Day 91 - Being cultured

I must admit I had some reservations about going to an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Let's say that I read and thought there was a certain taint of formula to his productions, but not having seen them I thought an open mind was required. Dani gave some hints of her interest in the production as she loved Phantom of the Opera. Our recent anniversary was the first and therefore paper, so I gave her some tickets in paper. I've been to the Capitol Theatre once before and it has beautiful details of another era which was the ideal setting for this performance. As for the opera itself? I came away pretty impressed - I'll have to listen to Dani more often :-)

Day 90 - Butterflies for shelter

Our roof design is a complicated beast. The roofs are called skillion roofs which sounds better and more sophisticated than their other alias, a shed roof. So this afternoon when visiting the house to see the progress for the week, our roof trusses were now in place. This roof (which is the only non-skillion) covers the kitchen, bathroom and laundry and as the name implies, the large V shape is also likened to butterfly wings - hence the roof shape name is a butterfly roof. With the first floor and garage roof also completed things are moving along nicely.

Day 89 - Healthy eating

While away on the northern NSW coast we expected to find vast choices at a seafood restaurant. The meager offerings of a whole snapper didn't appeal so much.  The day after we returned home, we bought some ling fillets for this roast vegetable and baked fish dish. We had shopped, cooked and were eating by 8pm - I think that's a new efficiency record!

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/4308/baked+fish+on+vegetables+low+fat

Day 88 - One for the road

Our last day of our journey is upon us and we are to head back home. After what has been a relaxing and enjoyable weekend away we decided to take one last walk up to the lighthouse after breakfast. As one would expect being on the top of a peninsula, the views are spectacular so today's photo is of the northern beaches. From this height you can see the schools of fish sheltering in the bay and the waves which look much more gentle to what they are from the ground. With this photo captured we headed back to our room to assemble our luggage and headed down the hill to the car. After heading back up the hill to fetch the car keys we were packed and on our way.

Day 87 - One year ago today

The purpose of our Sydney escape was singular. One year ago today Dani and I married at Wisemans Ferry before our family and friends. It has been an action packed year since which started with our honeymoon to Europe, when we returned we've been busy planning our home and going out and about seeing friends, done a few weekends away together and generally living life well. The memories of our wedding day remains vividly clear as it was such a fantastic day and taking the time out to celebrate it in a special way was a great way to remind ourselves of what we share.

Day 86 - Lighthouse lodgings

A couple of years ago when looking for accommodation during the Christmas holidays Dani and I found this lighthouse B&B at Smoky Cape. Unfortunately it was booked solid, so with an important date coming up we thought of this place again and secured our accommodation. Built in 1881 the lighthouse needed keepers so two houses were built about 30 metres from the tower which form the base of the accommodation offerings today. The website doesn't come close to doing justice to the premises. They are now restored with authentic detailing and the B&B hosts, Pat and Wendy couldn't have been friendlier. I'm looking forward to the next couple of days!

Day 85 - Picture perfect

For our second day in Nabiac after visiting the local town for lunch, I decided that yesterday's photography was unfinished business. I headed down to the dam with my camera in hand and set about getting a shot that showed off how picturesque their property actually is. After their border collie, Tiffany finished swimming across the dam and the ducks had cleared off I balanced myself over the waters edge and clicked.

Day 84 - Forecast is for lemons

We don't own a citrus tree of any kind. This makes us suitable targets for owners of citrus trees to reduce their own stocks. It's not that we don't appreciate the kind gesture, but it is hard getting through two dozen lemons. On our way up the North Coast we stopped at Dani's parents' home for a couple of nights and when walking around the property I recognized what will be happening in the coming months. This time I will endeavor to be better prepared with all kinds of lemon based dishes and I might even try to make some preserved lemons so we won't be going without the flavour of lemons all year until our next season shipment.

Day 83 - Exceptions to the rule

I normally have an unsaid rule for my blog - only one house update per week.  Today though has been so long in the making I've made an exception.  We finally have walls.  They are not normal walls as it is possible to walk through these ones. But they do give a great outline where the hallway is in relation to the bathroom, where previously this was all guess work.  What was a relief though is that the rooms all feel like they are good sizes as designed - it's all becoming very real now.  To capture this shot required climbing the scaffolding which given my lack of comfort at heights was harder than it looks!

Day 82 - Window shopping

Tonight when I got home, Dani declared that she needed to go shopping.  While we both have a soft spot for animals, we have no pets due to practical reasons rather than a lack of want.  To get our fix, whenever we visit shopping centres, we always visit the pet shops.  Tonight we made our customary stopover at the pet shop in Castle Towers and saw these critters at play.  You can literally stand there for ages watching them make games from bits of thread or each other's tails.  Below the kittens were four of Dani's favorite dog breed, border collies which seemed ignorant of the commotion that was taking place above them.

Day 81 - The next stage

Today was another milestone for our home. The bricks are now done after what has been a long weather-delayed process and we are now able to see the profile of our home taking shape. Today we had the internal scaffolding removed, window measurement and ground floor frame delivery. It has to be said that we have been very fortunate with the tradies that we have onsite, they are each very enthusiastic about their trade and are sympathetic with the gaps in my knowledge. I think it is great to see people enjoying their work and taking pride in the quality of their craftsmanship. As our home is a bespoke design, it is reassuring to deal with people like these.

Day 80 - Messy dinners

Tonight's meal was a classic Prawn Laksa.  I use to have these quite often for lunch when I worked in Haymarket and the side effect was the increase in dry cleaning for my splattered neck ties.  Trying to save preparation time we bought the shelled prawns only to discover the need for the shells to make the prawn stock.  Luckily we had some dried prawns in the cupboard which were the perfect substitute.  Once done we plated up and I ladled the soup over the noodles so the mess could begin.  As the handling of noodle soup with chopsticks is splash prone, we did well to keep most of the soup off the table and our clothes as I was betting on another dry cleaner visit.

Day 79 - The best coffee of all

This morning Damien and I ventured to our usual cafe - The Lounge.  We don't go there because they serve the best tasting coffee or for the fast service, as the name implies it's the lounges.  Loads better than the usual plastic or aluminium affair, this cafe offers lounges which is just the thing for a Monday morning at work. What made this coffee the best was that it was free!  After a loyalty spanning 8 previous purchases I had earned a free beverage which definitely improved the taste in my own head.

Day 78 - Fair trade

After what was proving a whirlwind weekend our next appointment was with Dani's brother Steve, his wife Mel and daughter Bri.  Steve had purchased a new computer and asked me to help set it up for him.  They were well overdue for an upgrade and they chose a fancy touch screen all-in-one PC made by HP.  It didn't take that long to get all the plugs in the right sockets and after a bit of mucking around the 3G internet connection was up and running too.  Dani and I were then treated to a barbecue dinner with roast veggies and salads.  This was topped off with a chocolate cake with chocolate flake decoration for dessert - my kind of currency :-)

Day 77 - Reading everywhere

 

Just finished reading my latest book, The PayPal Wars.  It was one of those books that I couldn't put down and the fact that I bought it on Kindle made it impossible not to.  Let me explain.  I bought my Kindle a couple of years ago and never looked back to the antiquated paper based variants.  The best part of the Kindle is when reading in bed there is no wrestling with the book spine.  Pages that are on the left hand side are as comfortable to read as those on the right when it is in an eBook.  Without wanting to sound too much like an advertisement for Kindle, you can also get the Kindle apps on iPhone and iPad, which meant that no matter where I was I had this book on me and could read.  The book charted the path of PayPal from independent startup to subsidiary of Ebay.  Was a rollercoaster ride of a David and Goliath type tale - 5 stars (for those geeky types who like reading about internet companies).

Day 76 - Friday get together

Since Dani and I got together she introduced me to her restaurant/dinner group. Every couple of months the emails are sent out indicating the venue and date, this month it was a small restaurant called 2060 in Waverton at 7pm.  Given the distance I work from home I thought it would be better to meet Dani at Strathfield after work and drive direct from there.  We arrived early so Dani suggested that we walk down to the harbour where this photo was taken.  The meal?  I tried the twice baked cheese soufflé for entree, Dani had the fig salad and for mains I chose a french dish called duck cassoulet and Dani picked the lamb on a bed of sweet potato.  There was lots of conversation with the rest of the group from all things from My Kitchen Rules to how to track down hit and run drivers!

Day 75 - Going wide

Today's photo has two noteworthy facts.  The first is that it is at Sydney Olympic Park, which is where I work.  It is much quieter than my previous city location, but is also a lot greener and modern.  I often like studying the different buildings as they were built with the purpose to impress the tourists much like buildings in middle eastern countries, although in a less ostentatious manner and therefore far more tasteful.  The other noteworthy thing about this photo is how wide it is.  I stumbled across an app called Autostitch when trying to stitch together two photos for a previous posting so today I thought I would test its limits with a full panoramic photo.  There is a degree of ghosting, but I think that has more to do with my photos, as they say - garbage in means garbage out!

Day 74 - A collecting addiction

When it comes to not having enough, magazines fit the bill for me. I've been collecting my magazines for a long time and I would estimate I'd have over 1,000 saved in my plastic storage containers through the house (and not to mention my parents' garage). The predominant topic is unsurprisingly automobiles. It started in 1989 with Modern Motor, soon Wheels followed and then the British classic car mags, F1 Racing and my often mentioned Delicious Magazine. I've dipped my toes in the water with quite a few other publications such as New Scientist, Two Wheels, Houses and Master Chef - none of these have stuck. But what I like reading most in my magazines are the stories of the people behind the car, house or restaurant. I'm looking forward to one day being able to return to these stories, but my retirement is a long way off :-)

Day 73 - It's chicken

As the end of the month approaches the recipe choices in Delicious get thinner. Making matters worse I prefer to keep the ingredients as easily available as possible rather than going on mad goose chases for items such as micro herbs or preserved lemon. So what will probably be our last recipe for the March issue was the Gremolata Chicken. On first glance, Gremolata sounds like one of those ingredients that would launch a full scale investigation to locate; it turns out it's nothing more than garlic, lemon zest, mint and basil. Fancy name for some pretty basic stuff!

Day 72 - Ticking off the list

The side effect of being away for the weekend is that there is little food in the fridge when one returns. So after work Dani and I set off for the supermarket to fill our fridge. As we shop for groceries together every week we have our routine down pat. While I search for the fruit and veggies for the dinners, Dani gets the lunch ingredients. On this occasion we managed to get everything on the list and what was even better was when we got home I'd also managed to include everything on the list - so no last minute dashes back to the supermarket while cooking :-)

Day 71 - Living up to one's name

On our way home from Canberra we stopped by Lake George. Since my sister Belinda moved to Canberra I have driven past this landmark countless times and despite the satnav showing a blue feature, each time it was nothing more than a green sheep paddock. With the recent rain fall, the low lying land soon flooded and it formed a lake once more, albeit not quite as big as the satnav map!

Day 70 - Spectacular Canberra

This morning the Canberra Balloon Spectacular beckoned. Unfortunately we went to bed at past midnight the previous day so the 6am start time was not on the cards. When we arrived we were not too late for the display balloons, even though most had taken flight and left. Which probably leads one to an observation that today's photo doesn't contain balloons. The problem is that we saw so many places and events that I had a very tough choice on my hands for today's post. We wandered to Questicon where we went cheap by limiting ourselves to the displays in the lobby before moving onto the portrait gallery for morning tea which was not so cheap. The afternoon ended at the sculpture garden at the National Art Gallery where this photo was taken, my sister's son Henry loved dipping his fingers in the water and rekindled his friendship with his Aunty Dani. So to circumvent the rule of this blog being one photo per day I have posted a gallery of the day's activities in the link below - that's not cheating :-)

https://picasaweb.google.com/dfreke/CanberraSpectacular2012

Day 69 - Operator faults

On our way to Canberra we often stop at Sutton Forest's McDonalds. It's definitely not for the coffee which resembles dishwashing water, but for the all important stop, revive & survive. This is a halfway point between Canberra and Sydney that isn't off the beaten track and despite the dubious coffee it is a popular place. It does amaze me that coffee could be this bad as the machine is the same as the one at Merrylands where I stopped often on the way to Bankstown during my flying days for those early starts. I can only assume it is an operator fault and that the budget to revamp their coffee quality was mostly spent on advertising. On this occasion we car pooled with my mother who decided to visit my sister and brother-in-law on the same weekend, so given the limited seating in my own car we took hers. After we all gave up on our beverages, I took over the driving duties for the final stretch. I'll get off my soapbox now :-)

Day 68 - The big wet

Didn't it use to rain more often than it does now? Maybe I'm looking through rose tinted glasses, but I remember years ago (about 25 years to be more precise) in the big wet when we used to gear up in those stiff yellow PVC raincoats that only softened when they warmed up, smelling the fresh aroma of new rain and exploring the local street's water overflows as though they were newly discovered rivers from a lost land. Okay I must have had a bit of an imagination when I was a kid :-p  Today wasn't quite like those days in all respects, but after a long dry spell, followed by some wet months lately, the big wet returned and it absolutely bucketed. The roads became rivers where I forded through 200mm of water with the car and retaining walls became roadside water features as seen in today's photo. It was a rare event by many accounts.

Day 67 - Fast ambitions

I can remember watching motor racing as far back as 1986 when Allan Grice won Bathurst in the Chickadee Commodore. So while I've held an ambition to race cars for many years it was only in the last few that I was able to realize it. The 'Sud that I found for this purpose had low km's (40k) but a measly 85hp when new. Undeterred I set about making some changes to the tyres and suspension and went racing. On the last outing the 'Sud was not well, the troublesome carburetor choked the engine and after three failed attempts to lap the circuit I called it a day. That was more than twelve months ago, which is evidenced by the blade of grass sprouting up through the rear bumper bar. However, the story of the 'Sud will not end there as there is a plan to turn it into a more serious contender - but it will have to wait its turn for when my plate becomes less cluttered. In the meantime it has become an ambition once more.

Day 66 - Sunday Night Eggs on Tuesday

With dubious worthiness of yesterday's post, I have returned to a safer subject matter today.  Another recipe from Delicious Magazine, tonight's meal titled Sunday Night Eggs is all cooked in a frypan.  All the ingredients are chopped so Dani and I set to chop up the spanish onions, tomatoes and red capsicums - all mixed with garlic, chilli and tomato paste.  Once this mixture was cooked through small divots were created for the five eggs.  They were poured in raw and cooked on top of the mixture, followed by the fried chorizo and garnished with oregano.  Easy to make, tasted great and the washing up count was low to boot!

Day 65 - Bin night

Since the inception of this blog I spend my days seeking photo opportunities. Sometimes those opportunities are slim and I am compelled to take photos at unusual times, places and objects which can get if not embarrassing, then at least a little self conscious. Tonight was one of those days as it drew to a close I was still photoless. But it was bin night, so without any other option I had my subject. I grabbed my camera and wheeled the bins down to the street, but a fellow neighbour was late too. Feeling a little odd that I was about to take a photo of a bin (albeit an intentionally creative one) and not wanting this spectator, I needed a plan. I grabbed my phone from my pocket and pretended I had a sudden and very urgent message to attend to. After what seemed like an eternity faking messaging on my phone, the coast was clear, I took my camera out of my other pocket and snapped my photo.

Day 64 - Winning the hard way

With the forecast of rain we packed our raincoats and umbrella for today's Tigers match at Leichhardt. The umbrella would be of use, the rest was a miscalculation. The sun was out in force, so we found some seats and while we waited for our friends Shaunah and Frank to arrive I got some water. With mobile phone issues Dani went to the gates to find them and the game started while she was gone. It didn't take long for the first try, just a couple of minutes which was soon followed up with another. It looked like a good day for Tigers supporters. In the meantime Shaunah and Frank arrived and settled in. In the second half the Tigers made some mistakes which saw the Sharks catch and pass their score. With less than 5 minutes on the clock the game came alive again with another Tigers try, the scores were now level. In overtime most fans were on their feet when a field goal was scored - by the team in orange and black which meant they won the game!

Day 63 - Home mechanics

I'm an enthusiast for all things that have engines, but for much of the time I used to read about maintenance but pay others to do it. Since acquiring my club car I've taken on the maintenance myself with some help from friends. Today my motorcycle was on the operating table. I've owned the bike for about 3 years and only covered a measly 1250km, so it was technically overdue for its first 1000km oil change. I had bought the parts last year and decided that today was the day for action. I invited Jase over to help and when he arrived we got our hands dirty. Not having changed oil on a motorcycle before we worked out what all the drains were for and then new oil and filter were in. Now I need to build up those km's to a more respectable number.

Day 62 - The unexpected

I had never followed rugby league, I was so ignorant, I wouldn't have been able to tell you who the current premiers were. Where I am a Formula One tragic, Dani is a league tragic. So I have since learnt much about the Wests Tigers and especially how great they are. The opening game this year will be at Leichhardt and the Tigers were being coy about the availability of tickets to the general public. Eager to go, we decided that this year we would get memberships to the Leichhardt games to guarantee our seats for this Sunday. Now I only need to convert Dani to become the second biggest Mark Webber fan.

Day 61 - I'm in a meeting

Much of my family might struggle to explain the detail of what I do; they know the role but the material runs dry soon after. My role as a Solution Architect is basically designing end-to-end computing solutions which involves determining which computer system will do what. It also involves a lot of meetings as this is the best tool at my disposal for finding out what needs to be done and then subsequent meetings for discussing and explaining how we will design the solution. The meeting in this photo was more of a presentation than a typical meeting where all the different architects from around the bank were finding out the latest news. Despite the role being rather esoteric, we are not a rare breed!