| Tasmania Itinery. |
[02 Jul 2009|09:48am] |
Firstly, thanks for all your kind words and condolences, and offers to help with cats.
Here is a rough plan of our Tasmanian trip. I meant to have more time to plan this one.
But I've rung various people and booked appointments and tours.
Friday
Leave melb 8am.
Lovely Fi driving us to the airport.
Arrive Launceston around 9.30
Hire car
Funeral 2pm
Saturday
Family stuff
Sunday
Visit Launceston Museum
http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/aboutus.html
Hopefully catch up with Liz and Nigel.
Monday
Drive to Ross
Visit site of Ross female factory.
http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=2770
http://www.femalefactory.com.au/FFRG/ross.htm
Drive to Hobart
Depending on time visit Tasmania Archives Office
http://www.archives.tas.gov.au/
Deliver Bear to the airport so he can fly home.
Hopefully stay in a motel with a net connection, so I can raid :)
Tuesday
Visit Port Arthur resource center, I'm exchanging emails with a guy who works in the archives there.
http://www.portarthur.org.au/
Check out the two buildings I'm interested in while I'm there.
Tasmania Archives Office if time.
Wednesday
Tasmania Archives Office
Cascades Female Factory.
http://www.femalefactory.com.au/
Fly home.
I've booked the plane tickets and hired a car. I've booked a hotel in Hobart for Monday and Tuesday night, what is there to do in Hobart in the evening :) Nigel has to arrange accomodation in Launceston. Nigel is going to ask relatives, but if they have a full house, I'll be asking Liz and Nigel :)
Rhys is going to spoil the cats and pick up a key this evening.
I'm frantically emailing all sorts of researchers to make appointments to talk.
This is gonna be a little hectic.
Need to pack Talkie Box (better known to the uninitiated as a GPS).
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[01 Jul 2009|03:07pm] |
I've just booked plane tickets to Tasmania for Friday morning, Nigel's grandmother died.
Not sure how long I will be in Tassie for, I may as well visit Port Arthur, Cacades, Ross and the Tasmania Archives Office while I am there, given I need to for my thesis.
So I need to book return tickets just as soon as I figure out when...
And hire a car...
And arrange someone to look after the cats..
All from the Melb Uni library with a mobile phone with a flat battery...
Anyone got anything good/bad to say about Jetstar? They seem to be the cheapest.
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[01 Jul 2009|12:28pm] |
I've joined twitter, @hobbes23. I have no idea if I'll actually use it at all, because well I actually have enough distractions already thank you very much.
It randomly signed me up to some people on my friends list via gmail, so let me know if you are on twitter and interesting. But really I'm actually interested in watching how twitter works as a news feed and internet phenomenon. The whole communication in 140chars or less doesn't interest me, either does the I had a coffee and went to the toilet crap.
Actually I'd really like it if people could suggest feeds that are interesting for following news etc. I haven't paid much attention so far, but I was looking at my bosses feed because it was kind of interesting, especially when the earthquake happened.
I've just upgraded my windows laptop to Win 7 RC, I've been using the beta for some months and actually quite like it. That said I only use my windows box for playing warcrack, so I haven't been challenging it.
I use my Mac for work stuff.
Anyway - time for warcrack geek lunch for me.
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| Happy Midwinter |
[22 Jun 2009|11:38am] |
Friends, family, good music, excellent food, fellowship
Many good wishes
and cake!
It really doesn't get much better than this.
Absent friends were missed and remembered. The family friendly earlier time slot worked quite well.
Big thanks go to all those that helped out, brought stuff along and had an excellent time.
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| Party Prep |
[21 Jun 2009|12:57pm] |
So we've cleaned the house, most of the food prep got done yesterday with the lovely Fi's help, because its stuff that either needed lots of fridge time (candied chocolate fruit) or benefits from sitting longer (soup and spiced cider). I'm still waiting for the DJ decks to arrive, so we still need to cable the booth up. We also still have to make a pumpkin risotto.
Anyway - I have some wenches showing up in a couple of hours to help set up, and I have very little for them to actually do... So I asked Nigel what I was going to do with my wenches. He said I could make them dress up in corsets and dance for my amusement :)
Hmm... wenches, bring corsets! :)
Why do my friends let me get away with this?
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| Who says govt reports are boring reading |
[19 Jun 2009|03:40pm] |
1856-7, Penal Department, Report of the Inspector General upon the Present state of the Penal Department, and of his views as to its future management.
Report presented to both houses of Parliament by his Excellency’s command.
Report by W. Champ (inspector general)
"At Pentridge, most men are lodged in one stone and twelve wooden rooms that are limited in space, badly ventilated and insecure and the sleeping berths are constructed in such a fashion as to deny all supervision during the night.
I am aware that my predecessor entertained the opinion that a certain nameless offense was not prevalent, and indeed did not exist, among the convicts under his charge; but I regret to be obliged to say that circumstances have come to my knowledge that prevent me from confirming that opinion.
There are seven separate cells, the inmates of which can communicate with each other, and there is neither hospital, chapel, nor school-room."
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| Midwinter is rapidly approaching |
[19 Jun 2009|12:42pm] |
http://kitling.livejournal.com/371904.html
Eep!
Midwinter is this Sunday, so looking forward to see you all there :)
Candle ceremony will happen just after dusk, so if you don't want to miss it, don't be late.
Gifts of firewood gratefully accepted.
And for those absent friends, if you'd like a wish made on your behalf, please comment below :)
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| Prison Hulks |
[18 Jun 2009|03:06pm] |
So I'm sitting in the State Library reading Government reports from the 1850s onwards, a series of yearly reports on the state of the Victorian penal system by the superintendent and inspector general of prisons. It really is fascinating reading. I'm having to skim over all the bits about the prison hulks that were widely used, with some number of them berthed at Williamstown. There is a whole history thesis here simply in the prison hulk usage in Victoria waiting to be written.
It was an interesting practice to use ships as prisoner accommodation.
Due to the massive overcrowding that happened in the prison system in 1850s due to the influx of people due to the Gold Rush, there was a great need for emergency prison accommodation. Interestingly enough, most of the crime was blamed on the evil influence of NSW and Van Diemens Land and all their escaped and conditional pardons of convicts who then traveled to the gold fields bringing their evil convict influences with them.
Popular prison reform ideology stated that criminals needed to be removed from the influences of their upbringing, their associates and other convicts in order to successfully reform them. This entailed a period of separate confinement early in their incarceration. As the overcrowded facilities didn't have the room to confine prisoners in isolation, the prison hulks were established and most of the hardened criminals were sent there to be isolated from the rest of the prisoners. Conditions on board the prison hulks were horrific, the ships were in bad repair, the cells were tiny to accommodate so many people and generally pretty poorly ventilated and often with no access to light or air. In the absence of proper cells, partitions and chains were used to confine prisoners.
Of course, the prison hulks are not my topic, so I must stop letting them distract me.
But if you ask people to name some of the Victorian Gaols, they are mostly likely to name Pentridge, and the Old Melbourne Gaol. A local history student might mention Beechworth, Bendigo, Ballarat etc. People might know of the prison hulks that were used in Britain, but how many of you even knew they were in common use in Victoria.
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/ergo/prison_hulks
http://libraries.hobsonsbay.vic.gov.au/Page/PagePrint.asp?Page_Id=251
Floating prisons on the President, Success, Deborah and Sacramento in Hobson’s Bay. By the end of 1853, 455 prisoners were held on these hulks. A fifth hulk, the Lysander, was added in 1854. By 1856 there were over 6,000 prisoners on these prison hulks, some as young as nine years of age.
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[16 Jun 2009|03:48pm] |
Twist is bored today, he keeps climbing all around his enclosure and then falling off sticks and walls and stuff, which means loud thumps keeping coming from his enclosure, which can be somewhat disconcerting until you figure out what made the noise.
Now he has decided to re-arrange everything inside his enclosure by wrapping his body around things and dragging them around, its kind of funny to watch. I'd love to take him out and play, but I need to wait until Nigel gets home to do that.
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[15 Jun 2009|03:08pm] |
State Library is pretty and has useful things, I need to start spending at least one day a week there for the next little while.
Today is nice weather outside, walking around the in the sun makes me very very happy.
I need to prune my garden, and remove a tree we don't want. We had hydraulic powered secateurs growing up on the farm, sometimes normal secateurs don't cut it.
But Nigel seemed to think buying a chain saw wasn't a good idea, he said no to a circular saw as well. So how should I fix my garden?
Poll #1415928 Chainsaw
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllShould Nigel buy me a chainsaw? If you said no, how should I 'prune' the trees in my garden?
EDIT: I should mention that I did have a set of long secateurs and saw blade given to me by the lovely Penny, but I broke them trying to prune said problematic tree. Plus, you know power tools are cooler, and useful in case of zombie invasion.
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[12 Jun 2009|01:45pm] |
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mood |
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 sick |
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For someone who boasts that the advantage of having arthritis is uber immune system that means I don't tend to pick up all the little colds and sniffles etc that go round. Well, I'm good at chronic pain but I actually really really suck at being sick!
Halp! I haz cold, I don't think its bacon fever, but given the symptoms are pretty much flu symptoms - well you know.
Plz send chicken soup (or nearest vegetarian equivalent), and hugs. I'd also like more brain candy reading material and tv to watch, but I have to wait until Bear gets home.
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[12 Jun 2009|12:22pm] |
http://www.theage.com.au/national/myer-cleaner-bitten-by-snake-in-cbd-20090612-c5iw.html
So apparently a dude got bitten by a snake at Myers, outside in Melbourne in the middle of winter. This is my skeptical face.
The snake handler who got called in to find the snake and he is pretty skeptical as well.
In my not so humble opinion, the only real reason he would find a snake in a dumpster in the city is if someone had a pet snake that had escaped fairly recently. So likely to be non venomous. And even if someone's pet snake had escaped, well they escape pretty easy and can be hard to find, but they would be searching for somewhere warm, not a dumpster. Unless they were fairly hungry and attracted by the smell of rats, but its too cold outside for them to digest food currently.
This cold spell has left me struggling to heat Twist's cage properly. The hot end is peaking at around 26degrees, it should be 32. Twist is coping by curling up tightly in his hide closest the heat lamp and not moving much. It's two weeks since he has been fed, so usually he is prowling around the cage looking for food by now, but he is sleeping through the cold instead.
The snake handler is a professional, the paramedic isn't experienced in snake bite cases.
Of course, I could be wrong.
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| Midwinter is rapidly approaching |
[11 Jun 2009|10:25am] |
Brrrr, its cold outside, actually its pretty cold inside as well, and I have the heater turned up.
I don't like winter, I don't like cold, my brain starts to shut down and I find it much harder to work.
What I do like about midwinter is our midwinter party.
http://kitling.livejournal.com/371904.html
I hope you can all make it.
I'm starting to think about planning the food for it.
We are thinking about making a big pot of hearty winter vegetable soup this year. We are also toying with either doing something savory and pastry like, because running the oven makes the kitchen warm. Or we have been experimenting with candied oranges, lemons and ginger and then chocolate dipping them.
Lee rang up last night and suggested that she try making some savory pastry tarts.
I was wondering what other people were planning on bringing along?
We also plan to make a big pot of the hot spicy apple juice.
I'm looking for kitchen wench volunteers on the day, and remember, you are welcome to cook at my house.
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[10 Jun 2009|03:34pm] |
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So what is the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic anyway?
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[02 Jun 2009|02:16pm] |
So the ATO rejected my application for an ABN, apparently I haven't proven I'm operating a business or commercial activity.
Lets start with the bit where I don't know how to do that and the application didn't seem to ask it.
Anyway - I'm now on hold to the ATO, apparently approx 30min call queue.
So the real question - is how do I invoice these people without an ABN?
EDIT: 35mins on hold, 3 minute phone call.
The letter regards my first application. It told me at the time that didn't work so I assumed I'd filled the form out wrong and re-applied, she tells me the second application looks fine, but it does take up to 28days to be processed and she can't hurry it up.
So conclusion is wait another couple of weeks. How bad a form is it to invoice the company you worked for a month late...
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| Bear's Birthday Circus Weekend! |
[02 Jun 2009|11:52am] |
What better way to celebrate one's birthday by seeing not one, but two circuses in the one weekend :)
First up, on the 26th June at NICA - at 8pm
http://www.nica.com.au/
ARIEL'S DREAM
Fall under the spell of magical mayhem in this family show by 1st and 2nd year students.
Ariel’s Dream transports us to a world of magic and adventure where love and retribution jostle for a position on the high wire. Set on an imaginary island, the exuberant cast brew up a storm to a tempestuous tempo. Flying spirits summon the forces of nature and mischievous creatures dazzle with their acrobatic antics.
Bookings now open: www.easytix.com.au
Tickets: Adults $15 | Conc $10 | Child (<16) $8 | Family $40
The 26th June is Bear's birthday, so that's when we are going. If you'd like to come, I believe its not set seating, so you can book your own tickets. That said, if you can't make it that date - its got about a 3 week run and I strongly recommend going to see it on your own time, as we went to the last one and it was awesome!
And to continue the Circus fun, Circus Oz is back for their 31st Melbourne Season!
Circus Oz
http://www.circusoz.com/
We will be attending the Matinee Show, at 1.30 on Saturday the 27th June at the Big Top in Birrarung Marr.
Tickets range from $47-69 (Adult) depending on Seating, we are looking at the middle range price of $52 for section A seating. About $10 cheaper for students.
If you would like to join us let me know. I'm happy to book tickets for people if we get paid pretty much immediately (bank funds transfer) and I'll be booking tomorrow. Or simply book your own tickets and we can meet up before or after and during intermission!
Tickets through http://www.ticketmaster.com.au
And of course if you can't make it that day, I strongly urge you to go see Circus Oz anyway - because its awesome.
I figure lunch/dinner before both these events is also an option :)
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| Reality TV Musing and Recipes |
[30 May 2009|01:49pm] |
So me and Bear have been watching Master Chef, the reality tv show on channel 10. Neither of us are particularly reality tv fans, although I have been known to watch the odd season of Survivor, finding it much like the process of watching a particularly nasty accident about to happen.
What I like about MasterChef
- the food bits
- the cooking
- the fact that most of the contestants are actually pretty well educated and from professional backgrounds and so are reasonably intelligent, not your usual reality tv parade of barista, student, artist etc.
- The food challenges
- The Masterclass - ie the bit were the judges have a class for the contestants and show them the best way to do all the things they fucked up that week and provide really useful cooking tips.
What I don't like about Master Chef
- The attempt by the networks to create suspense by drawing things out, explaining shit that has already been explained 47 times, and recapping what happens before and after every commercial break, as if they assume the audience has the attention span of a gold fish.
- The fact that its on a commercial network and so has advurt breaks ever 15seconds.
We record the tv shows we regularly watch on the Mythbox, which is essentially a TiVo. That way I can fast forward through all the advurt breaks and creating suspense bits.
I must admit I do like my Food Porn.
The shows we regularly record
- Iron Chef
- Mythbusters
- Food Safari
- Time Team
- Hairy Bikers Cookbook
- Scrapheap Challenge
- Master Chef
So yeah - its pretty easy to spot a theme.
But watching cooking shows, even if they are reality TV has its advantages
Last week we made candied oranges - which we intend to remake with Lemons, Ginger, Oranges and then coat the candied object in chocolate :) We also made a selection of home made pastry items like sausage rolls and apple strudel/pastry thingys
Today for lunch we made Chocolate Pikelets, topped with caramelised apples and a scoop of caramel icecream.
Sweets are one of those items I don't tend to make, along with my pretty non existent baking skills. I'm much more your savory dinner kind of making person.
But its nice to be inspired and learn some more recipes, even if the influence is a reality TV show.
Although I have to admit that ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) umbra_mentis is also something of an influence, the good or bad yet to be confirmed :)
Adam - you have to come over so I can make you the caramelised apples.
And yes, there is a reason we are fat :)
In other news, we are thinking of signing up to do an Akido class, we went and watched a session last night and it does look like fun. I'm worried about a few aspects, one - how hard it will be on my joints. The guy in charge of the class said if it hurts you are doing it wrong, so that will help you learn to do it right. They also want a serious long term commitment if you sign up with them, in the form of money up front. None of this 12 class trial thingy. So what happens if I don't like it after a month?
I've never done a martial art before. Bear did some judo in high school - but that's about it.
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