Day 1 of rain bomb n+1

The rain has hit again. The forecast for today was up to 20 mm. So far we’ve had over 50 mm, and it’s only 9pm. Tomorrow is forecast for 100 mm, and then Friday another 30 mm. And Sydney is getting off lightly compared to some of the places that have been flooding recently – some of those areas are forecast to get over 300 mm.

This morning I had my last face-to-face ethics class at the school for this school term. It’s two weeks holiday over Easter for the kids (and me!), and then we return for term 2. It was raining heavily and the school is having construction work done to build a new hall after the old one burnt down a couple of years ago, so there are makeshift paths and mud and construction workers all over the place.

Tonight I’m baking some sourdough brownies. I thought I’d try to feed the sourdough starter a little more often, which means I’m trying to do things with it in between baking loaves of bread. I wondered if brownies would work, and of course there are dozens of recipes on the net, so we’ll see how it goes.

New content today:

New ethics topic: Emotions

It’s Tuesday, which means the start of a new topic for the week of online ethics classes. This week we’re discussing emotions. I wrote the lesson this afternoon, and this evening I taught the first three classes. It seems this one is more of a critical thinking exercise than an ethical one, as there was barely any disagreement or alternative opinions among the students to most of the questions. Instead of exploring diverse opinions, we’re instead teasing out an understanding of various emotions and why we feel them, using critical thinking skills. Which is part of the class scope and description, so that’s all good.

I got up early this morning and went for my run first thing. This was after doing yesterday’s run in the evening after dark. It was the first time I’d done a run at night time, and it was a little disconcerting going at pace along streets and footpaths, with dark shadows everywhere and not having a clear view of the footing. So yesterday’s run was slow compared to times I’ve been doing recently. (Although still good compared to what I was doing a couple of months ago!)

I forgot to mention it here, but on Saturday Strava informed me that during that day’s 2.5k run I clocked my fastest 1k split ever. I ran the first kilometre in 3:53, which Strava told me was my fastest 1k ever. (At least, since I’ve been using Strava – although given I’ve never really been much for running, it may well be the fastest 1k I’ve ever run in my life.) I was pretty pleased with that, since I’ve been aiming at breaking 4 minutes for 1k for a while.

At lunch today I took Scully for a walk up to the shops and got some sushi rolls for lunch. I chose to walk a little further to another small park to eat, rather than the small square in the middle of the shops. The latter is convenient and a nice place to sit and watch people go by, but the grass there has all died, and it’s also haunted by posses of magpies who have become increasingly aggressive over the past few years. They will literally steal food from your hands while you’re trying to eat. This other park we went to is also very small, but nicely grassy, and blissfully empty of magpies, because it’s more out of the way and less trafficked. So I enjoyed my sushi rolls in peace, and then we walked home in the lovely warm sunshine.

This sunny weather won’t last. It’s supposed to close in tomorrow, and Thursday is going to be extremely wet, with 100 mm of rain and flash flood warnings. It remains to be seen how possible it will be to travel into the university for my lecture class on that night…

New content today:

Warm and sunny!

The sun came out today! It was warm! It ain’t going to last though… the forecast for Thursday has been raised to up to 100 mm of rain, with 25 on Wednesday and 30 on Friday. But tomorrow should be hopefully warm and dry.

I worked today on another weekly batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips. And… gosh, I’m not sure what else I did. I made some sourdough bread, and made cauliflower rice with fried chilli eggs for dinner.

Sometimes I just don’t know how a whole day flies by so quickly.

Last night I started watching The Exorcist. Despite being a classic, I’ve never seen it before. I’m half way through and might try to finish it tonight. It’s definitely a product of the 1970s, and it’s got a slow burn beginning that takes maybe half an hour just setting up the characters before anything really happens. But it’s getting interesting now and I’m curious to see how it ends.

New content today:

Housecleaning, but not my own

Today I had an unusual chore to do. My mother-in-law’s place needs freshening up and repainting to remove a mould problem caused by all the recent rain and humidity. So we went over today to help her pack fragile things like glassware and crockery out of the furniture so that the painters could move the furniture without breaking anything. We also took down all the paintings and pictures from the walls, and the curtains, and we helped her remove a whole bunch of books for donating to clear out some space.

This evening I had my two usual ethics classes, plus a science class for the girl who is doing those occasionally with me. Today we built on what we did about DNA and heredity last time, and moved on to evolution. As part of this I talked about the fossil record and the dating of fossils, which built on the knowledge she learnt back when we were talking about atoms and radioactivity – she already knows how we determine the ages of rocks and fossils.

So I spent most of the day when we weren’t out preparing that lesson.

Oh, and the weather was warm and sunny! No rain!! Although the Bureau of Meteorology has issued a warning that more rain is developing, and their models indicate we could get another 100-200 mm of rain starting from Wednesday, with some of the most flood-affected areas further north getting another 300-400 mm. Everyone you talk to here in Sydney is sick to death of this endless rain.

New content today:

Double update: Friday/Saturday

Friday I worked on my secret project a bit, and then had ethics classes in the early evening, before virtual games night with my friends, We played Perudo, 7 Wonders, 6 Nimmt, Scattergories, Boomerang Australia. I was very surprised when I won the first game of 7 Wonders, which is a game I don’t often win. Moreso because I thought I was doing quite poorly, until the final points count at the end where it turned out that I’d won.

Today we all slept in a bit in the morning. For once in a long time we didn’t have anything urgent to do in the morning. The sleep in was really nice.

I did some writing and comic making for Darths & Droids today. And this evening we dropped Scully with the neighbours while I took my wife out for a special dinner at a nice restaurant. Check it out:

Barbecue pork, smoked trout, capers, garlic flowers:

Barbecue pork, smoked trout, capers, garlic flowers

Macadamia ravioli, cherry tomatoes, madeira, green olives:

Macadamia ravioli, cherry tomatoes, madeira, green olives

Jerusalem artichoke, black barley, hazelnuts, sea lettuce:

Jerusalem artichoke, black barley, hazelnuts, sea lettuce

John dory, green tomatoes, currants, verjuice:

John dory, green tomatoes, currants, verjuice

Valrhona chocolate, Earl Grey mousse, buckwheat, wattle seed:

Valrhona chocolate, Earl Grey mousse, buckwheat, wattle seed

New content yesterday:

New content today:

Data fitting and COVID

I had been planning to go into the university tonight for the weekly Data Engineering lecture which I’m helping to teach. But the lecturer contacted me this morning to say there was a COVID case in his household, so he had to isolate and wouldn’t be going into the university. Instead he converted the lecture to online over Zoom, and notified all of the students. So I could stay home as well and assist students over Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

Apart from that I had my usual ethics classes this morning, and looked after Scully while my wife was at work all day. I went out for a walk with Scully in between heavy rain showers, heading up to the local shops to get some gelato after lunch. It rained while we were up there, under the awnings of the shops, but stopped by the time we headed home, so I managed to avoid having to use an umbrella.

New content today:

More rain, more teaching

We had another 30 mm of rain overnight, and some heavy showers during today. More expected tomorrow, of course.

This morning was face-to-face ethics teaching at the school. Against about 7 or 8 of the kids in my class were absent. Apparently COVID is raging through schools and infecting kids everywhere. Four of my friends have had it run through their families now, all apparently being brought home from school. We started a new topic today, about challenging authority.

Besides my online classes this evening, I worked mostly on Darths & Droids writing and comics today.

New content today:

Double writing day

It was a very busy day today. I had to write the ethics lesson for this week, on trial by media. Then I had to write a report on the ISO Photography standards meeting I attended back in February, to send to Standards Australia in time for our follow-up national meeting on this Friday. I should have done it a bit earlier, but I’ve been so busy that I put it off to this week. Those two tasks took a good chunk of the day. And then tonight I had three classes to teach, the last ending at 10pm! Thankfully from next week all the classes will be an hour earlier, since we go off daylight saving this weekend. (And I’m leaving the classes unchanged for most of the students who live outside Australia, so they’ll be an hour earlier by my clock.)

I also took Scully out for a drive at lunch time, because it was raining and I didn’t fancy a long walk in the rain. We went to the Italian bakery and I got some treats for me and my wife for dessert tonight, as well as lunch.

We had close to 60 mm of rain overnight, but it eased off during the day, being light for most of the day. Although this evening as I type it’s pouring down again. I added up the rainfall so far since the beginning of the year, and we’re not over the average annual rainfall for Sydney yet, but we’re getting very close.

New content today:

Calzones with bunya nuts

For dinner tonight I made spinach, ricotta, and bunya nut calzones.

Spinach, ricotta, and bunya nut calzones

What else? I had two ethics classes, I took Scully to the dog park, and I worked on a small batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips for this week. I’m still doing just a week at a time – I haven’t managed to get the time to do a larger batch like I’d like to do.

Oh, and now it’s pouring rain… Tomorrow we’re supposed to get around 40 mm…

New content today:

Are we in for more rain? Yes, we are

Yesterday was not only Scully’s birthday, but my sister-in-law’s, so today we went out for a Sunday brunch with my wife’s family to celebrate.

We had a bit of trepidation, because it was at a cafe by the beach, and looking at Google Streetview it looked like the outdoor tables were protected only by flimsy sun umbrellas, whereas the weather forecast was for storms. We assumed we must have had the outdoor area booked, because we’d be bringing Scully. Checking the weather radar before leaving, it looked like we might be lucky, with a storm line moving through but clear air behind it. Indeed, it poured on us while we drove over there, but stopped by the time we got there. But we needn’t have worried, because they gave us a table well under cover – they allowed dogs into a large area under the cover of a patio awning.

Looking at the menu, I decided on eggs benedict (my usual go-to when eating out for breakfast). But then I saw a woman at an adjacent table being served a delicious looking plate of something, with a visible poached egg and a pile of chopped tomato. I checked the menu and concluded it must be the “halloumi bruschetta”, so I ordered that instead. And then when my dish arrived it was nothing like what that woman had received! I’d obviously made a mistake in assuming what it was, and so I ended up with neither my first choice meal nor the dish that looked amazingly good. Fortunately what I had was also perfectly fine, so no real complaints, just an amusing story.

After the brunch the rain held off, so I went for a walk with my wife and Scully along the beach to the centre of the suburb. There was a Sunday market on to look at, and I tried some gelato from a new place that looks like a high class Italian gelateria. They had some very interesting flavours to choose from. I tried the Black Forest (I can never go past Black Forest), and the pavlova with berries. After carefully shaping each scoop into the paper cup, another staff member wiped the freezer display case clean of any stray drips or blobs of gelato, to keep the entire thing looking immaculate and pristine. I’ve never seen that at a gelateria before! It was very good. I’ll have to go back again and try more of the flavours.

Back home, I managed to get my run in before the rain settled in for the remainder of the afternoon and evening. We’re supposed to get another 100 mm or more of rain over the next week. And it’s worse news for the flood-hit regions further north, which are expected to get much more rain than that. The TV news tonight said the worst-hit regions were now expecting another 80–160 mm in the next 6 hours, to be followed by more in the next days. The Bureau of Meteorology says that another east coast low pressure system seems to be developing – the same type of system that caused the ridiculous amounts of rainfall and flooding a few weeks ago. And this is with the land already now saturated. I guess we’ll see how it develops.

New content today: