He's just this guy, you know.

This will be quick ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:10:54 GMT

There's that "how many places have you stayed away from home this year" meme going around.
This year, my list is very short :
Adelaide
Foster*

(* means I've visited more than once ... )

This does mean it's been more than 12 months since I last stepped into an airport.
...
You know, I really like the sound of that phrase, I must say it more often :-)

I can sum up my year of cinema-going very briefly too :
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Avatar (3D)

... maybe we need to get out a bit more ?

A little ride ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 05:43:55 GMT

So, on one of the cycling forums I read, a little message popped up, referring to this tweet from Cadel Evans, proposing a little group ride from Hurstbridge to Kinglake (with a loop out around Arthur's Creek and Strathewen).

I was still undecided about going even as I was getting up this morning, but in the end I decided it was a nice day for a ride, and it's not like you see world champions riding around every day. Of course, being a Sunday morning I was pretty slow to get going, and drove in to Hurstbridge around 9:40 - not a cyclist in sight. Oops. I quickly got on the bike and took a reasonable guess on which road they might have gone down (the signpost saying "Arthur's Creek" was a good clue). I saw riders heading the opposite direction, one or two at a time, along the way, and started wondering if I was going the wrong way, or maybe that I'd really missed out on the group somewhere. And then I rolled into Arthur's Creek and saw this, at the CFA depot :

Aha ! "Little" group found. Cadel was somewhere up the front, talking to the CFA people, or maybe giving a little speech - I couldn't tell from where I was, but there was occasional laughter and a couple of rounds of applause. And then we hit the road. I mostly tailed along at the back of the group, not because I was struggling with the tempo (it was billed as a social ride, after all), but it has been a number of years (almost 20) since I regularly rode in bunches, and I may be a bit rusty on bunch-riding skills these days.

Eventually we hit the climb to Kinglake, and a strange thing happened - people started going backwards. Or rather, I started moving forwards, through the bunch. I wasn't trying all out or anything, but apparently all of my commuting this year (and maybe the wider gear range on my bike than most pure racing bikes) has helped my climbing skills. In the end, I caught up with the front group of 30 or so rides (including Cadel, of course) and stayed with them to the top. At that point the Kinglake bakery and cafe (which only opened/re-opened recently) must have thought their Christmases had all come at once, with 50 or 60 hungry cyclists descending on the place.

After a break there (in which I didn't get my cycling top signed, although maybe I should have ?), we headed back down. I stopped for a photo or two (e.g. see below), and had to chase for a while, but caught up with the main group after 7 or 8km. We rolled into Hurstbridge, and that was that. 70km of riding, some of it through areas affected by last summer's bushfires, which seem to be regenerating as best they can.

And here's a view over the Kinglake area on the way down - in the middle distance, you might be able to see some cyclists on their way down (may need to click through to the larger version of the photo to make them out, though) :

Random stuff ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:39:27 GMT

So, Melbourne people - what type of tree is it that is currently in blossom with lots of lilac/light purple-ish flowers around the place ?
While I'm at it, what's the tree with all the violet flowers ?

Meanwhile, we have a Christmas tree :

We has lights !

And a recent photo of the works at Nunawading station - note that the old station is still operating for another two weeks before they go berserk with it :

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:13:40 GMT

On Saturday, rwrylsin and I went to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. I liked it ! But I was expecting it to be weirder than it was - it was neat, but not quite waaaay out there (or maybe I've just been exposed to too much strange stuff on the Internets).

Anyway, that was the first time we've been to a cinema since we got back to Australia (so, over a year), and I can't remember when the last time was before that or what we saw. It was probably in Glasgow, probably the Cineworld or whatever it's called these days, and it was probably a cold night (because that's the most common kind in Glasgow :-) ).

Meanwhile, I've had my bike for just over a year now, and today's commute took it just over 5000km. That means I've accomplished my goal at the start of the year of doing 4200km this year - obviously I'll have to be more ambitious in 2010 !

In other news, our office is being moved in to the CBD, and in a couple of weeks, our nearest train station is closing so they can demolish it and finish the new shinier version[1], so I may be riding to work 4 or 5 days a week for a while, getting a good start on whatever my goal is for the year. And I think I'm going to have a go at the 210km Around the Bay in a Day next October.

[1] Yes, the irony is not lost on us, after living next to the Partick redevelopment for three years and not seeing it finished, they're going to get Nunawading done in about six months.

More Things ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:41:00 GMT

Short Shameful Confession time : I've barely been using Linux at home for the last six months. Most of the time, I'm on Windows XP.

The main problem is that I've never managed to get any video driver other than the standard vesa one to work on my laptop. I've run through every FAQ and Howto I can find, using packages, Envy, manual install, lots of different versions of the nvidia drivers - but in all cases, I can get the driver installed, and when X comes up, the display is "all messed up" - i.e. part of the screen overlapping the rest, lines across the screen, flickering, etc. Not usable in any way.
Seems to be something incompatible with my particular combination of hardware (and being a laptop, I don't really get to start swapping things around to fix it).

That wasn't so much of a problem before, because I could still use the vesa driver and get a decent resolution display, as the cost of no 3D acceleration. But then I wanted to hook up an external monitor, and guess what else the default driver doesn't support ?

Sadly, It Just Works in Windows. I set the external monitor as the primary display, and everything I've tried so far displays correctly on it.

So ... I'm starting to think about buying a separate Linux machine, or maybe a Mac mini. Something quiet which doesn't require too much power. Oh look, Christmas is just around the corner :-)

Things ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:29:50 GMT

Today's earworm while I was cycling to work was the Red Dwarf theme tune - all 40 minutes of it.
Ooof.

Meanwhile, I've (finally) started "ripping" my old cassettes - four down, about 300 to go. First priority is the stuff which can't be found anywhere else - e.g. my recordings from the Womadelaide 93 and 95 events (mainly Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan), various DJ mixes from Dreaming Daisies/The China Syndrome days, etc.

AKICILJ ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:53:35 GMT

So, once upon a time I used to have (among my "load every day" bookmark folder) a weather site, which summarised the world's weather for the previous day. It also listed the extremes of the day, e.g. hottest/coldest places, highest rainfall, etc, and was a very interesting site.

Of course, time passed, and so, apparently, did my bookmarks, and I can't find the site again.
Any idea what it was, and if it still exists ?

Time passes ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:48:34 GMT

A year ago ~~today~~ ~~a few days ...~~ ... ummm, about a year ago, rwrylsin and I arrived back in Australia. The past year has featured a car, bicycles, jobs, a house, and a bunch of weather. It's good to be back !

(but we do miss Scotland still :-) )

Boxes !

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:01:44 GMT

Anyone (Melbourne-based) planning to move soon ? We still have a lot of moving boxes left over, and we don't intend to move again for a long time. Comment (LJ or DW) or get in touch in some way and let me know if you want some !

Belated report of Reasonable day of Triumph ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:18:08 GMT

So, last Sunday was Around the Bay in a Day, at which I rode the 100km Sorrento to Melbourne leg. The ride went well - my original plan was to take it easy, take a break at every rest stop (every 25km or so) and generally cruise along.

That plan met my competitive streak, even though it was Not A Race, so I found myself zooming along with various small groups of riders, and only made one brief stop to remove my rain jacket. Ended up doing 98km at an average of 30.8km/h, which is quite reasonable indeed.

It's probably been 15 years since I've cycled that far with no rest breaks, and that's probably the fastest I've gone on a ride of that length since some time in the very early 90s, when I was still competing in cycle racing of various sorts. Goes to show what riding to work about three days a week since June has been doing for me.
It's still possible to sponsor me (proceeds to The Smith Family, helping disadvantaged children) here.

And ... I think I'm going to enter the 210km event next year, to "celebrate" turning 40. Or something. That could be a whole new challenge, I was pretty confident that I could do 100km, but I've never done more than 150km in a day before. Some training may be required :-)

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:26:20 GMT

Whew. We have Internets again !

(on Friday evening, the power went out for about an hour; this was apparently too much for the power supply for the cable modem, which shuffled off the mortal coil at that point. The replacement (new cable modem/wifi-router unit!) arrived at work today ... )

Around the Bay in a Day !

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:11:14 GMT

On Sunday the 18th (eek, less than 10 days !), I'll be doing the 100km ride of Around The Bay In A Day (maybe next year I'll build up to the 210 or 250km versions). One of the aims of the ride is to raise funds for The Smith Family, providing education and learning opportunities for disadvantaged Aussie kids. You can sponsor me here !

'tis the season for ... fencing !

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:11:22 GMT

Apparently this is exactly the right time of year to hold a fencing tournament. Over the past week or so, there's been the Australian Under-20 Championships, Australian University Games (which has fencing!), World Veterans Championships in Moscow, World Championships in Antalya, and finally, the Highland Open in Inverness. I haven't been at any of them, though - not young enough, not student enough, not old enough, not good enough, and not near enough, respectively :-)

(unfortunately, no Australian triumphs from the two World-level events - congratulations to Amber on her L64 at Worlds, though !)

The Ways of Wine ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:40:38 GMT

So, what do I need to know about wine ? I have a glass or two every now and then (usually red, usually chosen randomly), but I don't really know much about how wine should be stored or cared for.
How long can I keep a bottle around after it has been opened ? How should they be stored ? (And is it different for cork vs screw cap vs artificial cork ?) How would I determine if a wine should be kept (cellared ?), and for how long ? Feel free to answer all the other questions that I should be asking, too :-)

Gadgets ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:07:18 GMT

Does a camera count as "gadget" ?
Anyway, I really like the interval timer feature on my Optio W20 - apart from the obvious uses (e.g. making a time-lapse movie of the bump-out of the stage/tech at the Discworld Con last year), I've used it to see which parts of our roof get sunshine through the day (when we were trying to decide if solar hot water would work for us), and to monitor the temperature inside the house pre-insulation (which reminds me, I should do a post-insulation comparison). Who needs a temperature logger ?

I found some Linux software that takes a series of images and makes a movie file out of them - unfortunately, the best it can do is one image per second in the movie file ... it must be repeating each image for 24 or 30 frames - why can't I make it repeat for 5 frames, say ? Anyone know of a handy (free!) tool under Windows or Linux that'll do what I want ?

The next gadget is my new Dremel - the old one has been flaky for a few years now, only running intermittently. I finally got around to putting it in for repair a few weeks ago, and it came back on Monday, with the main switch/speed control replaced - and it still only runs intermittently. I took this as a sign to get an early birthday present, so I have a shiny new Dremel (digital ! Wait, what ? And why ?!). I've been using it for rabbets and dadoes for a pair of bookcases I'm making, and it's making the job much easier and neater than sawing/chiselling would have been.

And my Ay-up bike lights continue to be great - I don't need them as much while riding at the moment, because I've moved to earlier start/finish times at work, but they came with a headband mount as well, and that makes them incredibly useful for the above-mentioned wood-working. rwrylsin bought a set for herself, too, and I think she likes the way drivers actually leave some room for her and give way at intersections when she's using them (possibly because they've been dazzled by the blinding bike lights :-) ).

Mmmmm, gadgets.

That's no moon, that's ... oh wait.

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:52:06 GMT

The moon was very clear and bright tonight :

And so was Jupiter (and probably Callisto and Io to the left, Europa/Ganymede are the blob to the right) :

(all taken with a 300mm/4.5 lens with cheap-ish 2x teleconverter. Exposures and ISO varied randomly until something looked reasonably good ... )

A spot of construction ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:53:33 GMT

What takes 200 nails, 186 holes drilled, 96 screws, 30 metre-long shelves, 30 shelf support batten thingies, 20 flat 90° bracket thingies, 80 more screws, and 6 litres of paint ?

I don't know, but it sure holds a lot of DVDs and CDs !
Yes, it's done. Whatever "it" is. Mega DVD storage ? Epic DVD storage ? Something like that :-)
You see, our house has a ... space. A very small room, you could call it, or a box cupboard, or something. Roughly one by two metres. We decided that it was the perfect place to store our many DVDs and CDs (and tapes, and somewhere I have a couple of LPs as well). So, over the last few weeks I've measured and sawed and painted and drilled and nailed and so on, and the end result is ... still standing, for now. It'll be interesting to see how it goes when it's full of Stuff. And I'll have to post photos sometime ...

Right, then. On to the bookcases !

*thud*

It's been a while since I posted photos ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:14:29 GMT

Here, have some photos ! (as always, click through for larger versions ... )

(I need to clean out my camera more often, the Hong Kong one was taken last November !)

A view over the beach at Largs Bay.

Sunset over the beach at Largs Bay.

A bee !

A bee, again !

A dragonfly.

View over the beach at Largs Bay.

Hong Kong at night

Woohoo !

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:35:59 GMT

Congratulations to my parents on their 50th wedding anniversary !

(errr, for yesterday (Monday), because I'm a little disorganised ;-) )

Meanwhile, the 8th marked 14 years since rwrylsin and I became an item. Yay us !
(... and our 6th wedding anniversary will be in late September, would be much more impressive if we'd got hitched earlier in the relationship :-) )

The cricket ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:18:35 GMT

"You talk about putting your foot on someone's throat and not letting go. I think we have done that very well," England topscorer Matt Prior said.

... obviously he said that rather more than four days ago :-)
It's nice to see such a turnaround in form, for a while I was thinking that the umpires were going to become England's leading wicket-takers. Not that I'm bitter ...

Actually, I'm curious about that turn of phrase - "putting your foot on someone's throat". Anyone know the origin of that phrase, or some phrase that it might have been based on ?

It is a dark and stormy night ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:39:24 GMT

Well, a very windy night, at least, and I'm assuming it's still dark.
Apparently I haven't felt like updating much lately, except when it's All House All The Time.

So, a few non-house-related things :

rwrylsin has reached 1000 LJ posts ! !
She joined after me, but she's now over 100 posts ahead ... Clearly I've been slacking off lately (i.e. the last three or four years).

I have new lights for my bike. These are not "being seen" lights, these are "Argh ! My eyes !" lights, made by Ay Up! (an Australian company). They're also compact (the lights are tiny, and the separate battery is pretty small too), shiny, and nigh-indestructible (and waterproof !). And when I rode home with them on Wednesday night I was finally able to see the road and bike track surface that I've been riding on for the past couple of months (some of the back streets I use are pretty dimly lit, and my previous headlight was just enough to make sure I didn't fall into a ditch, but not much use for trying to maintain a decent speed). They're not cheap, but I'd say well worth it for anyone commuting regularly, or riding on poorly-lit routes.

And ... ok, that's about it, everything else is house-related :-)

Last weekend we finished off the compost bins (they're big and ugly, made of the cheapest treated pine I could find, and not exactly a masterwork of carpentry, but they'll probably survive and be useful for a number of years), I put up some peg-board in the workshop (I have another piece to put up sometime), did some painting (another wardrobe dealt with; one more wardrobe and a cupboard or two to go), and some staining (the last few drawers from an Ikea unit that I started on a few months ago, well before we moved here).

This weekend we're going sofa hunting (shhh! They're shy ... ), and I may end up being rwrylsin's student again in the third session of her coaching course. I've started measuring and marking for the shelves in the DVD/CD/tape/media cupboard. We think this cupboard space was left over when the previous owners extended this place upwards sometime in the 80s - it's about 1m x 1.5m, so we're going to line it with shelves and fill it with Stuff. Once that's done and the painting is finished, the next project will involve bookcases - probably quite a few of them, we have a lot of books.

Driving to work ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:22:37 GMT

Today's lesson is that I definitely don't want to ever drive to work on a regular basis.
Technically, I wasn't driving to (and from) work, I was dropping the car off to be serviced, and the service place happens to be 1km or so away from my workplace. Anyway, the drive in was ok, but took about 50 minutes. The drive home was very very slow going - 20ish km in about 70 minutes. From here, it's much quicker to take the train (about 40 minutes, door-to-door) or cycle (about 45-50 minutes, plus shower-and-changing time when I arrive at work).
Fortunately, the car is happy again (routine service, plus replacing the timing belt - it's at the age where, depending on how the previous owner drove it, it may or may not have needed doing, and we know how expensive it is to deal with if it isn't done in time and goes wrong from our previous car in the UK), and I can get back to efficient commuting (one way gets me fit, the other way gets lots of reading done - the car just gets me bored and/or frustrated).

State of the House ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:40:44 GMT

So, two weeks living in our new house, how are we going ?
Well, the kitchen is in a pretty good state now - all boxes cleared, all of the useful stuff has been put away somewhere - maybe not neccessarily to the final organised spot, but reasonably tidy, at least.
The lounge/dining area still has boxes, but floor is emerging rapidly, and we may even be at the point where we can fit in a sofa once we buy one. The bedroom has one last stubborn box - maybe I'll tackle that tonight. The computer rooms have varying amounts of boxes i.e. mine has lots, rwrylsin's is mostly tidy :-)

And the book unpacking is somewhat stalled, our bookcases are full - about 20 shelf-metres taken, and we're only up to K or so in the fiction books, and only a box or two out in non-fiction. rwrylsin keeps muttering about "weeding", but I am unfamiliar with this concept applied to my our books :-)

The garden, fortunately, is well-establised and only needed some taming so that we could actually walk around it safely (and the clothes hoist is free again). Next weekend I'll be building our compost bins, and looking at the uneven paved area at the back and making tutting noises at it.

And finally, my workshop area should soon be tidy, I have pegboard, blank wall space, and a drill ... muahahaha ! There's also some painting to be done in and around some cupboards and wardrobes, and staining to finish off on some shelves and drawers, but that should all be manageable over the next few months.

After 14 years in rented places, I'm still getting used to the idea of being able to make changes to the house - maybe I need to start rearranging internal walls or something to really get the feel of it. All in all, though, I'm very happy with it.

Photos !

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:23:46 GMT

Since I'm lazy and rwrylsin has already done the work, here are links to photos she's posted in and around our new house : post 1, and post 2.

Somewhat late night ...

david.cook+lj@pobox.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:46:56 GMT

I think I picked the wrong sports to stay up late for last night.
I watched the cricket for a while, stopped watching sometime when England were 7 down, and figured Australia could probably pull off the win despite losing time to the rain on day 4. Alas, England fought to the end and drew the match.
I was also watching the latest Tour de France stage, which wasn't won by an Australian. Unfortunately for Cadel Evans, I don't think he (or any other Australian in the tour) will win overall this year either, after the spectacular Team Time Trial on stage 4.
What I should have been watching, of course, was the German F1 Grand Prix, where Mark Webber won - first GP win for him, first Australian GP win since '81 (ooo-errr, I think I used to watch in those days too).

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