Spring 2006
29 October 2006
After a dry Winter, the Summer has come early and already the grass is turning brown because of restrictions on the use of water. It looks like we will have a severe drought this Summer with significant crop losses. Melbourne's parks are going to be looking very dry indeed by the time it cools down in March.
The warm weather has meant there have been plenty of opportunities to take Saxon to the beach. Brad has been taking him quite frequently. Saxon is looking very shaggy in this picture as he had cut his leg running through a window and so his clipping had been delayed. He has since had a proper haircut.
The Agricultural Show was on in Melbourne just before the footy finals. I hadn't been to it for many years and Jay was keen to go so we went on the train and saw the prize-winning alpacas, the pig races and all the other delights such as these prize-winning cookies. They are behind glass so there was no sampling.
The football, both Aussie Rules and Rugby League, finished in September. Melbourne Storm lost in the final of the rugby and neither of our teams was in the finals of the AFL. We went to Richmond's last game of the regular season and watched them being very soundly beaten by West Coast. The grand finals of both codes coincided with Sleaze Ball in Sydney. We went to Sydney for the Saturday night party, missing the AFL final in Melbourne and returned to Melbourne on Sunday night while the NRL final was on in Sydney. Maybe next year we'll go.
The trip to Sydney was very short as we both had to be at work on Monday morning. On Saturday we took the ferry to Manly which gave an interesting tour of the harbour with photo opportunities in front of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Here we are just leaving Circular Quay.
Work has been pretty heavy though Winter. Here I am doing a cardiac case but since the patient is in a drug trial I am supposed to be "blinded" to which arm of the trial they're in. The top syringe pump is covered for that reason. I should be reducing my hours a bit from February as I will change from full-time in the public hospital to part-time plus some more private work.
Jay has also been very busy. Test Drive Unlimited for PS2 is finally ready for approval and publication and there is now some certainty about the future of the studio he's working for which is a relief. He has also had time to make some of his personal programming work available online.
In October I went to the Australian Society of Anaesthetists annual meeting. This year it was in Coolum, about 100km North of Brisbane. The scientific program was fairly interesting but the highlight of it was a trip to an animal hospital associated with Australia Zoo where we were able to see some anaesthesia and veterinary practice with native animals. Most of the patients brought there are native animals injured on the road or sick and stressed due to habitat loss. Here a koala is having a general anaesthetic (induction with intramuscular alphaxolone and maintenance with isoflurane in oxygen). The blue bag is to keep the animal on its side.
The vets there described their work with marsupials, native birds and reptiles, marine turtles and also with the animals from Australia Zoo such as camels and tigers. We got to have a go at using a blow-dart drug delivery device (not on each other).
The rest of the conference was not quite as interesting as watching the stony-faced keeper give milk to a sumatran tiger, but I was very pleased to see a few people I hadn't caught up with for a while, including Attila who is still working in Darwin.
A friend from the US had a Hallowe'en party here last night. It's not something which is really celebrated at all in Australia so it was something of a novelty. As the party was at a club and later we were going to mix with the regular crowd there, we went as cowboys rather than grim reapers.
In the next few weeks we will be visited by Attila and maybe Jim from Sydney and then we have to organize an early Christmas celebration with my family here in Melbourne before we travel to the US to see Jay's family for Christmas. We will be visiting San Francisco and Los Angeles and hope to see many friends during the visit.
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The warm weather has meant there have been plenty of opportunities to take Saxon to the beach. Brad has been taking him quite frequently. Saxon is looking very shaggy in this picture as he had cut his leg running through a window and so his clipping had been delayed. He has since had a proper haircut.
The Agricultural Show was on in Melbourne just before the footy finals. I hadn't been to it for many years and Jay was keen to go so we went on the train and saw the prize-winning alpacas, the pig races and all the other delights such as these prize-winning cookies. They are behind glass so there was no sampling.
The football, both Aussie Rules and Rugby League, finished in September. Melbourne Storm lost in the final of the rugby and neither of our teams was in the finals of the AFL. We went to Richmond's last game of the regular season and watched them being very soundly beaten by West Coast. The grand finals of both codes coincided with Sleaze Ball in Sydney. We went to Sydney for the Saturday night party, missing the AFL final in Melbourne and returned to Melbourne on Sunday night while the NRL final was on in Sydney. Maybe next year we'll go.
The trip to Sydney was very short as we both had to be at work on Monday morning. On Saturday we took the ferry to Manly which gave an interesting tour of the harbour with photo opportunities in front of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Here we are just leaving Circular Quay.
Work has been pretty heavy though Winter. Here I am doing a cardiac case but since the patient is in a drug trial I am supposed to be "blinded" to which arm of the trial they're in. The top syringe pump is covered for that reason. I should be reducing my hours a bit from February as I will change from full-time in the public hospital to part-time plus some more private work.
Jay has also been very busy. Test Drive Unlimited for PS2 is finally ready for approval and publication and there is now some certainty about the future of the studio he's working for which is a relief. He has also had time to make some of his personal programming work available online.
In October I went to the Australian Society of Anaesthetists annual meeting. This year it was in Coolum, about 100km North of Brisbane. The scientific program was fairly interesting but the highlight of it was a trip to an animal hospital associated with Australia Zoo where we were able to see some anaesthesia and veterinary practice with native animals. Most of the patients brought there are native animals injured on the road or sick and stressed due to habitat loss. Here a koala is having a general anaesthetic (induction with intramuscular alphaxolone and maintenance with isoflurane in oxygen). The blue bag is to keep the animal on its side.
The vets there described their work with marsupials, native birds and reptiles, marine turtles and also with the animals from Australia Zoo such as camels and tigers. We got to have a go at using a blow-dart drug delivery device (not on each other).
The rest of the conference was not quite as interesting as watching the stony-faced keeper give milk to a sumatran tiger, but I was very pleased to see a few people I hadn't caught up with for a while, including Attila who is still working in Darwin.
A friend from the US had a Hallowe'en party here last night. It's not something which is really celebrated at all in Australia so it was something of a novelty. As the party was at a club and later we were going to mix with the regular crowd there, we went as cowboys rather than grim reapers.
In the next few weeks we will be visited by Attila and maybe Jim from Sydney and then we have to organize an early Christmas celebration with my family here in Melbourne before we travel to the US to see Jay's family for Christmas. We will be visiting San Francisco and Los Angeles and hope to see many friends during the visit.
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