We got a new camera for Christmas this year. A present to ourselves and from everyone (vouchers, credit card points & cash). It is a Canon EOS 500D Digital SLR.
We had a quick play around with it last night at Mum’s house for dinner. As expected it takes really good photos, but I look forward to getting to know how to use its full features in the coming months.
Here is another panorama of the back yard at our house. Those plants are really starting to grow!
Yesterday I put my bike to good use, and went for a ride around Lake Joondalup. Stacey was out at the gym, and I felt like seeing what the ride was like as we are planning to do it again tody.
UPDATE: We did actually get out and ride this again today. Went Anti-clockwise today.
The route if fairly flat, with only a couple of hills that cause you to push. All up it is 19.5km and I completed it in 1 hour (quicker than Stacey going to the gym). The whole route is paved path, with basically no interaction with road traffic, so it’s nice and safe if you’re worried about riding on the road.
Hopefully I might make this a more regular occurrence. It is so much more satisfying than riding a stationery bike, although that does have its advantages (better when raining, and you can watch TV while doing it which in itself is better than just sitting in front of the TV).
The only downside to this ride at the moment is that my bum is really sore! Not sure if it’s the seat or just that I haven’t ridden in a while.
On a completely different topic, I bottled my 5th brew this morning. It is a Coopers Pale Ale, which I thought was a good idea after our trip to Adelaide last month where we did a tour of Coopers Brewery.
So far I haven’t made the same beer twice having started with the Coopers Lager, Coopers Mexican Cerveza, Coopers European Lager and a James Squire Amber Ale clone.
The European Lager has been in bottles for 11 weeks now and should be starting to taste pretty good (I’ll try another bottle later today). The Amber Ale isn’t exactly like the James Squire, but it is a nice drop anyway. I’m halfway through that batch and will make it again one day.
Anyway, that’s my weekend in a nutshell, I hope yours turned out to be a good one!
This is the start of a little weekend project for me: a new letterbox.
As you can see from the old one on the ground in this photo, we are in desperate need of an upgrade! The old green one has had its day and is starting to really rust badly. On top of this concrete base we will be putting a new limestone letterbox that should server us for many years to come. More pics once it’s in place.
Here a some pictures from our first week in Adelaide
Wang Wang the panda and Stacey at Adelaide Zoo
Glenelg Beach
Coopers Brewery Tour
Shopping in Hahndorf
Mount Lofty Lookout at Sunset
Giant Lilies in Botanical Gardens
Bicentennial Conservatory (Rainforest in a big dome)
Hentley Farm Winery – Barossa Valley
Barossa Valley
I said goodbye to my Festiva yesterday. Me and this car go way back… 10 years we’ve been friends; The places we’ve been and the things we saw together! The countless trips between Perth and Katanning, Mt Magnet, Kalbarri, Bunbury, Margaret River, Albany…
We did about 240,000km together, and in all that time only broke down once while out on the road (any other time it was nice enough to give up at home). A couple of facelifts here and there and we got in the odd fight or two. For a small car it definitely punched above its weight, carrying big loads in the back, transferring furniture, concrete, bricks, plants. You name it we moved it!
The end was painless (mostly), it wasn’t a huge smash but simply hail that allowed the car to retire into the land of written off cars. I’m sure it will have plenty of new friends in the yard with the same condition.
So my days with a Uni car have ended, and the age of the family car begins…
So long ACE, Happy Retirement!
We just bought a new car tonight!! It is a Toyota Camry 2007, with only 29,000km on the clock. Here are some photos of it:
If you’re seeing this post, then you have found the new home for my blog. I have transferred the domain johnstone.id.au over to wordpress.com, as the hosting works out a whole lot cheaper over a year than a normal web hosting account with a custom install of WordPress.
We are looking at implementing a new budget around the house, which means cutting costs on all the things that we have control over. This means slower internet 
, watching what we spend at the supermarket, making lunches etc… This should be an interesting exercise.
An no, don’t read into this what I know you are thinking… No one is having a baby any time soon, we’re just tightening our belts and making the most of the money we earn.
I had an idea for an app for a phone today. I’ve had a quick look around and haven’t seen anything like it so far. So, imagine your at a pub, or the footy with some mates. You get into a round of drinks, and 3 or 4 drinks in, you can’t remember whose buy it is, or what everyone is drinking.
Imagine there’s an app that tracks exactly that! You set it up at the start of the night (when you’re sober), and then later on when you can’t quite hit those tiny keys on the keyboard all you’ll have to do is click the big fat buttons asking “Whose buy is it?”
If you tend to come home with an empty wallet on nights like this you may also like to know how much you’ve spent. The app could tell you that too. And it doesn’t have to stop there. With a properly setup catalogue the app could tell you how many standard drinks you’ve had, how long you have been drinking for, and as I’m a responsible developer, it could even suggest when enough is enough. The only thing it can’t do is a breath test!
If you wanted to get really complicated, it could even allow advanced functions like the ability to add a new person into the round, work out who’s the scrooge and who is generous (but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves).
Well, I guess that’s the hardest part out of the way, coming up with an idea. Now comes the easy part: coding!
Speaking of Android phones, Mashable has a good write up of some of the better health and fitness apps available on the platform.
There are a couple of nice looking apps for those people that like to go running (not me!), and some good calorie counting apps. The only downside is that they probably won’t have some of the more unique Aussie foods (Vegemite anyone?).
I have used calorieking.com.au previously for this sort of thing, and they do have a mobile version of their site, but not an integrated app. Who knows, maybe they have something in the works.
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| dad on New Car |
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