Category Archives: General

Excitement at Xanadu

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Someone (who shall remain anonymous) went out for the evening and on returning, found their bathroom full of acrid smoke. They, sensibly, called the fire brigade who promptly arrived and promptly found the problem — the hair dryer had been left running and was now a hot, smoking, smelly glob of black plastic.The circuit breaker had turned off so there was no danger, just smoke.

Other excitement this weekend was coming to grips with string theory, the Higgs Boson, the Large Hedron Collider, why that pesky neutron didn’t travel faster than light, and other components of this extraordinarily expensive attempt to explain the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang. I might have a crack at gravity waves next.

Native rose

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Our Native Rose (Boronia serrulata) burst into bloom this week, just as I was thinking of trimming the front hedge. It flowers twice a year so that the hedge gets pretty shaggy while this and the Wisteria leave the hedge-trimmer charging its battery. How it got to Xanadu is lost in the mists of time.

More details on http://www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/gnp11/boronia-serrulata.html and http://natives.wikidot.com/boronia-serrulata

Autumn is nigh!

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Fewer Striped-Marsh frogs tokking away at night now that it’s stopped raining. But plenty of eggs left and the taddy nursery is chockers. This old lion continues to splash into one of their favourite ponds.

Have begun digging out the Easter Lilly bed and discovered that it is sitting on concrete. Will eventually dig this out and build a new bed — currently favouring the new lemon tree and replant the lilies. What to do with the concrete rubble? Previously we have hired a bin but this amount doesn’t warrant the $400 or so.

Phonognatha graeffei

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… or leaf curling spider, badly positioned where I will walk into the web. More on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonognatha_graeffei

Taken with the Panasonic Lumix GX1 which I have now had for a week and am impressed. Excellent manual focusing and a distinctively stronger colour range to the Canon G9 — but that’s 5-years of development. RAW capture is not uploaded by Photoshop (despite installing the appropriate RAW plug-in and struggling with Adobe’s user-hostile help system) so use an intermediate app to upload then massage. I bought the manual 14-42mm zoom ($150 for an electric motor seemed excessive) and can’t fault it. Currently favour getting the Leica designed 45mm f/2.8 macro lens (AUD640 with filter from Amazon, AUD989 in Australia — that pesky GST). Will take me back to the 35mm film equivalent 90mm Elmarit portrait lens that Leica still sell except this has a 1:1 macro function.

I have updated my portfolio on Zenfolio.