Cafe Chez Nous

I blame Simon. After daily coffees from our office cappuccino maker, I was forced to acquire a cappuccino maker for home - for weekends of course. I'm not addicted. Really.

ANZAC Day

I slept through the ANZAC day dawn service, which may be considered un-Australian, but then I headed over to Dianne and Daniel's place for a traditional Aussie BBQ, with a very Aussie pavlova, a traditional game of two-up and a slightly less conventional SingStar battle.

Barefoot Bowls

Today we held fiercely contested games of lawn bowls to celebrate Suz's b'day. As no one qualified as typical lawn bowls afficianados - ie. geriatric retirees - we lacked the standard white clothes/shoes uniform, and were forced to bowl barefoot.

No Car. No Test. No License.

I spent the entire morning psyching myself up for my driving test, but when 1 arrived at the registry we discovered that one of the brake lights had just blown. Dad rushed off to get it replaced, but only returned around the time the test should have been ending. So....no driving test for me. I was so upset that I had to go home and sulk for the rest of the day.

Cover Art

Pursuading a journal editor to stick your work on the cover is a license to display one's research, personal agenda or a landscape photo of one's native homeland, in full glossy colour.

Let's make a crystal

There's an atom over here, there's an atom over there...2016 atoms and endless frustration later we have...my best artwork ever. One for the fridge door.

The Post-Doc Game

Sooo....You want a post-doc...Feeling lucky?
(You will need: 1 dice, much patience)

START

Send out CV Advance 1

Sorry no jobs Back 2

Send out CV Advance 1

Sorry no funding Back 4

Hot job tip Advance 1

Only a rumour Back 6

JOB

FINISH

Congratulations!
You have won a perfect post-doc designed just for you

Mug Shot

Another license. Another mug shot. I've only just gotten over the last photo.

Deb's final seminar

Debbie gave her end of PhD seminar this evening and has a huge pile of 9 papers ready to be stapled together and submitted as a thesis before she toddles off to Canberra this weekend to start a postdoc. I'm only a little jealous.
My favourite line from the talk: "...and thanks to the Australian government for giving me more money than I've given them - yet"

B502850G - Comments refuted

Time for another tussle with the reviewers in the quest to get published.

Lost and Found

My wallet jumped out of my pocket on the train on the way home on Saturday night. A kind soul returned it to me in the post today - a day after I cancelled all my cards.

A Comedy of Reference Errors

Ref A refers to Kitkat* prices in Ref B, but Ref B only mentions chocolate bars in Ref C. Ref D talks about cost of Kitkats in Ref E, but Ref E has little to do with Kitkats and they probably meant Ref C too. Ref C is fantastic and their prices agree exactly with ours, however, they mention Ref F-Z... as #24.... and their reference list stops at #21.
*Some names have been change to protect identities.

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A herd of caterpillars

I nearly squished this mass of caterpillars crossing the road while cycling to Steavenson Falls in Marysville

Conference Dinner

The conference dinner ended with the recitation of bush poetry and song by Ray Withers, a hotly contested table tennis match between Cameron and Thorsten, and ~50% of people trooping back to our place to continue the festivities.