Author: awmalloyadmin

Where on earth did that go? I’m positive that two weeks is meant to feel a lot longer than the last two weeks have. Tomorrow is the dreaded return to work and I’ve been lying in the sun wondering if it’s too late to fax in my resignation effective as of tomorrow. I have no idea how I’m going to get out of bed at 6:15am let alone get through an entire day of work without my afternoon hammock nap. I remember an episode of the Simpsons where Homer’s great motivational idea was corporate hammocks. That guy is a true visionary.

’twas a great family weekend with my nephew’s wedding yesterday and a combined Bartlett/Malloy barbeque here today. Great food, lovely weather good company and the best lawn edges in the inner west all made for a good last-days-of-holiday weekend. As long as I can make myself stay awake long enough after all the food and sun to watch tonight’s episodes of Carnivale we should be able to chalk up the Christmas break of 2004/2005 as one of the best ever.

I think I may be going mad, I’ve developed a new obsession. My edges. Well, not my edges as such, I’m quite round and edgeless – I mean my lawn edges.

Up until moving here I’ve never been responsible for a lawn edge, and up until this week I’ve never really worried about them but with a family bbq this Sunday they suddenly, and oddly, assumed a state of massive importance. Now they’ve been whipper snippered and done with an edger to within an inch, or about 1cm, of their life. Concrete that hadn’t seen the light of day for many years is now working on developing melanomas and a large number of our friends from the insect world are looking for new digs.

We’ve also cleaned up the front yard, uncovered the path border and mowed the whole lot. Rae’s put plants in too so the garden is looking as good as it has since we moved in.

Our other obsession over the past few days has been American TV shows. Thanks to technology we’ve caught up to the States with Desperate Housewives so now we only have to download the latest episode each week and we’ve started on Lost. Sorry Channel Seven but after the way you treated Buffy we don’t trust you to do these fantasticly original shows justice. You pushed over the edge and we ain’t going back.

Hmm, another edge. I wonder if they need someone to take care of it?

We were going to go to the movies at the Sun, maybe lunch out, enjoy a day when Phee was at the grandparents doing things best done without child in tow.

That is until the day was stolen by one of our feline children.

We try and get Thomas in by 6:30 every night, we don’t like him being out after or approaching dusk and the longer we leave it the more difficult it seems to get him inside. Even though the night wasn’t hot, there wasn’t a strong wind and the moon wasn’t full – all of his usual triggers for a night on the town – he chose to stay out late. And by late, we mean late.

We worry like hell when he chooses not to come home, and if you need a little refresher as to why check out the story of the thousand dollar cat. So last night we only half watched Carnivale as we listened out for him. At one stage some birds on a wire alerted us to the fact he was hiding in the front yard, then he was hiding in the back bushes and was last seen jumping the fence next door.

We went to bed. And we stressed. And we lay and listened. And listened. And stressed. And tossed. And listened. And turned. And listened.

At 2:05am he appeared silently at the front door and miawoed to be let in.

Three quarters of an hour later I managed to fall asleep.

As you can probably guess most of today was lost in a sleepy haze until we finally succumbed and had a nap in the afternoon. There was no movie but we did manage a coffee and stroll in Yarraville in the afternoon.

We also managed to watch the first four episodes of Desperate Housewives and we’re going to make time for three more tomorrow. Australia, you’re going to love this show.

Tonight we’re faced with the greatest test of memory known to mankind.

We’ve decided we’ve missed so many new release films at the cinema of late that we’re going to hire a new release DVD for the night. Now we have to try and figure out which of the local stores we haven’t joined before and/or which one we probably owe the least to in overdue fines from a couple of years ago.

First resolution – be good to the local traders from now on.

2005.

Happy New Year to all!

Except to the idiots setting off fireworks in the next block, scaring our cats and every dog within cooee. But I’m sure that’s not you so happy new year.

If I was any more relaxed I’d be comatose.

Today was spent upgrading Rae’s PC with a new CD burner and operating system. Bye bye Windows 98, hello Windows 2000 Professional. I did manage to get the lawns mown in between a visit from Rob and some Simpsons Hit and Run on the Xbox.

Now the lawn is trim and the weather is on the improve I think tomorrow may be hammock day. God it’s going to be tough going back to work.

72.

That’s the number of hours I went without sitting at a computer. No internet, no blogs, no podcasts, no email. Amazingly I am still functioning and obviously back.

I had a magnificent Christmas. Scored a great deal of great loot (Dr Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker are now resident on my office desk) and was spoilt rotten by my gal who managed to get two great tickets to see Paul Kelly and Deborah Conway on the same bill at A Day On The Green at All Saints Winery just outside of Rutherglen. If this doesn’t make me the luckiest guy in the world I have no idea what does.

We then spent a few days up in Shepp doing bugger all. We’d get up and read the papers, then go down the street to grab a coffee from the new Hudsons (and I know should be supporting a good local cafe, but you show me where you can get a consistently good coffee in Shepparton and I’ll support them. Besides, I want a ‘free’ travel mug). Then we’d read some more before having a bit more of read to recover from the days reading before heading off to bed for a little night reading.

Now we’re home and the cats seem happy enough to see us. We’ll probably spend the last few days of 2004 getting this house in to some sort of order. After which we’ll probably sit down and read a little more.

Lying in the sun on a (new) hammock under a clear blue sky listening to some podcasts on the Ipod while watching jets fly off to destinations unknown.

Merry Christmas one and all.

Q: And if disaster strikes? The age-old question — what happens if you forget the corkscrew?
A: There actually is a way to get the cork out of a bottle without pushing it through. Take the bottle, and remove the foil. Then start banging it gently on a carpeted floor. What you do is create pressure, and it may take you 20 minutes to do it, but you will get the cork halfway up, and then you can pull it the rest of the way. It’s a great trick.

Source : Business Week Online

But who can be bothered waiting 20 minutes to open a bottle of wine?

RFC membership card, 2005.