deli, then hired public bikes and rode down to Old Montreal.

It's a shame that the winters are so harsh here; it might otherwise make a lovely place to live.

Pickles

2010-06-05T20:43:00.001+10:00

Marjorie and a plate of pickles at Izakaya Den:

Bikes

2010-06-05T20:41:00.001+10:00

I love this!

Rental bikes hit Melbourne.

Vet

2010-05-31T20:39:00.000+10:00

Laika at the vet, for an ear infection:

Not her favorite place, of course, but she copes okay. I think it's the liver treats they give her.

Balloon

2010-05-28T15:19:00.001+10:00

Spotted from the train station in the early morn:

City view

2010-05-16T18:16:00.001+10:00

City view while biking along Capital City trail to Brunswick:

FA Cup night

2010-05-16T18:10:00.000+10:00

FA Cup night with my soccer club:

The object of the game in the middle shot is to kick the ball (on the right) into the trash can (on the left). A dollar a shot, for fundraising, with a chance to win a bottle of whiskey.

Workout

2010-05-16T18:08:00.002+10:00

In the middle of a twenty minute session on the stairmaster at the local gym:

Sunrise

2010-05-16T18:08:00.001+10:00

Sunrise on my street:

Nice enough, but if I never see a sunrise again it'll be too soon. The price of working for a startup.

Warrandyte

2010-05-16T18:06:00.001+10:00

Lunch along the river in Warrandyte, while we're working out of the boss's house:

Hoodoo Gurus

2010-05-16T18:02:00.001+10:00

At the Hoodoo Gurus show at the HiFi:

La Niche

2010-05-07T21:05:00.000+10:00

It was French Night at the French cafe near Marjorie's work, so we went down and practiced our horrendous French with the waiters and enjoyed the beautiful boeuf borgonaise. And the entertainment was nice too:

Loves me some accordion.

Galahs

2010-05-03T09:28:00.002+10:00

Galahs take over a puddle spotted, just after my soccer match:

Rainbow II

2010-04-26T17:13:00.001+10:00

A better rainbow, over our backyard yesterday:

Fire

2010-04-26T17:11:00.001+10:00

Went to buy a new barbie today and came home with a new fire pit as well:

Coins

2010-04-22T23:55:00.000+10:00

Australia coins come in different denominations than American coins - 5, 10, 20, and 50 cents, plus 1 and 2 dollars. What's weird is that they don't really seem to have names for them, like in America. No penny, nickel, dime, quarter... or anything like that. You don't really even ever hear "five cent piece", "ten cent piece", etc. that much. They just don't seem to require names, and are hardly ever mentioned. I wonder why?

Job

2010-04-19T21:57:00.000+10:00

I figured I'd give you a break from lousy iPhone photos and fill you in on my job situation. As I mentioned, I had a month off from work after being laid off by Microsoft, which was fantastic. As my boss was planning a new company, doing the same thing, with most of the same people, there was no real stress.

The new company has started now, but without an office. We had a meeting or two at my boss's house out in the sticks, where half of our crew are now working, but the rest of us are working from home. I had to buy a new computer and assemble it from scratch as the first order of business (not without a few headaches).

I don't much like working from home. I'm getting some stuff done but it's too easy to be distracted, and too hard to get the information you need sometimes when you can't just walk over to a coworker's desk. I'm spending the mornings with the dog sitting by my chair but have been putting her out back around lunchtime when she gets antsy and then spend the rest of the day trying not to get noticed by her in the house (if she thinks I've come home, she gets overexcited).

Anyway, all of us working on this project think it has the potential to be big, so we're all willing to work hard and put up with some bumps.

Rainbow

2010-04-19T17:46:00.002+10:00

Rainbow lorikeets, plus rainbow!

Okay, the rainbow's really really faint, but it's there...

Pitch

2010-04-16T13:47:00.001+10:00

Construction going on literally right around the corner from me:

Sweet! The condition of the grass looks so good it almost makes me want to weep.

Rainbow

2010-04-11T23:03:00.000+10:00

Rainbow over George St which the garage in back of our house opens onto:

There's lots of these sorts of streets in Melbourne, that are pretty much all garage doors.

Backyard

2010-04-05T16:17:00.001+10:00

Marjorie and friend.

Nice

2010-04-05T14:35:00.001+10:00

Lovely day lying back looking at the sky, listening to music the backyard:

This weather we know won't last long...

Albert Park

2010-04-04T16:02:00.001+10:00

Bopped down to our old neighborhood today to take Laika to the beach:

And to have lunch at our old regular restaurant, Dundas and Fausett:

Pixies

2010-03-23T13:34:00.001+11:00

The Pixies last night at Festival Hall:

What's with all these people liking MY band?

Food and Wine Festival

2010-03-22T10:35:00.001+11:00

Marjorie and friend Fleur at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival:

Birds on wires

2010-03-22T00:13:00.002+11:00

Twelve red-rumped parrots spotted near our house:

And a tawny frogmouth, silhouetted against the streetlight (about the only way to take a night shot with the iPhone camera):

Hockey

2010-03-17T17:28:00.001+11:00

So, yesterday on a whim I went down to Melbourne's awesome new skating facility for an intro to ice hockey. A little late in the game to be starting a physical sport like this, but I enjoy skating and used to REALLY enjoy playing intramural floor hockey in college.

It was a lot of fun. From pictures on the web site I expected to be given just a helmet and a stick, but they ended up giving me full pads - helmet, gloves, elbow pads, knee/shin pads, shoulder pads, and padded pants. This proved useful as I'm not the best skater in the world, especially in hockey skates (I'm used to figure skates with the sawtooth in the front that I used both for stopping and accelerating). So I ended up going down maybe five or six times, but no pain thanks to the pads. It was quite a lot of fun. The instructors were good and kept things organized and moving. A great deal at only $20 for the hour too, including skates and equipment.

I really, really need to learn to skate better. Particularly stopping, which I don't really have worked out.

Marjorie came by and caught the last ten minutes. She's going to join the fun next week!

Moonlight cinema

2010-03-13T23:26:00.001+11:00

In the botanical gardens, waiting while the Moonlight Cinema screen (in the background) is inflated:

Saw "Bright Sun", which was pretty good.

Calexico

2010-03-10T21:33:00.002+11:00

Calexico, who we caught at the Thornberry Theatre last night:

Really good show. As their name suggests, their music is a mishmash of American and Mexican influences. Venue was interesting, kind of a banquet hall, with assigned seats at big round tables:

Pierogies

2010-03-07T22:46:00.001+11:00

Had lunch today at Court Jester, a very interesting hidden-away Polish food restaurant:

Food was... not bad, but we won't be in a hurry to go back.

Skating

2010-03-06T15:54:00.000+11:00

Marjorie, yesterday at Icehouse:

I'm a stinker.

Library

2010-03-06T15:51:00.001+11:00

Hard to capture, but this is my favorite room in the state library. I gasped the first time I stumbled into it.

Protest

2010-03-06T15:48:00.001+11:00

The Internet filter protest in front of the state library:

Smaller crowd than I was hoping for. As you can see, several different political parties were represented...

Jobless

2010-03-03T14:43:00.000+11:00

So - we all knew this was coming, but yesterday our Melbourne FAST office was officially let go by Microsoft. They had decided to discontinue our product, a year and a half after acquiring us, since it wasn't really in line with their corporate vision. A lot of that was due to the fact that we are developing in Java on Linux and Mac machines, instead of using Microsoft products.

No one in the office was terribly concerned; my boss is working on acquiring the software rights to what we were making are starting his own company, which would be a Microsoft partner company but otherwise unaffiliated with Microsoft. I think everyone in the office would be happier working without the constraints that Microsoft put on us anyway. That said, Microsoft was VERY nice about the severance, even going so far as to provide us a career counseling service to help us find new jobs, even outside of Microsoft.

So, I had really been looking forward to the time off. I've been coming up with a big list of things I want to accomplish during my "Autumn Of Mark". But then today, on my first official day off, I got a call in the morning from the FAST office manager about a job opportunity, and I couldn't really say no. So tomorrow I'm going in for an interview. If it works out I will have some Java temp work for a few months until this other company gets off the ground. But I definitely didn't want it to happen this soon. Sigh...

Paintball

2010-03-03T14:29:00.001+11:00

One of my bruises from our company paintball outing last Friday:

It's turned a particularly lovely yellow over the past day. Tons of fun though - boss supplied us with unlimited ammo on the company expense account, so the air was dense with paintballs. I came home with 17 different welts!

Botanical

2010-02-18T18:17:00.001+11:00

Our friend Trisha's 40th birthday party at the Royal Botanical Gardens.

I don't know why I didn't take any shots with the beautiful plants in the background.

Mueck

2010-02-13T14:38:00.001+11:00

Ron Mueck exhibition at the NGV:

Angst

2010-02-13T12:00:00.001+11:00

Laika always looks sad in the morning when we go off to work:

Comments

2010-02-08T21:00:00.002+11:00

Haloscan, the provider I was using for comments for years is going away. So, I've been forced to switch to the comment system that comes built in with Blogger. I have all the old comments saved, but unfortunately there's no way to import them to the new system yet.

I have all verification turned off on the new comments, which of course means it'll fill up with spam shortly. I'll have to do something about that when it happens but in the meanwhile, enjoy.

Super Bowl

2010-02-08T11:24:00.001+11:00

How I'm watching the Super Bowl this year:

Typical. Geaux Saints!

Lizard

2010-02-06T16:16:00.002+11:00

More crazy backyard finds. Found this lizard skin while doing yardwork today:

I have big feet too, to give you some sense of scale. Since it's just the skin, we're thinking the guy who shed it may still be around. Our best guess is that it's one of these.

Hat

2010-01-30T19:24:00.001+11:00

After car shopping we went to City Hatters, which has thousands of hats but EXACTLY ONE THAT FITS MY GINORMOUS MELON:

Mini

2010-01-30T19:17:00.000+11:00

We came home empty-handed from car shopping today, but figured out a lot about what we're looking for. Here's Miss Marjorie test driving a Mini Cooper:

(which we decided is pretty sweet, but generally too small.)

Mantis

2010-01-28T23:48:00.001+11:00

Preying mantis in our backyard. About an inch long:

Jets

2010-01-26T14:13:00.001+11:00

Australia Day jets over our backyard:

Anglesea

2010-01-25T11:29:00.002+11:00

On the beach at Anglesea:

Ouch

2010-01-25T09:33:00.001+11:00

Maybe I should have reapplied.

Skim

2010-01-24T17:22:00.001+11:00

This is my skimboard:

It's ancient. Not sure the exact year, but I know I bought in 1983 at the very latest. Lots of good memories associated with it. I just had my second skimboard session in Australia here in Lorne which was very fun. From what I've seen I'm the best skimboarder in the country. :-)

Lorne

2010-01-24T08:18:00.001+11:00

On holiday in Lorne. The view from our hotel:

Some visitors, with eyes on the cheese plate. (One of Marjorie's coworkers happened to be staying in the same hotel with a friend so we had them over.)

Birthday

2010-01-18T00:37:00.001+11:00

Marjorie, at our friend Fleur's birthday in the park:

Spicy wing!

2010-01-15T20:25:00.002+11:00

After five years we finally found proper spicy wing in Melbourne!

The Gertrude Hotel on Gertrude Street does them up proper. We're more excited by this than you might expect!

Neko

2010-01-15T20:22:00.001+11:00

Neko Case last night at the Hi-Fi Bar:

She's super talented, and sounded great, but truth be told her songs leave me a little cold. Marjorie's the bigger fan. I haven't written her off or anything yet though...

Palace Westgarth

2010-01-09T16:42:00.001+11:00

Escaping the heat inside our favorite movie theatre; here to see the Fantastic Mr Fox:

Beans

2010-01-05T20:36:00.001+11:00

My sister-in-law has been posting a lot of recipes on her blog, but they're all, you know, vegetarian, filled with twigs and acorns and such. Here's a decidedly non-vegetarian recipe for the best beans we ever ate, at the Democrats Abroad Christmas party last month. A bit labor intensive, but so good that I will have to actually try to make them some day:

Bill’s Baked Beans

Start with Slow Cooked Beans in 4 to 5 litre Crockpot Slow Cooker

375m White Beans (Great Northern or Cannelloni Beans) Big batch 500m size

1 large salty meaty ugly smoked ham hock ( the more white residue visible on the hock the better, it is not pretty, not meant to be – If I can’t get a good big hock, I use 2 smaller ones, (try for 750g to 1 kg total wgt) if using a 5 litre cooker, 500g to 600g if a smaller cooker)

The beans need to be checked for foreign material (rocks & discoloured beans removed), rinsed, then soak for at least 4 to 6 hours, then rinsed again before using. I add the hock to the cooker, (rinse in water only, the smoking process leaves lots of flavour), cover it with the soaked rinsed beans, then add water to cooker to cover beans by at least 1-2inches, even if it is almost to the top of the cooker

Slow Cook overnight, usually starting right before you go to bed. Then cook for 9 to 12 hours using the Auto setting on most cookers. (This is also a stage that they can be served as an especially good soup, but it is so good that you eat too much to finish the baked bean variety, you need to eat them as soup at least once in this experimentation process).

Let cool for at least an hour, then thoroughly remove Bones and Fatty outside from Hock (yes, you do get your hands dirty this way). Be careful as there are some small bones in most hocks, (usually like knobs from the ends of bones). While doing this, I tend to break up the large chunks of ham from hock into smaller pieces to distribute this slow cooked ham throughout the dish evenly

I then discard waste, then put remaining bean mixture to fill 2/3 of a large Pyrex baking dish (putting aside any leftover excellent ham hock bean soup away to have
on it’s own)

Then add to your mix

2 large cloves of Garlic crushed

1/3 cup of Smokey BarBQ Sauce (optional, use your favorite or KC Masterpiece from USA foods)

1 large onion chopped

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup Heinz Ketchup (Aussie tomato sauce poor substitute, but works in a pinch)

1/3 cup American Style Mustard

1 Small Jar Tomato Paste (or ½ of a medium jar)

½ Teaspoon Black Pepper

Combine all of the above ingredients into the bean mixture, then cover the entire top of the dish with the bacon (trimmed of thick rind if Rashers)

Large Bacon Rashers or 10 pieces of Streaky Bacon

Cook at 160 degree medium heat for 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes, (Just til the bacon starts to crispy up, but do not overcook til burnt, I tried it once, and not as good with burnt bottom of pan…

Variations to the recipe:

I like these with less Black Pepper, but a good bit of Cayenne Hot Spice to taste…be careful
As an addition, some people add a couple of Teaspoons of Worcestershire Sauce. (good this way)
Two teaspoons of Jack Daniels, or any good bourbon never goes awry with this recipe

New Year's

2010-01-01T15:07:00.001+11:00

New Year's Eve party at our friends', Brendan and Kim:

Much fun. Lots of cheek kisses at midnight, thanks in small part to a contingent of Italians (including a couple visiting from Italy who spoke no English).

Burgers

2009-12-29T19:17:00.001+11:00

In honor of our 2000th day in Australia (Marjorie figures these things out in Excel), burgers shaped like Australia:

Boxing Day 2

2009-12-28T18:11:00.003+11:00

Since Boxing Day fell on a Saturday, we got a bonus Boxing Day today. After house cleaning we took a ride up the river, as far as this Russian Orthodox Church:

Then, since we have a friend's car for the week, we took the dingo up to a fenced in area I discovered on an earlier bike trip, for a little rare off-leash time:

2009-12-27T19:52:00.002+11:00

I wanted to write an end of year wrap up entry, but as it's been awhile since I've blogged, I was seeking inspiration so I "borrowed" this list from Krisalis, and modified it for my own purposes:

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Went to Africa. The trip to South Africa this year was amazing and completely easy. A good first trip, with more than enough awe to inspire me to return.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next this year? My resolution this year was to use a mug for take away coffee, in order to avoid the paper cups which just get thrown away. I've been pretty good about bringing my Keep cup to the coffee shop with me, and am happy to see many others doing the same.
I'm not sure if I'll have a resolution for next year. I'd like to run more or exercise more in general. I've been generally good about this for the past few years, but could be better, and could always do more.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Unless I'm forgetting about a baby (possible?) than no, not this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Depends on how you define close. My work mate, Matthew, died this year. Matthew and I had worked really closely together for awhile, and then he'd moved to a position in another office. He was a young man in the prime of his life. It was a very sad and unexpected loss.

5. What countries did you visit? Japan and South Africa.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? More time with family and friends.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? February 7th "Black Saturday" the date of the bushfires in Victoria.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I'm continuing to progress in my career, which I'm glad about that. And I just procured an 18 month project position (promotion) which starts in January. I've received positive feedback through the grapevine that I have a good reputation out in the service sector, and agencies are happy to work with me (thank goodness).

9. What was your biggest failure? Not taking better pictures when we were at Kruger. I guess we'll just have to go back.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? This has been a bad year, healthwise, for me. I was sick with every cold/flu that came into the office over the winter (probably had swine flu, though it wasn't confirmed). And my migraines have been horrible. Next year I'll start allergy shots, as I'm sure this will help the migranes.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Plane tickets to South Africa.

12. Where did most of your money go? Travel. There are worse things to spend your money on.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Big suprise - our trips to Japan and South Africa, and seeing lots of new animals.

14. What song will always remind you of 2009? Grapevine Fires by Death Cab for Cutie because it could have been written about Victoria this past February.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) more happy or more sad? About the same
b) thinner or fatter? Again, same, it's post Christmas so I may be a little fatter, but I plan to lose this post haste.
c) richer or poorer? Not much difference. A little richer, as I recently got a promotion.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of? I didn't snorkel this year, so more time in the sea. More time at the beach.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of? I could have done with less time sick or feeling unwell.

18. How did you spend Christmas? A morning jog, open presents, cook, then pig out. Stress free, though a bit lonely without the extended family.

19. What was your favorite TV program? 30 Rock

20. What was the best book you read? I just finished Zoe Heller's - The Believers, which was good. I didn't read a lot of books this year, I read more articles on the internet or in the New Yorker (mag).

21. What was your favorite film of this year? I really liked The Wrestler, and it was nice to see Mickey Rourke make a comeback.

22. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? We had brunch at my favourite Mexican restaurant, Blue Corn, and then I got a mani/pedi (thank you Facebook for helping me remember!). I'm 39.

23. What kept you sane? Monthly massages. A bit of pampering we allowed ourselves once a month this year. It's unclear whether this will continue into the new year, but I vote yes.

24. What concerts did you see? This was a slow concert year for us. We did catch Lucinda Williams finally. She was fabulous. Also we saw one of my favourites, Aimee Mann, for the first time. And saw Elvis Costello play alone, and even though we've both seen him several times before, he was fabulous and energetic playing by himself to a sedate, seated, largely middle-aged crowd on a Tuesday night. To fill the gaps between concerts this year we saw some plays- Billy Elliott and Wicked.

25. What were the best restaurant experiences of the year? This was another really good year for restaurant discoveries. Some of the top ones would include St Jude's, Mutti's, and Yu'u. And we continue to enjoy old favourites like Borscht, Vodka, and Tears, The Horn, and Koliba. Melbourne is truly a foodie town, and we love it.

26. What was the best discovery of the year? Goove Shark and other music websites, music logs, and podcasts (most notably All Songs Considered) which have allowed us to discover heaps of new music and rediscover all sorts of lost treasures as well. Groove Shark is really great as it allows you to stream music immediately and save play lists. I have a new project/playlist I'm working on trying to track the 100 best songs of all time, which is a perpetual work in progress as it's obviously so subjective and there are always new songs and remembered songs to supplant others.

Mall

2009-12-27T17:13:00.001+11:00

Braved the Westfield Mall today:

Meet the new mall. Same as the old mall.

Boxing Day

2009-12-27T10:57:00.001+11:00

A great day for relaxing...

Xmas chow

2009-12-26T10:40:00.001+11:00

Our Xmas day meal:

Just for the two of us! Our fridge is as stuffed as we are right now. (I made the sweet potato soufflé.)

Pierogies

2009-12-25T08:49:00.001+11:00

Our Xmas eve tradition: gorging ourselves on pierogies...

Traditionally it's done at my grandmom's house, but obviously that's a lot farther these days than over the river and through the woods. Instead, Borscht, Vodka, and Tears has to suffice.

Ick

2009-12-20T10:09:00.000+11:00

Woke up this morning to my eye looking like this:

How did people live before the Internet? Within seconds I was able to learn that it's harmless, often causeless, and will likely go away within ten days.

Sidewiki

2009-12-17T22:19:00.002+11:00

Remember this idea I posted about, way back when, about a comment system that lets you post comments on any web page?

I actually forgot I had that idea so long ago. It's been percolating around since then, and I still hadn't found any inherent flaws in it. Recently, I ran it by a couple of coworkers at lunch, and they both thought it was a good idea.

So, finally, after two and a half years, I set a plan to at least work up a prototype over Christmas. Then, just the other day, I ran across a little company who had the same idea. For all practical purposes it's EXACTLY the same idea. It's been getting some buzz.

I've recently come to the conclusion that laziness is my defining personality trait, and here we have a classic example. I can't be too angry, to have come up with the same idea as the mighty Google, but of course it's a little disappointing. I'm mostly just happy that someone built it - someone with clout and technical competence - because the other reason I was excited about the idea was that it was something that I want to actually use.

The Dog's Breakfast

One of those rare days

Quite the dog park

Donor

Birthday

Guerrilla garden

Catch up, or not...

Hamish

Skyline

My office

Sandwich

New dog

Trees

Laika is no more - Part 2

Laika is no more - Part 1

Jackpot

Tidbits

Huddled masses yearning to breathe free

Rellies

Our Christmas

Cherry Hill

Amazing Australians

Home invader

Balloon

Hoddle Street massacre

View

Office

New Car!

Heart

New car... almost

Soup

Balloons

News

Stephen Fry

Tortillas

Trip

Montreal

Pickles

Bikes

Vet

Balloon

City view

FA Cup night

Workout

Sunrise

Warrandyte

Hoodoo Gurus

La Niche

Galahs

Rainbow II

Fire

Coins

Menu

Job

Rainbow

Pitch

Rainbow

Backyard

Nice

Albert Park

Pixies

Food and Wine Festival

Birds on wires

Hockey

Moonlight cinema

Calexico

Pierogies

Skating

Library

Protest

Jobless

Paintball

Botanical

Mueck

Angst

Comments

Super Bowl

Lizard

Hat

Mini