Thursday, May 22, 2008

H minus 27hrs and counting...

H meaning "holiday", meaning two whole weeks where I don't need to come in to work.

I'm thinking that there might be a few hours of pure sleep wrapped up in there somewhere... feel like I'm running a bit short at the moment!

Waaaaaaay too much stuff to do before tomorrow afternoon. Don't know if I'll get it all done, but I'll have to try.

Fencing last night, again - was very wearying, due to not having been for a few weeks. Plus, fencing coach Barbara decided that instead of fencing first-to-five-point bouts, we'd fence 15-point bouts.

On top of that, Dr Trent decided that he wanted to fence epee with me, rather than foil. Normally I wouldn't mind, but the extra weapon weight made a difference last night. The muscles between my thumb & index finger are letting me know all about it today! Not to mention the arm & leg muscles - just under-used lately, I think. Must fix that, so it doesn't hurt so much next time!

After our brief holiday, Anthea has another appointment at the specialist to check out how her finger is going. We should be getting back to our regular gym visits in a week or so, although I think perhaps Anf wont be getting back into the boxing any time soon!

Actually, that reminds me of a story Trent told us last night - about a guy who had dislocated his thumb playing football. When the emergency room folks were going to put it back in, he said "Oh, no, I'm in the army, I'm tough, I don't need any anaesthetic!"

Thirty seconds later, after he'd gone successively white, then green, then thrown up, he decided he might have been mistaken.

Anyway.

Work calls. :-(

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Beach volleyball in the rain...

Ok, so the previous post pretty much summed up my Sunday.

Now, here's Saturday for ya! Or some of it, at least. Some of the folks from ERM were playing in the Corporate Games at the Uni of Qld, beach volleyball, as the title says.

The first couple of games were ok - they lost one narrowly, won the second convincingly. Then the heavens opened...

The calm before the storm...


Freaky sunset cloudage. This photo is straight from the camera. Around about this time, the temperature dropped from about 22-23ºC down to about 15ºC in about five minutes. We were not prepared...


There were about 30 people crammed under our tent, most of us holding on to the roof to try to stop it blowing away... the Cardno one partially collapsed just after this photo.


The game must go on! Crazy people...


The ERM team in action after the storm had passed... (yes, that is a lightning bolt in the background)


BTW, this storm hit after the "severe weather warning" had been cancelled, as there were no more severe thunderstorms around. Good to know it wasn't "severe". I guess then we would have gotten wet on both sides, rather than just our backs.

Ouchies!

This is what can happen when you don't catch the ball properly when playing gaelic.



Not even during the game - happened during warm-up! Anf was very disappointed, to say the least. No more gaelic for Anf for a while, methinks...

Luckily no breaks, just a bad dislocation. When the staff at the emergency room go "Whoa!", you know it's a doozy...

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Some more photos...

This is a shark - there were half a dozen of these swimming around.


This is an Australian Hobby, otherwise known as a Little Falcon. It was nesting on the cliff-face beneath the lighthouse.


A view of Byron Bay


Just in case you didn't know...


And, of course, the lighthouse...

Work has some perks...

...today's example being a trip to Byron Bay for a meeting, which allowed me to take the following photos, from Cape Byron (up near the lighthouse).

A pair of dolphins:




The darkish blots are all turtles...


...like this one!


Another view

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Modern medical science is a wonderful thing

This BBC article is interesting.

Basically, a man lost the tip of his finger in a model aeroplane accident (you stick a finger in high-speed propeller, you've gotta expect that, really!).

With application of a specialised product, regrowth of cells was promoted over the formation of scar tissue, and the man now has his finger tip back - including finger print, nail, and full sense of touch.

Amazing stuff - it's gonna be great when they get this working for larger, more complex parts of the body. I'm thinking that a lot of amputees may get their limbs back, in the not too distant future.

XKCD FTW!

Yet another great from xkcd:



It's licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence, so it's fine to share it.