Happy Birthday Mum!

It was 41 degrees today.

Saw Slumdog Millionaire.

All of that was hard work and I am tired now. Goodnight.

• 31 October 2008 11:18am: Monthly birthday lunch at work. The ladies talk about weddings and the guys talk about babies. How to contribute? Linux servers are easier.
• 31 October 2008 01:27pm: Boss is going on vacation. That makes me Captain Inview for two weeks.
• 3 November 2008 04:49pm: Being Captain Inview is stressful when a misconfiguration causes the stats queue to explode and it takes two hours to clear.
• 3 November 2008 09:28pm: mmmmm good and plenties may be good, but they are not plentiful when you have to fly to America to get them.
• Today at 03:48pm: I just realised that I already implemented the feature that I am working on. Either I am just "that good", or my memory is not.

twitter.com/plicease

(click to see in Google Earth)

Yesterday, I got to the Hudson Valley and I hiked around Nuclear Lake with my old hiking buddies Kathy and Becky, along with some new fry who got lost on the way to the train head, but did manage to show up before we left with out them. Nuclear Lake is very pretty and fairly isolated. Years ago we had a surprise birthday party there for Kathy and saw a beaver paddling by our picnic spot, so yesterday I declared that we had to see a beaver! Although there is lots of evidence on this hike of busy beavers in the form of broken sticks and dams, I don’t think we’ve actually seen a beaver since... until yesterday! It was off in the distance, and unmistakeably something that could have maybe been a beaver. I am going to call that close enough :)

...or "happy noodle day" as my friend e says. The beautiful part of Chicken Noodle Day is going to my favourite French restaurant where the food and the wine are delicious. I can’t wait for more of my friends to come visit me down under so that I can take them to this restaurant. My godmother insisted that I have that second glass of wine, so I obliged. That’s all for now. Good night.

Anybody else think its weird that for a year nothing happens, and then in just one day you’re a whole year older?

What’s up with that?

In 1932 my grandma crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge when it opened. She was being pushed in her pram (she was about 8 years old, mum decided). Today, 75 years later Sydneysiders, myself included, celebrated the anniversary by closing the bridge to cars and doing it again. Walking over the bridge was fun. The ABC had big speakers set up along the length of the bridge blaring historical spoken and musical passages which gave the impression of walking through history. They were giving out free caps in this hideous shade of neon yellow green. Almost everyone was wearing one, which made for an impressive sight as the hats flowed and surged. On the back of the cap was written “our bridge.” I have decided that “our” is the Australian national pronoun, as Australians take any excuse to claim ownership of family, celebrities, buildings, bridges or anything that hails from the land down under. There were lots of people, but it wasn’t over crowded. Kudos to the organizers for pulling it off. The state government has gotten a lot of flack over a few recent fiascos ahead of the state election, so I think they were holding their breath hoping that nothing would go wrong! (like when the QE2 and QM2 came to town and the city had no plan for the huge amount of traffic they caused, and last week when commuters were stuck on the trains for 3 hours because apparently there wasn’t an evacuation plan; good thing the trains weren’t on fire or anything). I’d like to be here in 25 years to do it again, celebrating the bridge’s 100th anniversary!

I was in Houston over the long weekend, visiting an important friend. Think I mentioned this whilst I was out there. I don't know why I get accused of always seeming to be go somewhere (I think Ian (of photo lighting class fame) usually make this charge). I only went as far as exotic New Paltz for a birthday party this weekend, and I don't have any genuine plans for the weekend coming up. At least, as the sierra interpter used to tell me: Not Yet. I miss going to class every friday and hanging out, and incidentally doing some photography. It was such a pleasant experience with such fun people that it was hard not to enjoy the week. I think I'm beginning to forget what actual photographers are like.

This was my birthday.