Coffee

The local cafe, where I fetch Marjorie a soy latte with honey every weekend morning:

Lecture

Lecture I went to last night:


Pretty good, but the parts I wasn't already familiar with seemed kind of speculative. I guess there's no alternative to glossing over when delivering a one-hour talk to the lay public.

Flinders

Flinders Street Station, where I take the train to every morning:


(One of the better shots I've taken with the iPhone camera, I must say.)

Trivia

Marjorie came along to trivia last night, and despite our inability to name supermodels, we took first place!

Fundraiser

Me today at Another Bloody Fundraiser at The Fox, down the road:

Station

Southern Cross Station:


It went millions over budget and years behind schedule. And I think it's ugly. Actually I think that about most of the modern buildings in Melbourne, though I like a lot of the older architecture...

Contests

Some newspaper clippings from my programming contest days:











Good times.

Lavalamps

These are the lights we use at work that come on automatically to tell us that someone has "broken the build" (i.e. added defective software to the group repository):


All three on is not good, but it is the last day of a sprint when everyone's trying to get their changes added.

I used to think of lava lamps as relaxing, before I started here...

Brekkie

Breakfast of champions:


This is my breakfast, more days than not: grilled salami and cheese sandwich with two or three glasses of OJ. I suppose there are healthier ways to go, but at least I have the four food groups covered!

Cockatoo

A great sighting while out on walkies today:


It's a yellow-tailed black-cockatoo, a species we had only previously seen from a distance. There were five of them. Once again, the iPhone camera fails to capture the majesty of Australia's largest cockatoo/parrot.

Cicada

Spotted this discarded cicada husk on a broomstick in our backyard:


Just above was its gorgeous former occupant:


They call them "green grocers" here. His software never booted up, though, apparently: he was dead.

Survey

Today I joined the Friends of Merri Creek for a survey of birds along a short stretch of the creek near our house:


Here's what we saw:

Grocery

This is our little local grocery:


You can see two of the three aisles. Despite the small size they have a lot of interesting gourmet choices. I love having them just around the corner!

Notice the eggs there, unrefrigerated. That's standard practice in Australia. It took a while before we got comfortable with that.

Trivia

Trivia night at the Cornish Arms:


The host there is a former star on Australia's biggest ever soap, Neighbors.

Paddington

Strange sighting out the window while waiting to take off from Adelaide:


Yes, my phone should've been put away at that point...

Moonrise

Moonrise over the boats off Kingscote:

Beach

A secret beach on the north coast of KI, accessible only through a rock cave tunnel:


Though someone had clearly been here before:

Sea lion

This little guy wanted to join our tour group:


Marjorie got some great shots of him too.

Echidna!

That thar's an echidna!


He was being shy but poked his head out after we backed off. Cuteness overload!

Adelaide

Flight to Adelaide:


Adelaide airport: