And then...

Several days have passed.  The dog doesn't know this.  He thinks everyday is Thursday because that's the day Jennie gets home from gymnastics at 7pm to hear him woofing at the garage door.  Not that he is entirely proficient at telling time either - his clock only has two temporal divisions - nap o'clock and bark o'clock.  Last night (and the night before that) we (Lach and I and the Twins) have slept (on mattresses - a form of camp-in) on the lounge room floor and have had the privilege of listening to our middle aged miniature dachshund talk in his sleep.  Lach (who regularly stays awake until dawn studying maths, history and zombie killing at his PC) confirmed that Pippin habitually mixes his nap-and-bark o'clock discernment in the wee hours, and that this is not just an expression of his sorrow at having Taffy (and Jen) missing from his bark o'clock hours. I miss them though.

Let sleeping dogs snore

Fifty days into the year 2014 saw me re-enter the dismal and forbidding doors of Dan Murphy for the first time since the last days of the year following 2012.  My purpose is this diversion to the house of liver abuse (following a lovely Club Saffron Indian visit) was to procure a bottle 18yr old Macallan scotch whisky.  Now - most whisky experiences are best experienced with passion and anticipation of exquisite flavours and subtleties of palate, and the Macallan range is no different.  I usually work my way up through a distillers range from youngest to eldest in order to comprehend what the master in-charge of blending has tried to achieve.  So I skipped the 18yr old, and also the 15 and bought the modest 12 Fine Oak.  To my nose came grasses and peach, the palate has green fruit with slightly oily herbs, and the finish is shortish with mixed spice.  It was shortly after that I discovered two disturbing facts:  the first was that 100ml of this (or any other) whisky has the same kilojoules as a large Hungry Jacks fries. The second is that I had already bought a bottle of 12yr Fine Oak in November - and I could have skipped it and moved onto the 15yr.  Oh, for a good memory.

4 mattresses, but not stacked

This blog is not a weight-loss journal.  I have another blog for that.  I added to that one 21 times in four months several years ago, for a grand total of 16kgs lost bringing my BMI back into the low 20s.  A year has passed since then, and I have lost a further 8 kg.  I also put 12kg back on in between, so it's not all roses and cappuccinos.  But it's fun to have only jeans that fall down on your hips like a teenage rap delinquent complete with a backwards baseball cap.   I hate rap.  Purely for the selfish reason that I've never heard an example that vaguely interests me.  I think the spread of such music is a wee bit like an Emperor cat-walking a new very shear outfit.  Youngsters (and some oldsters) profess to enjoy it because it's in fad, and they don't want to appear square.  Either that, or I'm just an old bastard with no tolerance for change.  I like metal music - old and new, gothic and doom, thrash and speed, NWOBHM and viking.  It doesn't even have to come from northern Europe - but it helps.

Within Temptation - the best.

Life & Wisdom & Stuff

No quotes, just reflections on the things that bounce around in my head.

This is the day my eldest left the nest and headed some several hundred kilometers south to start university.  I will miss her smile and world view!  I guess it's quite wrong to hope she abandons after one semester and comes back home forever?  It really does only feel like yesterday that I took a year off work to be a house-husband so I could look after Taff - it was 1994.

Lake Wakatipu, Jan 2013

Embrace honest sadness, it has great healing properties.  So does laughter, but I was never as good at that as Taff is!

Coffee is a two pronged sword.  But I never worked out what the first prong did.  The second is just the headaches when you go cold turkey.

Emotional self indulgence is the biggest enemy of happiness.  Don't dwell on painful things ever - go somewhere else in your head, it's a big place. Remember that admitting that you're bored is an insult to your own imagination.

You can't change the past, but you can shape the future.  Don't look back and regret, do something.  Embrace the future with a positive outlook, '...sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof...'.

Tasman Glacier - a somewhat knackered Taff!

Believe in people.  They see the world differently and have differing hopes and dreams.  They aren't limited by you.

If you feel you have to drink scotch, buy the good stuff.  Once you stop drinking for pleasure alone, it's a very slippery slope.  The same doesn't apply to chocolate - there is no good chocolate.  Cheese is somewhere in the mid zone. 

Wasted hours are not wasted if we spend them together.  I'm not sure if that applies to WoW, or SWTOR, or Tera, or Rift, or LOTRO, or POTBS, or computer time in general, but it's still better than being apart.

We reap what we sow - and the harvest is coming.  Don't pretend to look surprised when it arrives.

Bare feet, 2degC, Lake Tekapo

Don't watch or read or listen just to support your own beliefs.  Keep an open mind and be changed by what you experience.

Life never stops.  It's cycles are sometimes slow and seem stagnant, but they will spin off into distant memory all too soon.  Choose to enjoy today.

There is a negative correlation between how often you weigh yourself, and your BMI.  There is a correlation between global gross human industrial pollution and climate change.  the earth is not just big boned.

A fracture, a break and a crack are synonymous.  I used to think radiography was a grey zone, but it's fairly black and white.

Never take the easy way out.  Unless it's egg and noodles.  Or pizza.  Or both.  But at least consider the vegetable omelet option.

Crown Range Rd lookout.

Happiness and love are not arbitrary or concrete states of being.  They are choices we make every minute of every day.  As RLP said once:  '...if you want to love, choose to love, and be patient.'  If you want to be happy, choose to be happy and you will find happiness right where you are.  

I did say I wouldn't include any quotes here (there are at least three so far, but it doesn't really count as a quote if you write them from memory), but this is from a good friend:  "You chose your life, as do we all, in a million tiny valuings." (el Bravo)

Never forget God.  It's easy to structure our lives without Him, and an effort to trust and obey what we know to be true - but that's the only life course we can follow that won't eventually sink into regret.  It's no wonder the word 'fight' was chosen.  Fight the good fight - it's a fight against yourself as much as anything, and not a fight we can win alone.

Anyway my Taffy - I'm very proud of you and I always will be.  You get out there in Avondale academia-land and kick butt, have fun, work hard, make some good friends, and - if you can manage it - eat properly :-)

The Winter Olympicasticals

Over several past olympic decades, we've really enjoyed the immersion in the icy competition that is the winter Olympics.  This year less so.

Other things have eclipsed the fervent heat of Nordic endeavor.   One of these is the 5th Dimension.  What?  It's a long story.  And it's still under construction.  There was (or will be) a wee girl named Alex (possibly a descendant of Bravus) who was born with the ability to enter C (cyber) space mentally and commune the few computers that have achieved sentience.  She's not the first person to achieve this, but the others were executed in an act of genocide some five millennia earlier.  She is searching the known universe for her brother, and stows away with a misfit crew on an experimental craft equipped with a computer who is not just alive, but is sensible.  Unlike her brother.  My Taff is the author of said story - and it's my favorite.  Ever.

As a sonographer in NSW, I'm obliged to be registered with the ASAR, and sensibly join the ASA who will forthwith triennially interrogate me. As a radiographer I'm obliged to be triennially interrogated by AHPRA and sensibly join (for the first time is more than two decades) the AIR.  This also allows me to participate in an MRI competency accreditation course - which does nothing more than push me towards a slight understanding of MR physics as I try to train my half century old brain to competency in this dark magic.  I'll either achieve it, or I won't.  At the moment it seems that after a morning under the influence of the 3T magnet, I'm just relieved to rejoin the darkened world of of echoes and gel.

We'll see if I make the grade.  I won't waste their time.  My omniscient large boss told me a few years ago that my brain was too old to learn MR.  But, I reckon I'll get there. 

February the mid

All things change and life moves on.  The year 2014 feels like it has just started, except that it's already 12.6% gone.  I've had a dry 2014 so far, and have therefore dropped my BMI by 1.8, and regenerated a few liver cells.  After a January flying solo U/S, I've started training in MRI.  The physics is fun, but a bit of a head spin at times.  I'm enrolling in a UQ MR masters - but how far beyond grad cert I get will depend on finances.

(someone's head, from somewhere)

Speaking of finances, my Taff will be heading off to college next week. I still have no clue as to what she's actually studying, but I guess I'll work it out as the year drifts past. Jen will drive her the 8 hours south, and help her through the registration process.  A few weeks later we'll all be passing through en route to the Melbourne F1, so we'll be able to inspect how untidy her dorm room has gotten...  Cooranbong is a nice quiet town, and is home to mostly happy memories for Jen and I (high school not always being pleasant) and it will be nice to see Taff construct some pleasant memories of her own from that town.  All four of her grandparents live within a few minutes drive of college - it's a pity she can't drive yet - but that's a job for later in the year.

(Probably November, given the purpleness)

Lach has spent the last 3 months on gaming night-shift, but is now returned to keeping normal school hours for his year twelve.  A dirt-bike riding hiatus of two months followed a nasty accident before Xmas that saw him unconscious and ambulanced to hospital for an extended stay.  We are both not pushing it quite so hard on the trails since then - it's all about the risk:fun ratio.  Some risks are just not worth it.

(I'd say it was a Renault engine, probably)

Jen has started writing F1 pieces for thejudge13 F1 website.  I've been a continual fan of that sport for several decades (usually in the gaps between MotoGP and WSBK) but my knowledge of it's history extends no further back than the first races I saw in 1983.   Her research into engine and aerodynamic developments has been fun to read.  F1 starts a new era this year with ERS and turbos etc, but historically these upheavals in the rules have occurred many times - the more things change the more they just repeat history.

the week that was

One of about 4000. Potentially. Tis a bit like counting chickens. Anyway, Taff celebrated her 15th birthday this week, and hasn't taken that dressing gown off since. She has now discovered rock grinding and polishing - a process significantly more lengthy than even telescope mirror production, but at least it is automated. Her tumbler will run in 8 powder grade cycles over the next three weeks. Noisy bloody thing it is too.

Taff the fire bug...

In one week's time, my 2 and half year trip down academic lane will be over. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the amount of WoW time it filled has been just uncivilized. It will be a relief to be able to do nothing on a sunday morning without feeling guilty for not studying - because I never got around to opening the books on a sunday anyway. It will be an icy day in antarctica before I consider ever studying again...