Scott T: The Blog
Twenty-Twelve!
Posted Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 11:00pm by ScottTagged: everyday
No comments - Add one!
Another year down - it all goes so fast! Even worse is I'm strugging to think of all the things that have happened since my last post 'update' post in June - although I guess my Twitter stream could help there.
I guess the major achievement in the second half of the year was getting back into an exercise routine. I initially got my old bike brought down from my parents and rode that for a few weeks - the first ride left me crumpled on the lounge for a good hour and it was only 5km long however that slowly increased each weekend. A month after starting, I could push out 20km in an hour - not bad for the heavy old mountain bike I had. It was about that point I decided to upgrade as well - a new 'end of season' hybrid, which I've been absolutely enjoying - even going on 2 or 3 hour rides now. (Side note: Strava is an awesome online service to track rides online, and is currently also branching out to runs/walks too).
Weather warmed up, more cycling (with a bit of sailing mixed in), Relay for Life came and went (Strava says I walked just shy of 20km) and suddenly it's December! Christmas Day was fairly pleasant although a bit warm during the day. We did, however, have a nice lightning storm come through in the evening providing the chance for my sister to grab this impressive photo.
Hope everyone else had a great Christmas and New Year period too, because I know I certainly did :)
The photo-post
Posted Tue, Jun 07, 2011 at 10:43pm by ScottTagged: everyday, water
No comments - Add one!
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this post should cover me for silence over the last few months. As always, click the picture for an enlarged view.
Just a random assortment of images from my life over the past four months.
Now for a brief explanation: Firstly, I do admit I've gone a little coffee-crazy recently. The image top-left has some 35kg of green beans sitting in it... by my math it's 2 years worth of beans (assuming I'm the only person to drink the coffee). All those greens do explain the third image down on the left too - home roasting is the next step in my hobby, and it's rather fun being able to choose some different varieties to roast in a session and then individually sample them over the following weeks. Latte art seems to be getting better too - can get things resembling a heart or rosetta most attempts now, even though they're not perfect.
The water did get quite high at one point back in February - the jetty is shown with water lapping the boards. It was quite strange to walk along the jetty getting wet feet when only a year or so ago the jetty barely reached the water. I also headed home for the Easter regatta in April, but unfortunately didn't get much sailing done. Yet another year with no breeze over the Saturday or Sunday (while the days leading up to the weekend would have been great).
Also back in Feb/Mar we had a few power interruptions which got annoying quickly - after the 3rd or 4th within a four week period I splurged on a UPS. One could say I've wasted money, but I say it's doing it's job - we haven't had a single power blip since =P That said, if the power does go out, the computer should be good for some 45 minutes now with both monitors off and left completely idle.
Unfortunately, the weather is definitely cooling off now - still tolerable during the day but below 5C each night makes it a little hard to get up each morning... bed is much nicer =P
Goodbye, Winter
Posted Mon, Oct 04, 2010 at 8:32pm by ScottTagged: everyday, sailing, water
2 comments
October long weekend is just about over, and the weather was absolutely wonderful - particularly for sailing. Saturday and Sunday held the usual LBYC Opening Regatta - a small selection of photos is available. Both days provided plenty of wind for the sailors, with several people going swimming and quite a number of 'almost' stories being traded on the Sunday afternoon. Also considering that the weekend was one of sailing, I didn't break trend and managed to gain a light pink tinge to my upper arms and nose - fortunately a long way off the bright red glow I've obtained on previous occasions.
Quite incredibly, the water level has also been raised - the current photo used for my header graphic is well and truly out of date.
Not too far off the old pool level at all. Even better news is that with all the recent rain further upstream in the last few weeks, water levels are expected to rise even further which will be great to see.
Obviously, being a long weekend, I was expecting traffic to be fairly hectic. I believe I was ahead of it on the Friday evening (not too many cars to worry about the length of the trip home), however the return leg earlier this-afternoon was a bit busier. One of the ferry crossings was the busiest I've seen it for quite some time, while I've heard that the highway from home to Adelaide got worse, the close to Adelaide you got.
As much as the rain of the past 6 months has been nice, I'm certainly looking forward to the warmer weather of the next month or two - bring on October!
Labyrinthitis (or how to get motion sickness without physically moving)
Posted Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 9:02pm by ScottTagged: everyday
No comments - Add one!
Labyrinthitis. Not a topic I'd have expected to bring up in this blog again at all, let alone in such a short time-frame. After reading many of the other accounts of people (particularly here) who are diagnosed, I also feel lucky.
I've been 'hit' three times now - the first of which was the worst (even before the fact it was just prior to Christmas). For the first few days, movement was limited to crawling, eyes closed, with shoulder and head sliding along the wall. Each day would find me feeling a bit better, but it was quite a long week - even on day 9, there was some after-effects. The second time ~2 years later wasn't as bad. Walking was possible - as long as I had a hand against something, and recovery was shorter, but it was still a tough week.
Now, just short of 2 years later I get a third dose - or at least that's my first-hand diagnosis given the symptoms. This time around seems to be even less-severe. Walking has been uncomfortable and the worst of the symptoms lasted only Friday evening and all of Saturday. Though today is only 'day 2 or 3', I've been able to do most things without too much trouble.
Even though I've (seemingly) had it fairly easy, hopefully three times is enough... they say bad things come in 3's, don't they? Otherwise, Autumn 2012 - here we come.
"The time has come,"
Posted Sun, Jul 04, 2010 at 9:45pm by ScottTagged: everyday, uni
2 comments
... the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax; Of cabbages and kings". -- Lewis Carol,. The Walrus and The Carpenter
Another four months gone already? I do wish I was able to post a bit more often, but time certainly flies with a full-time job and having to cook every night. As much as I don't miss the Uni work every evening and being in close proximity to 200 other students, I somewhat miss having meals provided as part of the accommodation. I have become quite attached to cooking a stir-fry for tea though, since they're easy to prepare, can be scaled up to ensure left-overs either for lunch or tea the next day, and taste great. I've made a few more 'involved' meals on occasion, but otherwise I like to stay simple. Now for the rundown of activity since Easter...
There's two major events - the first of which is the fact I've now got a full-time job. The major difference I've noticed when compared to Uni life is there's less spare time - mostly based on the fact that at Uni I could get away with hobbies and such when I should have been studying *cough*. On the other hand, the people I work with are great, so I'm happy.
Secondly, I graduated from Uni (with First Class Honors). Although last year was rather hectic - particularly towards the end - I guess it's all been worth it. Graduation ceremony was at the end of April - although the ceremony itself seemed rush, it was great to officially close the 4 years off. Here's a photo of me (or at least my internet-friendly photo stunt-double).
On the slightly less exciting news front, I've also left the world of a simple mobile phone behind. After four years and two Nokias (neither died - both of which still work fine), I've migrated to a smart-phone. The phone of choice is the HTC Desire, which is nearly a hardware identical to Google's Nexus One. Photo below shows the box (with 1:1 scale Desire on the front), with my old Nokia flip-phone sitting on top.
I wasn't really sure what to expect, despite having the Desire in my mind as an 'I want' back in January or February. The touchscreen keyboard is different to get used to (I do quite miss the tactile edge between keys), and the inbuilt dictionary is quite impressive. HTC Sense and their 'FriendStream' app allow easy aggregation of FB and Twitter status updates, while the seemingly border-less tie-in of Google services is great. Although pretty good out-of-the-box, the power is the Android Market (much like the iPhone's App Store). The difference is that entirely EVERYTHING about Android can be replaced via the Market - don't like the default SMS app? Change it. Don't like the keyboard? Try a different one.
A short list of some useful apps I've found:
- 3banana Notes && OI Shopping List - No note taking ability by default, so I use OI for shopping and other "todo" lists, and 3banana for everything else.
- Setting Profiles - Automatically change phone profiles, turn features on/off, etc based on rules (time, location, battery state, etc).
- Android Agenda Widget - Small widget for the homescreen for your calendar.
- Call Confirm - Confirm if you want to dial a number before doing so - particularly while learning about the phone, I had a few instances where 'dial' was not the operation I expected.
- ASTRO + ASTRO SMB - File browser for the local or remote windows file shares.
- My Tracks - Keep track of movement via GPS (usually only enabled on a long driving trip)
- Wapedia - Easy Wikipedia access - 'nuff said =P
Overall, I like the phone - quite a bit of power at your fingertips, along with a semi-decent camera (at least it's substantially better than my old phones - still not as good as a dedicated camera), plus it makes phone calls. Battery life with my usage patterns will get 2 days at a stretch (a far cry from the 1 week I'm used to), but that seems pretty normal for a smart-phone. Especially considering it stays connected to WiFi for most of the day.
On a closing note, I've also bought a coffee machine for myself - as a result, the latte art is slowly improving. I expect to get a rosetta sooner or later.
Also, the temperature has been getting pretty low here some nights (at least compared to what I'm used to, though not as cold as some of my friends have to put up with), resulting in the occasional morning of ice on the car. A novelty for me, if nothing else.
