Ch-ch-ch-changes

If you've read past posts, you might know that I'm currently doing an extra line faults role at work. You might also be aware that I don't particularly enjoy that role.

Well, hooray hooray... I won't be doing that role for much longer. My team will be going back to it's old role (well, we're still doing that along with the extra role), plus we'll be taking on another role. This new one will be more internet oriented (where my interests lie). It will be a challenging time though, so I will probably be complaining about it later!

Oh and I'm outraged...

Not only have the IAU demoted Pluto, but now they've renamed it. Unbelievable! Read about it here.

It will always be Pluto (the planet) to me.

A very special lunch

Yesterday's special at the local cafe near work:

owie

I have a fat lip...

Chickie was mucking around and accidentally headbutted me in the mouth. I caught my teeth on my lip and now I have what looks like a blood blister and a fat lip.

You know, I'm told babies are born with such soft flexible bones, so how the heck do they become so hard just a few years later!

The poor thing was so sorry he hurt me, that I felt bad for him. I have to tell you though, this kid's head should be declared a lethal weapon!

confession time

I have a confession to make...

I have absolutely zero interest in playing with lego. There, I said it!

Chickie has a huge box of lego bits and pieces (it used to belong to J and his brother when they were kids) and he just loves playing with it. And he always wants someone to play with him. It's understandable, I guess, since he's 4 and doesn't quite have the skills to make the cool stuff he sees in the shops etc. Problem is, I have no interest in building/making stuff myself. J does but sometimes he's busy or Chickie just wants me to play with him.

J and Chickie will cruise the aisles of the toy shops and check out all the different kits - the Star Wars ones, the pirate ships, the cars/trucks etc. Me? Well, my response, is a nod and a less than enthusiastic 'cool'.

I'd much rather play with his Thomas the Tank Engine sets. He's got two different types - the Take Along sets (he has the sawmill and the island quarry set) and the plastic sets with the battery operated trains (he got the giant set for his birthday).

RIP Peter Brock

Peter Brock - one of Australia's motor sports legends died in an accident, during a rally, today. Another famous Australian killed, doing the thing they loved, this week. See the story here.

What a week...

This is cool.

Check this site out. Some of the stuff it said about my birthdate:

You were born on a Monday
under the astrological sign Capricorn.

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2439142.5.
The golden number for 1966 is 10.
The epact number for 1966 is 8.
The year 1966 was not a leap year.

You were born in the Chinese year of the Snake.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Goose; your plant is Bramble.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Famenoth, the third month of the season of Poret (Emergence - Fertile soil).

Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 25 Tevet 5726.

As of 9/7/2006 8:18:16 AM EDT
You are 40 years old.
You are 488 months old.
You are 2,120 weeks old.
You are 14,843 days old.
You are 356,240 hours old.
You are 21,374,418 minutes old.
You are 1,282,465,096 seconds old.

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 5.80939334637965 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)

There are 132 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 41 candles.

Your birthstone is Garnet

The Mystical properties of Garnet

Garnet is used as a power stone

Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)

Emerald, Rose Quartz


Your birth tree is

Elm Tree, the noble-mindedness

Pleasant shape, tasteful clothes, modest demands, tends not forgive mistakes, cheerful, likes to lead but not to obey, honest and faithful partner, tends to a know-all-attitude and making decisions for others, noble-minded, generous, good sense of humour, practical.


There are 109 days till Christmas 2006!
There are 122 days till Orthodox Christmas!

Happy birthday J

J's birthday today and the only birthday surprise is that he's caught a cold. He doesn't look very well, but unfortunately today is his study day (he's doing a part-time diploma in software engineering) and if he doesn't go, it will be hard to catch up.

At least he's already organised to have tomorrow as a day off. I've been trying to think of some fun things we could do to celebrate his birthday, but he may just want to use it to rest, if he's not well. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

For a birthday cake, he's put in a request for a choc-mint mud cake from The Cheesecake Shop, so I'll head down to the local one later and see if they have one.

As for the rest of my day, I was thinking of seeing a movie (since it's cheapie Tuesday). I can't decide between Clerks 2 and Pirates of the Carribean 2 though. Hmm, decisions decisions :)

RIP Steve Irwin

Steve Irwin - the crocodile hunter has died in a diving accident. I'm stunned. See the story here.

Chickie loves 'Crikey' as he calls him. I was never a big fan but you can't deny his love for Australian animals. His website is here (but timing out right now).

RIP Steve.

In case you weren't aware...

4 year olds can not keep secrets.

Heh, I should have known better. You see it was father's day in Australia yesterday and J's birthday is tomorrow. So, on Saturday, Chickie and I went shopping for presents. We bought some DVDs that J's been wanting for a while (Stargate, Futurama and American Dad).

Now I know from last year that Chickie has trouble with keeping secrets so I suggested we play a big trick on his dad (Chickie loves 'tricking' people at the moment) and tell him we got him tools. Chickie thought this was a great idea and on the way home we practiced what we'd say.

So what happened when we got home? "Guess what dad? We got you Stargate". D'oh!! Oh well... at least he didn't mention the others. So I wrapped up Stargate for father's day and wrapped the others separately to put away for his birthday.

J has a sleep-in yesterday and then when he gets up, Chickie tells him - "Dad, we got you tools!" (too late kid, hehe). J opens the Stargate and then Chickie asks me where the Futurama and American Dad was... double D'oh!!

Ah well... maybe next year.

Something I've never done before...

Chickie and I were heading out to get J a father's day present (happy father's day for all those celebrating it) and we found the 'other member' of our family sunning itself in the driveway. S/he's a shingleback lizard that we discovered a few months back. It hung around for about two months, then we didn't see it for ages. I thought it had gotten too spooked, since Chickie had to check on it every time he went outside.

So, it was right behind my car - just when I'm wanting to drive over that very spot. I'm standing there wondering how to move it. There was no way I was going to try touching or moving it by hand, and I have to tell you, lizards do not respond to hand-flapping and loud 'shoo'-ing. Next thought was to get a broom but I was a bit reluctant in case I hurt it.

Luckily, when I blogged about it months ago, I did a bit of searching and discovered that it was a Shingleback and that they are very partial to yellow flowers. Next door has a huge bush with yellow flowers (probably the reason it's hanging around this area) so I grabbed a flower and lured the lizard over to the grass. Problem solved! Though I'll bet the guy mowing his lawn, across the road, must have thought I was a bit odd.

So there you go - caramaena, the lizard lurer!

I really should be in bed...

busy day tomorrow, but I'm up very late because of a very funny movie called The Happiness of the Katakuris. It's described thusly:

From prolific Japanese cult director Takashi Miike comes an all-singing, all-dancing zombie horror flick. The story centres on recently retrenched Masao Katakuri who has decided to take over a bed and breakfast on a piece of land he bought which was originally a rubbish dump in a remote mountain area near Mountain Fuji. This venture is intended to unite his dysfunctional family but the dream doesn't seem to be going to plan as their guests keep dropping dead one after another.

It's hilarious. Even the zombies get in on the act. The grandfather doesn't sing though, he shouts. Oh and anywhere where you'd expect to see stunts, it changes to clay-mation.

Ah SBS... it's a treasure chest...

A school for Chickie and a whinge about my diabetes

Today J and I visited a school that we're thinking of sending Chickie to, next year. I'm pretty happy with it.

The classrooms looked nice. They have a program that places an emphasis on encouraging kids to believe in themselves (which will be good for Chickie). It used to be a lot bigger (now unfortunately shrinking in numbers), but they do have a lot of resources, because of that. All the computers are being upgraded at the end of this year and I hear a lot of good things about the school from different people. Also, very handily they have an onsite before and after-school care program (since J and I both work full time).

Chickie will look so cute in his grey shorts and red shirt!

In the afternoon, I visited a friend who's pregnant and on bedrest. She's been on bedrest for 4 weeks now and she's really 'over it'. On top of that, now she's been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. She's been measuring her blood sugar levels for a few days now and she showed me her numbers. To be honest, I'm as jealous as hell. She hasn't had anything over 5.9 (that one was two hours after a meal). I really wish I had those sorts of numbers. I got a 6.4 two hours after dinner today and was thinking it was pretty good (I'm supposed to aim for between 6-8 two hours after meals).

I'm still getting fairly high levels first thing in the morning. Was 7.7 this morning - recommended is 5.5 or lower, but that's pretty rare for me. My usual morning level is about 6.5. My doctor's not so concerned with the 6's for now, she wants to monitor it for a bit, but she's sent me off to a dietician to see if that helps bring it down. Plus she says the medication tends to bring down the levels overall, which might be harder since there are times where I get down to 4's (and feel pretty weird with it).

I've seen the dietician twice and she's told me that I'm doing all the right things and, if anything, I'm not eating enough carbs. She's said to make sure I have a snack before bed but mentioned that sometimes eating right isn't enough. I'm not really certain I want to start taking medication though. I know tablets aren't like the insulin injections I had to take when I had gestational diabetes, but still, medication feels like a slippery slope to me.

yay!

I'm now on annual leave for just over a week - woohoo!

I solemnly promise to sleep-in several times, to see a movie or two, do some beading, blog about some very random stuff, catch up with friends and generally do nothin' much at all.

As you can probably tell, J can't get time off so we're not going away or anything.

driving home today...

I'm stopped at traffic lights listening to the radio. Over the radio I can hear the beat of some very loud music right next to me. I figure it's some hoon in his hotted up car with his 'doof doof' music, loud enough for all to hear. So, I casually glance over at the car (I didn't want to make eye contact).

Wha?? The car is a white station wagon with the logo for a local plumbing centre on the door. Huh?

I steal another glance and there's a grey haired guy grooving to the music...

Intrigued now, I muted my radio to listen to the music. It's some wurlitzer organ version of the Animals' House of the Rising Sun.

Ooh-kay then...

Kids can be funny

I'm still chuckling about Chickie's reaction to something, from the other day.

Chickie has been totally resistant to cheese for as long as I can remember. I think he tasted it once and then refused to have anything to do with it after that. He's eaten it in stuff, but by itself, well put it this way - superman's reaction to kryptonite is a mild dislike, in comparison.

So anyway, his dad made himself a cheese sandwich on the weekend and Chickie decided he'd have a bite. Then he decided he'd have the whole sandwich, thank you very much! Since then cheese has changed from kryptonite to the most delectable ambrosia in the universe. Chickie now has to have it everyday.

I was driving him home from childcare the other day and cheese was on his mind, I guess, because he asked how it was made. I started to answer 'well, you know milk comes from cows, and what they d...' I didn't get much further because this startled 'WHAAAAA!?!?' came from the back seat. I repeated 'milk comes from cows' and he just said 'that's a bit strange' (in a very disbelieving voice). I had to try very hard to not burst out laughing.

Now, it's not like he hasn't heard this from us before. Not to mention that he has several books with that very statement in them. I guess it just didn't register clearly with him until now. I wonder where he thought it came from?

I never did get to tell him how cheese is made either...

Spending lots of money!

I've been on a bit of a spending spree this weekend. The weather's been great here so I finally succumbed to the shops' displays of new clothing. I bought myself two pairs of capri pants and a crinkly type shirt - the sort you twist up to dry and don't iron (heh, that's my type of shirt!).

I also bought a new pda. My old Palm Tungsten E is about 3 years old and it's been great. I use it a lot. Unfortunately it's developed a high pitched hum/buzz when turned on, the screen is losing sensitivity and, this week, I've noticed the button to turn it on is dodgy, taking quite a few presses to actually get it to turn on. I figured I'd better sync it and upgrade.

So, I did a bit of thinking about what I wanted in a pda, did a bit of research and came up with... the Palm Tungsten E2. Yep, pretty much the same thing as before. I bought it, it's just what I want. I'm happy.

I can't help but wonder if this means I'm a bit resistant to change, though. Not only have I just bought the newer version of the pda I've had for the past three years, but I did the same thing a few months back with our microwave (ours was on the way out, we had a look around and settled on one in the right price range with all the features we wanted, got it home and it's the same model as our old one - just updated).

I know I don't welcome major change, but perhaps I'm a little more entrenched in my ways than I thought.

Updated links

I've updated my links again because some very nice people have linked back to me. Thank you very much for the links everyone! Make sure you check out their blogs.

If you have a link to my blog and I don't have yours here, please let me know.

misdirected emails

Robin over at the Internet Institute for the Easily Amused has an amusing post about a misdirected email. Email is such a handy thing but can go oh so wrong if you're not paying attention.

I have many email addresses and one of them happens to be a very common name. As you might imagine, I get many emails sent to me by accident. Usually it's because the person with the similar email address gives it out incorrectly.

Some of the emails include boring stuff, like 'will you pick up Steven on the weekend?' and 'Joe, are you going to be at soccer on the weekend?' or I'll get a gazillion test emails 'just to see if this works'.

Others are more amusing. One was from someone who did uniform orders and was corresponding with someone about mistakes made in a school order. The first couple itemised the mistakes the employees were making, the last sounded like the poor writer was about to have a nervous breakdown. Not surprisingly since the mistakes in the school's order were pretty major. Sounds like the company sent uniforms in a range of sizes, including a large number of women's size 22, 24 and 26 (for those outside Australia those sizes are very very large). Then there were hats in sizes that were equivalent to a 1 year old and 2 year old's head size. To top it all off the embroidery was done in the wrong colours!

I think the most amusing misdirected email though, was the person who did an online IQ test. The results came back as:

Hello Joe (name changed to protect the identity)

Your age adjusted IQ score is 98 and the average score is 100.

Your IQ score is the result of a formula based on the number of
questions answered correctly on the test. This score has been further
adjusted to account for the differences in capabilities among various
age groups. Your percentile score means that you scored higher than 45%
of the people who took this same test.


Your Grade:Lower Average

Total number of questions:30
Questions answered:27
Questions not answered:3
Questions answered correctly:13
Questions answered incorrectly:17
Percentage correct answers:43%

Surprise, surprise - the other thing he got wrong, was his email address.

You know, I often wonder if he even realised that he'd given the wrong email address and was just sitting there anxiously awaiting the results that would reveal his brilliant IQ.

No decision required.

I rang the lady about the jewellery course and apparently they didn't get the numbers - so no class this term.

I'll wait and see what happens next term.

decisions, decisions

I'm tossing up whether to go to jewellery class again this term. I did enjoy it but last term I felt like sometimes it was a waste of my money.

About half the class was entirely new and the people who'd done the term before (including me) felt that we couldn't get the teacher's attention enough to get on with what we were working on. I understood that the new people needed a lot of initial instruction, but the things we were working on used new techniques too. I didn't get my project finished and I would like to finish it off, but is it worth the money if it's just going to be the same as last time?

The other thing they've done is move the class to a different TAFE campus. Now it will take me twice as long to get there.

Ah, I don't know. I'm kinda leaning towards not going this term and perhaps go next term instead. I have to make up my mind today though.