I keep meaning to update my blog.. but never seem to get around to it.

Bub is now 10 months old, and getting into everything. She has about a million photos that can be viewed HERE.

She is becoming more and more human every day, which is a scary thought. It won’t be too long before she becomes capable of independent thought - and from there it is only a short jump before she sees through the charade that we maintain to make her believe how incredibly awesome we are.

I am back in the wonderful world of government projects, spending a couple of days a week in Canberra.. Which is, I suppose, hooray. Something a bit different anyway, and should give me plenty of horror stories to tell around the campfire. I’d been running out of QLD Govt stories.

Or is it # 6? Who knows, and who cares.

While waiting for the 1am feed last night, I finally got around to exporting all my blog posts to Wordpress. My ancient installation of pmachine had stopped working a while back, but because I hardly posted, I didn’t bother getting it fixed. Quite a convoluted process it is too, I had to export to v1.5 of Wordpress, then upgrade that to the latest version 2.

Speaking of feeds, living with a week-old baby has been quite an eye opener. Other parents will tell you, but until you experience it, you don’t really understand just how intense an experience it is. It’s not just feeds and sleeping every 3 hours, once you get past the settling, feeding, burping, changing and whatnot, you’ve barely sat down for 15 minutes before the cycle starts over again. Which is why we’ve been very pleased to get a few 3-4 hour stretches of sleeping in the last couple of days. I hope we have a settled baby, that way we can love her just a tiny bit more.

No, just kidding, no matter how crazy Phoebe gets, even if we get frustrated at not knowing what’s the matter when she is screaming her lungs out for no apparent reason in the middle of the night… it’s all worth it when she finally goes to sleep - again, for no apparent reason!

She is awfully tolerant of those long tedious photoshoots too, although we have to keep them pretty short otherwise Miss Crankypants starts to fuss…

Here is one from today:

More here : Phoebe Week 2 Gallery

It may interest you to learn a little about our newest member of staff

Phoebe Louise Lee joins us effective from today the 28th of April at 04:51am, working in the Crying and Pooping Division, an area that has been severely understaffed of late in the organisation. Phoebe comes to us with ample qualifications, being 48 cm long and 3.06 kg.

Despite being completely incomprehensible at this point in time, Phoebe would like you to know that her hobbies include crying, sleeping, pooping and flailing about in a red-faced, jellyfishy sort of way.

The management are very pleased with the new signing, our Director of Manufacturing, Finance and Warfare is quoted as saying “Thank Christ that’s over. You’re not getting another one of those things out of me, I can tell you that. Where’s my happy gas tube. Did you take my happy gas tube?! Give me the happy gas tube!!!”

To help you identify Phoebe in the corridors, attached is an attractive mugshot. More examples of her impressive porfolio can be found at http://losfp.smugmug.com/gallery/4812902_kSoMw

Phoebe hopes you will pop by and say hi, and looks forward to meeting you all in the fullness of time.

cheers from Des, Janelle & Phoebe.

Yep that’s right, the Megaplex is holding a guessing competition…

Guess the sex of the baby, and the first initial (bonus marks for getting the actual name). No prizes, just bragging rights

The results have already pretty much been set in stone, so have a guess - results announced in late April!

SYDNEY - The Stanbury Megaplex has announced that their live-in staff numbers will be rising in late April 2008.

After receiving early advice, the Megaplex management was able to report that they are expecting a rise in headcount of approximately 50%, or one. The principal manufacturer for the project is said to be relieved at the news that scope will be limited in that regard.

A spokesperson for the Megaplex is quoted as saying “yes, we are very excited. I’ve seen the scan, and it appears to be human, insofar as I am able to tell from those black and white fuzzy screens. The rather stern lady with the barcode reader at the ultrasound clinic didn’t seem to find it very funny when I asked if she wanted my flybuys card next. Say, these baby things are supposed to be able to mow the lawn and contribute around the house pretty much straight away right?”

The Megaplex hopes to deliver their little bundle of crying on-time and on-budget, on or around the 27th of April, 2008 (Industry figures have revealed that while it is just as likely as not to produce the deliverables on time, there is often scant hope of sticking to the budget).

If you happen to already know, now is the time to show your surprised face.

Lots of brain-grinding going on at the new job - it is always fun learning a new product, especially one that is probably twice as big as the one at my old job!!

Good to get back to work and relatively motivated at least!!

The best part is that since I’ve only moved about 250m away, I don’t have to get used to traveling to a different location or finding new food spots. Which also allows me to attend a traditional laksa lunch tomorrow to celebrate Ashley’s departure from HRX…. Hooray for laksa!

I’m trialling a couple of different ways of importing my blog into facebook.. so don’t worry if it appears to appear twice

Well, now that I think I’ve managed to import my blog into facebook, I might blog a bit more often, on the off-chance that it might be read a little more often….

I start a new job tomorrow, which is exciting. Pretty much constant work since 2001, which I’m rather satisfied with - those long months of unemployment after finishing my diploma were pretty lousy. I think I’ve rather gotten used to working, and at the very least, complaining about work keeps me pretty busy.

My last job taught me a lot about life, and here’s hoping the new opportunity does the same!!!

Did anyone see the weird arse sky in Sydney tonight?

Photos here -> LINK

Fun time was had by all.

Well, we finally got off our butts and went for a bit of an adventure this weekend. Not content with simply pottering about the house and taking photos of the contents therein (the bunny was getting a bit sick of me), we decided to go out to the blue mountains for a bit of a wander. Now, the original plan at Wentworth Falls was to go out to the Princes Rock lookout and take some pics there (perhaps about 30 minutes round-trip), then go to Katoomba, and maybe Jenolan caves if there was time.

Well, time there wasn’t. When we got to Wentworth Falls, the signage told us that the track to Princes Rock was closed for maintenance, but there were alternative routes. So we went. At some point, we got to an intersection that had “for experienced walkers only” on one side. Oh, said I. I think I know this one, you can get to a turn-off that leads back up to that lookout. Are you sure, said she, for I don’t think she trusted me completely.. with good reason, as it turned out.

At some point, we found ourselves inadvertantly following the Wentworth Pass, marked on the map as “5 Hours, 6km, Hard Grade”. Basically takes you all the way down to the bottom of the valley, then up again. Goodbye nice safe maintained tracks, hello crawling around and over rocks, creeks and spending half our time going “where the @)#$ is the bloody track?”. We managed it in about 6.5 hours, which is not bad considering the constant stops for photos and for dying of chronic lack of fitness.

Summary of the day:

“No honey, honest, I think this is definitely the way back to the top of the cliff. I don’t have a map or anything, but I’m sure we have to turn left here”.

2 hours later

Me: “Wow, look how far we’ve climbed down - isn’t it great?!”
Her: “Do you realise we have to climb back up there too?”
Me: “D’oh!”

an hour later

Her: “Where the hell is the bloody track? No one ever comes here so there’s bloody shrubs and ferms and rocks all over the place. Is that why you always make me walk in front? So I can find the freakin’ non-obvious bloody track for you?”
Me: “Yeah, and also so that if we come across any tigers, you can get eaten first”
Her: “What was that?!?!”
Me: “Nothing. Just keep walking”

Another hour later:

Her: “We’ve come this way already. I told you we followed a track that wasn’t the track back there”
Me: “Great. We didn’t bring any food because we didn’t expect to be walking so long. But that doesn’t matter, because we’ll be eaten by the Blair Witch anyway.”
Her: “What was that?!?!”
Me: “Nothing. Just keep walking”

Started off at the Wentworth Falls picnic area, and FINALLY emerged near the Conservation Hut. Elation soon turned to despair when we saw the sign that said “WWF picnic area and car park this way, 20 minutes, 1km - easy grade”.

In the end, it was tough and tiring, though strangely rewarding and fulfilling. My calves are screaming bloody murder - every step down means a step you have to climb on the way up. I think it was definitely a worthwhile experience, and something that we’d like to do a bit more of in the future…

Some pics that made it worthwhile traipsing about a wet, overgrown track with 7kg of photography gear and a tripod strapped to my back…. I didn’t do a lot of PP to these, just levels/curves/WB/sharpening in Adobe Camera Raw.

Click here for full gallery