Archive for October, 2018
Scully’s Halloween costume
Wednesday, 31 October, 2018Halloween reflections
Wednesday, 31 October, 2018I got up this morning, Wednesday, and prepared to go to teach my Primary Ethics class. And then today I have the rest of the day off work. I had enough time to decide to walk to the school (about a 40 minute walk) instead of driving, so I did. On the way, the following thoughts passed through my head:
Well, Halloween is tomorrow. Maybe I could wear my Grim Reaper costume to work and walk around the office all day in it. That’d be cool. Maybe I’ll decide tonight.
Imagine if I wore that costume to the school for my Ethics class. That’d be even cooler.
It’s a shame it isn’t Halloween today, or I really could have done that.
…
Wait a minute. Tomorrow is the 1st of November. Today is Halloween! D’oh!!
Game of Thrones, Season 4, Ep 7 “Mockingbird”
Monday, 29 October, 2018Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.
Meereen: Daenerys returns to her quarters in the huge pyramid, presumably exhausted after another day of listening to petitioners. Daario is there! She asks how he got in with the doors guarded; he says the windows are not guarded. They exchange flirtatious banter and she orders him to remove his clothes…
Later, Daario leaves, just as Jorah arrives. Daario says Daenerys is “in a good mood”, and Jorah gives him a lingering glare. Daenerys tells Jorah she has ordered Daario to take his men to Yunkai and recapture the city, and execute the Masters of the city. Jorah argues that the punishment is too harsh, and will only show the freed slaves that violence is an acceptable means to an end. Daenerys is initially firm, but relents, ordering Jorah to tell Daario that the Masters should be given the choice of submitting to her rule or facing execution. She also tells him to tell Daario that he convinced her to change her mind.
It’s pretty clear that Jorah has fancied Daenerys from afar for a long time, and now Daario has stepped straight into her bed in front of him. Jorah seems level-headed enough to deal with this at the moment, but who knows how this will play out in the future. I think given a chance to find an excuse to get rid of Daario, Jorah would leap at it.
Tanzania diary, day 7
Sunday, 28 October, 2018Thursday, 5 July, 2018. 18:02
We have just returned from our second all-day game drive. We saw less wildlife and drove a lot further today, but the main highlights were truly worth it.
We both woke up early this morning, and we could hear the sound of some sort of animal in the distance, but didn’t know what it was, possibly hyenas? When the alarm went off we got up, dressed, and walked over to the dining tent in the soft dawn light before sunrise. The dawn was cold, very noticeably colder than yesterday, and stayed a bit cooler throughout the day.
 African grey flycatcher, dawn light at the camp |
Breakfast was the same choices as yesterday, but the “selection of pastries” was changed from banana bread. We said we’d have whatever the new choice was, plus muesli and yoghurt, and then today I chose the “Nimali Benedict” and M. had fried eggs with toast. The “pastries” turned out to be freshly made pikelets, which they gave us two each of. M. had honey on hers (stealing a jar from the next table) while I had butter. The benedict was a little rough, served on toasted slices of the odd bread they have here, smallish with a slightly sweet and grainy texture, almost like gluten-free bread. Perhaps it is; every time we order food they are careful to ask us if we have any allergies.
Symbolic house cleaning
Thursday, 25 October, 2018Our puppy Scully has passed a significant landmark. She is now over six months old, and as of yesterday we have declared her officially fully house trained. I marked the occasion by doing a thorough carpet cleaning, with spot stain remover, followed by shampooing and steam cleaning using a hired machine from Bunnings hardware.
This feels like a symbolic cleansing ritual, to rid the house of the bad spirits of toilet accidents and the ghosts of pee stains on the carpet. It feels like a major turning point, and the difficult and messy days of the past are now gone.
The last time Scully did an unprovoked pee in the house was on 3 September, over 7 weeks ago. She did have an accident on 10 October, but that was caused by us being neglectful. We have trained her to use a bell by the front door – when she needs to go outside to toilet, she rings the bell, and we come to take her out. Unfortunately on the 10th my wife and I were both busy and when Scully rang the bell neither of us got to her for a couple of minutes. By the time we could go to Scully, she had peed on the carpet next to the bell. We kind of don’t count this one as her fault.
Being house trained makes a big difference to our stress levels. When we first got her, we were constantly following her around the house, never letting her out of sight for a second, and prepared to pounce and pick her up instantly if she showed any sign of preparing to pee. It was a stressful time, and gave us no spare time to do normal household chores. But now we can trust that she’s not going to pee in the house, and if she needs to go she lets us know, so we can relax and do things without having to constantly be on the lookout.
Germany diary, day 5
Thursday, 25 October, 2018Tuesday, 2 October, 2018
We woke up a bit before 04:00 this morning, and I thought it was time to get up until I looked at the time. I tried to go back to sleep but it was difficult. Eventually we got up about 06:40 and prepared for the day, eating the bread rolls M. had bought last night. They were small square rolls with large pumpkin seeds on them, and tasted great. I did some stretches and got dressed, and left soon after 07:00, walking along the river again to the Hauptbahnhof.
This time I got the S-bahn from platform 11, after stopping to buy an almond croissant from a bakery in the station. I ate it on the platform while waiting for the train. Quite a few commuters were catching the train and I stood up rather than take a seat, until we stopped at a technology park a few stops out and most of the passengers got off, at which point I sat down for the second half of the ride. I arrived at Horrem quite early again, but went straight to the Image Engineering building so I could log in and check my overnight email to see if there was any news from Canberra about the hosting of the meeting next year.
But when I arrived, the front door of the building was locked, despite me being able to see that some of the meeting attendees had arrived and were in the meeting room upstairs. So to kill time while someone came to open the door I walked around the building, noticing that several people were already working inside as I passed the ground floor windows. After a lap of the building I tried the door again and this time it opened.
The meeting today proceeded quickly, with several ad hoc technical sessions either cancelled or cut short with just a brief report due to relatively little progress since last meeting. We rearranged the agenda and tried to fit everything into today, but the first ad hoc scheduled for tomorrow might have had interested people phoning in, so we couldn’t move it without checking for sure. I emailed Bob at the War Memorial to confirm if he intended dialling in, but it was after knock off time in Australia so I didn’t think I’d get an answer in time. So we proceeded thinking that we’d have to return for at least a short time tomorrow morning. But after lunch, and after 10pm in Sydney, he replied and said he couldn’t make it, so we were free to reschedule and wrap up the meeting a day early!
For lunch today there was chicken pieces in a spicy Mexican style rice, plus chilli sin carne, made with a meat substitute for vegetarians. Both were very nice, and I enjoyed the meal better than yesterday’s lunch. Dietmar had said there would be no catering on Wednesday because of it being a public holiday in Germany, but as it turned out we ended the meeting early so didn’t need it.
 Mexican lunch at Image Engineering |
After wrapping up and saying goodbye to the various people and that we’d see each other in Yokohama next year, I left with Margaret to walk to the station. We found Scott and Ken on the platform waiting for the next express back to Cologne, but no ticket validation machine on the platform, so we all had to walk back down the tunnel beneath the platforms to the machine at the tunnel entrance. Fortunately we had a few minutes, so made it back to catch the train. We got off at Cologne Hauptbahnhof and said goodbyes until next time we meet, whenever that will be.
Germany diary, day 4
Wednesday, 24 October, 2018Monday, 1 October, 2018
I was awake before the alarm and got up a bit before 07:00. After quickly getting dressed and ready, I left to walk to the Hauptbahnhof to catch a train to Horrem. I needed to work out how to get a ticket for the journey, and where to catch the train from, so I wanted to be there nice and early. The sun was only just beginning to brighten the sky before rising as I walked north in the cold morning air. I decided to walk along the river bank, and it was a very pleasant walk, watching the pre-dawn light on the river and the various boats.
 Cologne Cathedral in dawn light |
At the station I went first to the information desk as it was right there as I entered. I said to the man that I wanted to catch a train to Horrem, but I was obviously pronouncing it wrong as he didn’t understand the name until I’d repeated it with slightly different inflections several times. He told me to go to the ticket office and they would help me.
Walking into the ticket office, I saw signs for long distance and local trains. I figured Horrem was close enough to be local, so went there. Again I had pronunciation problems, because when I told the lady I wanted a ticket to Horrem, she said, “Rome?! You want the long distance counter!” I only managed to make her understand after a few more attempts, at which point she said, “Oh! Horrem!” – saying it in what I thought was exactly the same way I’d been saying it all along.
It turns out there’s no such thing as a return ticket here. You buy single fares, or an all-day ticket which is about three times as much, so no good for a single return trip. But there is a ticket which is four single fares, and you can use each fare whenever you want by stamping the ticket in the validation machines four times on separate occasions. So I got one of those, plus two single fare tickets, to cover travel for three days. It cost just over 30€ in total.
The next train to leave for Horrem was a regional express at 07:47. I went up to the platform and the train was waiting there. I got on and took a seat on the upper deck. It pulled out and whisked me thought the suburbs of Cologne, stopping at Erhenfeld, then into the countryside and on to the town of Horrem.
Ethics: Drugs in sport
Wednesday, 24 October, 2018My latest Primary Ethics lesson topic is about “Drugs in Sport”, which I just finished today after four weeks of lessons. The topic starts by considering what it fair and unfair in sports, and the general concept of cheating, It only really broaches the subject of performance enhancing drugs in the fourth and final lesson (today’s).
It starts by considering caffeine. The kids are year 6, so roughly 11 years old, and most of them have some idea what caffeine is, what foods contain it, and what its effects on the body are. The course material has me tell the kids that caffeine is known to improve athletic performance, and then ask them if they think it would be fair for an athlete to drink a few cups of coffee before a race/game. They all pretty much thought this was fair.
Then I mention that from the 1980s, the World Anti-Doping Authority banned high doses of caffeine in sports, with a level equivalent to 8 cups of coffee or more being illegal. However they reversed this ban in 2004 and now any caffeine level is legal. The curriculum has me ask the question: Why do you think they banned caffeine, and why do you think they removed the ban?
One girl put her hand up and I called on her. She said, “Well, back in the olden days like that, maybe coffee was exotic and really expensive and only the rich athletes could afford it.”
Germany diary, day 3
Wednesday, 24 October, 2018Sunday, 30 September, 2018 17:00
We are resting at our hotel for a little bit before heading out for a drink somewhere before our dinner appointment this evening with the two guys from Canon in Japan.
We slept reasonably well. We woke up around 03:00 and M. had one of the pretzels as a snack. I feared we’d be awake from then on, but we both fell back to sleep, and when I woke again it was just before 07:00, giving me almost ten hours sleep.
We prepared slowly to leave the hotel, being in no rush as we knew nothing much would be open before 10:00, and in fact most shops would be closed for Sunday. We showered and got dressed, and I did some stretches earlier before M. woke up. Then we had the remaining pretzel and I had an apple. By the time we left the hotel, it was about 09:30. We stopped at the reception to ask about what would be open, both today and on the public holiday on Wednesday. The guy there basically said shops would be closed both days, but museums and restaurants would be open.
We walked across to Hohestrasse and passed an open bakery that looked decent, but M. wanted to find the Espresso Perfetto place we’d passed yesterday. We went down a side street and did a bit of a loop to find it, but it was closed Sundays. So we walked back the three blocks to the first bakery, as another one we ran across didn’t look as good.
M. got a slice of Apfeltorte and a cappuccino, while I got a Mandelhörnchen and a hot chocolate. The hörnchen was full of almond paste and had slivered almonds all over it, and the ends were dipped in chocolate. The hot chocolate was pretty good too. M. said the apple cake was nice.
 Apfeltorte for second breakfast |
After this, we walked north to the cathedral and went inside briefly, but there was a Sunday service in progress so we couldn’t walk around very far. Then we went across the square to the tourist information place, and got info about museums that would be open on Wednesday for M. We also looked at the souvenirs for sale and bought a calico bag to carry snacks and other things in while we walk around.
Tanzania diary, day 6
Tuesday, 23 October, 2018Wednesday, 4 July, 2018. 18:16
I woke around 05:00, by the sound of animals just outside the tent. I realised it was zebras by the clopping and snorting. They grazed around for a bit, then suddenly they bolted away and it was quiet again. Later at breakfast the people at the other table were telling the staff that they heard zebras and also lions during the night!
We got up with the alarm and got ready for breakfast at 06:30. The menu was a choice of fresh fruit or muesli, plus pastries, and a hot choice of either banana pancakes, eggs benedict, or a full English breakfast. We both chose the muesli with natural yoghurt, and the pancakes. We also asked what pastries were available and the guy said banana bread, so we tried a thin slice of that each too.
 Banana pancakes for breakfast, at Nimali Central Serengeti camp |
After quickly returning to our room for a toilet break, we emerged to meet Timba a few minutes late. We sprayed ourselves with insect repellent for the tsetse flies, climbed aboard, and set off. Leaving the camp area we saw plenty of zebras. Over breakfast a staff member had told us they like being in the camp area as it’s safe for them.
We started off sighting some interesting birds on the drive away from the camp: a lappet-faced vulture perched high in a tree, waiting for the sun to climb into the sky so it could ride the thermals. A red-billed hornbill, with its impressively large and colourful red beak. And some chestnut-bellied sandgrouse, puttering around on the grass of the plain.