honeymoon

So we're all grown up married now and just got back from our honeymoon.
Ok, New York was our honeymoon, so this was just a week away after our wedding.

We spent 7 nights in Moorea, which was fantastic. 5 nights on dry land, with our own private pool:


and two nights out over the water:


There are a few more pics here:

Moorea 2011

wedding

If I don't update this thing, I won't be able to look back in twenty years and go "uurgh, what a dick. What was I thinking when I wrote this?".
How could I deny myself that pleasure?

Anyway, it's less than ten days till Deb and I get married, so I thought I should probably write something down.

We've got all the big stuff out of the way (food, drink, flowers, suit, dress etc), so the only thing left to do is tie it all together. I'm sure there are loads of little details we've missed, but it's already been a much more expensive undertaking than we expected, so I'm sure we can live without... whatever it is we've forgotten.

The biggest thing for me to do was sort out the playlist. This is the part that we didn't think through before sending out the invites:

Because we're having the wedding in Dunedin, there are a number of aunties and uncles who haven't yet made the switch over to FM. I'm pleased that they've suggested songs that they'd dance to, but I'm not looking forward to the type of dancing that some of these daggy old songs will break out.
Oh well, lessons learned for next time I suppose.

I'm actually looking forward to the whole thing. Deb's dress has been hanging up in the hallway for a few weeks (inside an opaque bag), and it's really hard to not peek inside. I'm sure she'll look fantastic, but I don't want to get all weepy, so maybe if I peek now I'll be ok on the day...  Fine. I won't peek.

new york

So, we went to New York for a fortnight.
Deb kept things up to date over here: http://deb-reid-holidays.blogspot.com/, including a Twitter feed in the side bar.
I'm far too lazy to actually write anything, so just assume that I had a great time and look at some photos:

New York 2010

Or on a map:

View Larger Map

guildford

One of Deb's colleagues owns a vinevard in Guildford, so on Friday night, a bunch of us went up for the night.
We had a big barbeque, plenty of wine (supplied by the host) and a nice bonfire (which is currently this site's background image).
The stars were incredible and enough to make us consider adding camping to our holiday rotation. I spent half of the night staring straight into the sky (and saw a couple of shooting stars for my trouble). I don't remember the last time I saw a night sky as clear and unpolluted as that. I'm annoyed I didn't try and take a photo, but I was enjoying it too much to bother.

In other news, it froze that night.
It made me realise how long it had been since I heard my feet crunch on frosty grass.

Here's some pics:

goodbye web albums

So, Picasa has a nice feature where you can create an album and then sync it online.
It means any album changes you make are automatically uploaded/altered online.

You can add new photos, add captions, tweak the colour.

So, what do you think happens if Picasa's database decides to get itself corrupted? The albums still displayed, but the contents had disappeared.
As the albums were set to automatically sync, what do you think happened?

Yup. 90% of the photos I've uploaded over the years have disappeared.
That wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't added the damn things, one by one into blog posts:

If I really want to get things back the way they were, it's going to cost me half a day at least.

Part of me is considering paying for hosting and creating my own site, independently of Google.

The other part is a lazy bastard.

I wonder who will win...

ron mueck exhibition at the ngv

From Ron Mueck Exhibition

month of vegan - day 7

Bagels for brekkie (cinnamon and raisin this time) and the usual tea. 

Unrelated to the vegan thing, I picked up Moon on blu-ray to watch with dinner this evening. Gotta say, I was impressed. It was a simple story, but really well executed.

We went to Bread and Butter Cafe in Camberwell for lunch. They have quite a few things we're able to eat, as long as we ask then not to put parmesan on top. Deb had a pumpkin risotto that looked like baby food, but was actually really tasty. I had the first gnocchi meal that I can remember having, and it was great!
I wonder if I'm starting to pick up more subtlety in the flavours of things I eat. Not because meat was covering up things, but because at the moment, I'm much more aware of what I'm eating. Whatever the reason, it's a positive experience (it's also helped me cut down on the salt a bit too).

My boss gave me a bunch of leeks from her dad's garden, so tonight we made leek and potato soup. Yet another triumph (though it's pretty damn hard to mess up soup). Having a stick blender just makes this stuff so damn easy. You cook everything till it's soft, then blend it while it's still cooking in the pot.


Ok, I know it's not new technology, but it's still pretty cool!


Deb's starting to talk about how we can incorporate vegan... err.. vegan-ness into our lifestyle. I must not be a total convert, as the thought totally freaked me out. I'm happy to cut right back -perhaps vegan on weekdays- but I'm not quite ready to commit to something that big just yet. Fish sauce? I miss fish sauce! How the hell can anyone miss that rotten smelling shit? Blue cheese? Actually, dairy is probably the hardest thing to give up. Imagine a world without icecream, milk chocolate, full cream coffee or cheese! Yeah, doesn't sound so flash does it?


So, thus ends the first week. People said the first week would be easy, so I might update again in a week's time to see if I've started hallucinating or anything.