Iceland and Other Places
01 September 2015
In April Jay was surprised one morning before work to find our Linux computer on fire. It had functioned as a PVR for more than a decade, but one of the components (the very cheap DVD drive) chose to short out and ignite. Fortunately he was home at the time and quickly sorted it out. I found out about it on Facebook.
He replaced it with a tiny Intel NUC which draws about 10W instead of the 80W that the tower averaged. It has made a small but measurable difference to our electricity use and has introduced us to the vagaries of HDMI handshaking.
The rowing club hosted our home regatta in early May. We were not competing but were involved in the organization and running of the event. We were lucky with the weather this year and the club has learned that the event is much more successful when there is a cash bar and live music.
Jay was sent to California in June for Apple’s WWDC representing the studio here where he works. It is a very sought-after conference for iOS developers, though perhaps more so for those from small development studios. He enjoyed seeing family in Palo Alto and friends in San Francisco during the visit. I have my work trip to California in October for a big anaesthesia conference. A friend of mine from school, Tom Henry, had the premiere performance of his new choral work “Kakadu Man” on the day Jay arrived home from WWDC. A friend who is an enthusiastic chorister came with me to the concert while Jay had a nap. We reversed roles for the Whitney tribute concert a few weeks later.
The new apartment building next door to us has gone up over the Winter. I posted a series of photos of the progress on Facebook, partly because of Jay’s parents’ curiosity as to how it was going. As most of the work is done during my working hours, it hasn’t been disruptive except that they have had a quite liberal interpretation of the requirement to keep our garage door clear of obstruction which has meant a few requests to move their equipment for us to get the car in or out. The four storey building structure is now finished and the internal fitout is supposed to be completed by Christmas.
Our car had just passed 100,000km and was about to turn 10 years old this year. Though we had had no problems with it, we decided to replace it. We used a buying service to avoid car dealers and were very happy with the process and the price. The old car was bought for cash by the first person who came to see it, so the whole change-over was about as painless as it could be.
A few weeks after we sold the old car, the model was recalled for replacement of the front airbag. The new car has been trouble-free, though it does give a sensation that it’s looking over the driver’s shoulder with its ability to brake on its own when on cruise control or assert that the driver isn’t paying attention.
Our friends Alex and David celebrated David’s 30th with a “Kings and Queens” themed party. We hadn’t been to a 30th for a long time; we went to our first 50th birthday party early in the year. The costume theme was very enthusiastically taken-up. We also had a dinner with my cousin Elizabeth and her family when they visited from Perth.
Sorrento is very quiet in the Winter, but we had a weekend there in front of the wood stove and walking on the deserted beaches. We saved the swimming for August in Europe. It was also an opportunity to do some tidying of the beach house.
At the end of July we went to Europe for three weeks including Jay’s birthday. First we spent a week in Berlin. Neither of us had been to Germany before and we saw lots of the cultural landmarks as well as museums devoted to the events of World War II and life in the former East Germany. Here Jay is in front of part of the Ishtar Gate reconstruction at the Pergamon Museum.
We spent a week in Iceland seeing the amazing landscapes and volcanic geological formations. We happened to be there for their gay pride celebrations in Reykjavik which drew a surprisingly large crowd for a city of about 160,000 people. Iceland was very hospitable and easy for tourists. We drove along the South coast and also flew to Akureyri in the North to see as much of the country as we could in a week.
Our last week was in Barcelona where we met up with friends from Australia including Beau and Simon and went to some of the events at Circuit Festival including the iconic water park party. I’ve made an album with some more of the photos from the trip. It was a great holiday, but we were both glad to get home and back to our own bed. Winter is now coming to an end; it’s been an unusually cold one for Melbourne but we have the basic details of our next warm holiday planned out and are also looking forward to a visit from Jay’s parents in November.
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He replaced it with a tiny Intel NUC which draws about 10W instead of the 80W that the tower averaged. It has made a small but measurable difference to our electricity use and has introduced us to the vagaries of HDMI handshaking.
The rowing club hosted our home regatta in early May. We were not competing but were involved in the organization and running of the event. We were lucky with the weather this year and the club has learned that the event is much more successful when there is a cash bar and live music.
Jay was sent to California in June for Apple’s WWDC representing the studio here where he works. It is a very sought-after conference for iOS developers, though perhaps more so for those from small development studios. He enjoyed seeing family in Palo Alto and friends in San Francisco during the visit. I have my work trip to California in October for a big anaesthesia conference. A friend of mine from school, Tom Henry, had the premiere performance of his new choral work “Kakadu Man” on the day Jay arrived home from WWDC. A friend who is an enthusiastic chorister came with me to the concert while Jay had a nap. We reversed roles for the Whitney tribute concert a few weeks later.
The new apartment building next door to us has gone up over the Winter. I posted a series of photos of the progress on Facebook, partly because of Jay’s parents’ curiosity as to how it was going. As most of the work is done during my working hours, it hasn’t been disruptive except that they have had a quite liberal interpretation of the requirement to keep our garage door clear of obstruction which has meant a few requests to move their equipment for us to get the car in or out. The four storey building structure is now finished and the internal fitout is supposed to be completed by Christmas.
Our car had just passed 100,000km and was about to turn 10 years old this year. Though we had had no problems with it, we decided to replace it. We used a buying service to avoid car dealers and were very happy with the process and the price. The old car was bought for cash by the first person who came to see it, so the whole change-over was about as painless as it could be.
A few weeks after we sold the old car, the model was recalled for replacement of the front airbag. The new car has been trouble-free, though it does give a sensation that it’s looking over the driver’s shoulder with its ability to brake on its own when on cruise control or assert that the driver isn’t paying attention.
Our friends Alex and David celebrated David’s 30th with a “Kings and Queens” themed party. We hadn’t been to a 30th for a long time; we went to our first 50th birthday party early in the year. The costume theme was very enthusiastically taken-up. We also had a dinner with my cousin Elizabeth and her family when they visited from Perth.
Sorrento is very quiet in the Winter, but we had a weekend there in front of the wood stove and walking on the deserted beaches. We saved the swimming for August in Europe. It was also an opportunity to do some tidying of the beach house.
At the end of July we went to Europe for three weeks including Jay’s birthday. First we spent a week in Berlin. Neither of us had been to Germany before and we saw lots of the cultural landmarks as well as museums devoted to the events of World War II and life in the former East Germany. Here Jay is in front of part of the Ishtar Gate reconstruction at the Pergamon Museum.
We spent a week in Iceland seeing the amazing landscapes and volcanic geological formations. We happened to be there for their gay pride celebrations in Reykjavik which drew a surprisingly large crowd for a city of about 160,000 people. Iceland was very hospitable and easy for tourists. We drove along the South coast and also flew to Akureyri in the North to see as much of the country as we could in a week.
Our last week was in Barcelona where we met up with friends from Australia including Beau and Simon and went to some of the events at Circuit Festival including the iconic water park party. I’ve made an album with some more of the photos from the trip. It was a great holiday, but we were both glad to get home and back to our own bed. Winter is now coming to an end; it’s been an unusually cold one for Melbourne but we have the basic details of our next warm holiday planned out and are also looking forward to a visit from Jay’s parents in November.
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