Sculpture

My benign attitude towards Australia yesterday came mostly out of attending my first sculpture class. I didn't even get around to touching clay yet (one of the best things in the world) and I was still pretty blissed out by the end of the evening. I spent the class looking through art books, choosing Rodin's "The Cathedral" for inspiration, being forced to try to sketch first (I guess classes have teachers for a reason, but boy was I unhappy! I can't draw and to draw intertwined hands, oy!), then getting started on the armature. Armatures are cool in their own right, and I had a slightly goofy looking metal hand by the end of the evening. Bliss, I tell you.

Then I came home, starved, to confront the voluptuous display of spider fertility. Most got sucked into the vacuum cleaner, but that still leaves plenty to encounter EVERYWHERE.

grossgrossgross

Spider babies!!

Which doubly suck because I was actually feeling warm and fuzzy about Australia when I came home to this.

In case you missed it

Turimetta Beach

I went with friends to Turimetta Beach on Saturday. It is one of the northern beaches--much less trafficked than those closer in like Manly, Bondi, etc.

NB: the photo was taken by my friend, not me, since I had forgotten my camera. She is a far better photographer, so it is just as well....

Happy Australia Day

Not sure entirely what the day celebrates (except, of course, something about Australia), but it seems to fill the same role as the 4th of July. Without having actually gotten around to entirely throwing off the yoke of British oppressors, says the snarky American exceptionalist...

Just do it

Watch these.

Go Get

I am now a proud member of GoGet car share. Look out Sydney, crazy driver coming!!

New New Year's Resolution

I resolve to document my work better! I am trying to reconstruct the thinking behind a series of spreadsheets from 2005...

^%(&%^$*%^#$

This isn't a blog about my work, but ^*%$%&$$&##$!!!!!!!!

I have been working on one--one--system of equations since November. And I still can't figure it out. And I am getting sick of spending the entire day waiting for Mathematica to spit out incomprehensible junk if it ever comes up with anything at all.

Grrr.

Platypus-eyed view of the world

I know I have been derelict in my blogging lately. Not too much has been happening here except for my obsessively following the primaries and rain rain rain. So this is from our Tasmania trip on a walk along a stream that we were sure must contain Platypus. My sister was trying to get a better view of the world from their perspective....

Wow

Damn he is good.

UPDATE: Here is the video.

It worked!

I received my absentee ballot from the LA county clerk and mailed it off yesterday. Hopefully it will get counted!

Infrastructure development

New bookshelves (thank you family for making it happen!) and closet.

Sydney to Hobart Race, Boxing Day 2007

Huntsman

Oy. I just chased a Huntsman spider out of the house with a broom. Its leg span was about the size of my palm. That is too big and too scary.

Good on ya!

A magpie is in the noisy (and long) process of killing and eating a cockroach in my back yard. I think that some of the eating bits come before some of the killing....

Lorikeet Convention

I don't know what's up, but it seems that the rainbow lorikeets have moved into the neighborhood in droves this morning. It was a very raucous wakeup and they drowned out the magpies!

Very cool. Particularly when I walked by a bush, just 2 feet away, with a lorikeet sitting there. They tend to move a lot, so it hard to admire them, but this guy let me admire his plumage for a good 30 seconds or so.

In his own words

Can't resist a wee gloat

Obama won Iowa and Intrade predictions look good for New Hampshire. Hard to get any work done here today! Maybe now I can settle down.

Really gross...impossible too!

Okay, another cockroach post. Sorry. But I just hit one squarely with a shampoo bottle (it was at hand) and serious guts plus a leg smeared on my cabinet door (ick!). The damned bug dropped to the floor, still, and just as I was about to pick it up with a paper towel, the darn immortal bastard skittered under the cabinet!

Note to Sydney bugs: when you guts are smeared outside your body, you are supposed to die!

Tassie coastline

That beach in the previous post is to the right at the end of the far cove....

More animal blogging

This guy was our first up-close Aussie animal. We walked up to a lookout to wineglass bay and this little national park whore was up there making friends with the tourists. The second shot is said wineglass bay.