The flower man

Remember the blog entry of a few days ago where we had that fog in the morning?

This photo was taken from the hills (source unknown). It's so cool I didn't want to waste it.

From 9AM till 2PM I worked on the roofs for the bird cages. Pretty boy Mason was keeping me company.

I made two of these frames to put on top of each cage. Hopefully tomorrow I can dedicated an entire entry to this on my Creative blog. They still have to be painted.

In the evening we went out with a bunch of friends. We went to another Indian restaurant. In North Adelaide this time. I started off with Samosas!

The place was very full, very (over) crowded and very (too) noisy which was a pity because I was not able to understand certain people.

And guess what the cat dragged in? A FLOWER SALES MAN! Before this guy there was actually ALSO a guy who offered to take a photo. We thought we had left those behind in A'dam...

How to look cool on your bicycle

We pass this dude almost every morning. There are no normal people with bicycles here, only funny ones.

In the evening we magically ended up at a Greek place where I ate very nice salmon fillets. Lovely people. Bit pricey though.

Urban myth: Turning off a fluorescent lamp is NOT bad.

When leaving the house in the morning, the two pretty pigeons (the other ones are stupid because they shit everywhere and they are incredibly dumb ;-) were looking for a new place to rent for this year's nest making and egg-laying. They kind of failed miserably last year. The birds in our garden are really showing off the term "bird brain" sometimes.

I can however only love them as they are truly innocent and don't screw up like humans do.

We put on a new lock yesterday which increased the quality of our lives by 500%. It was getting extremely aggravating having to put the lock on because it was not co-operating at all anymore.

At my work, someone is turning off the lights in the toilet all the time. I think I know who it is. The lights are fluorescent tube lamps and I always thought you had to leave those on because turning them off and on again costs so much energy.

B U L L S H I T !

I present you with three links as proof that this believe is utter crap. The high energy consumption on start up lasts less than a second. Leaving the light on for 2 seconds already uses more power than restarting the light.

So, if you want to save energy, turn your fluorescent lamps OFF if you're not using them!

Links:
- General info on how fluorescent lights work on Wikipedia
- Explanation 1 on Ask a scientist
- Explanation 2 on South Australia Government's site (PDF, text at bottom)
- Explanation 3 on Consumer Energy Center

I will turn the lights off from now on as well AND tell my colleagues about it :-)

The fog

First things first. Happy birthday Kees!

Kees' birthday started off foggy.

I had not seen fog in this country before.

The park on our way to work was foggy too.

The city was covered by fog as well.

But as we drove in it started lifting very quickly and here you see the last bits of fog disappearing.

I was bored and sleepy and snapped away towards the side walk.

On my way home I saw drawing on the street while walking to my bus stop. I think they're opening up this bit of road tonight.

There was a mini-line up at my bus stop.

In the evening we went to Bunnings to buy material to make a roof for the new bird cages.

The new cage design

Driving home after work.

Just taking some shots out of the bus.

My bus ticket.

At the time I didn't know we'd end up here for dinner. Cafe Peasano is really nice. Their menu is a little different from other places in a very positive way. And their pizza have a THIN bottom. Contrary to places where they smear tomato paste on a loaf of bread and call it "pizza".

I have to make two roofs for the new bird cages. It has to look nice, be heavy enough not to be blown off but not too heavy and it needs to give the birds good cover without blocking their view too much. The birds also wanted a heater and TV.

The other half of my brain is occupied with researching ways to get into digital railroading. Instead of buying stuff I may choose the adventurous path, add 5 years to my project that already seems like a 10 year plan, and build shit my self. Or not. I'm sure someone I live with doesn't mind postponing building the train-table ;-P

In the meantime we listen to Boot Liquor on SomaFM, one of my favourite internet radio stations. You should give it a shot if you like jazzy, bluesy, country-y and funny drinking music. (You don't have to drink to listen btw. Don't worry ma ;-)

My occupations.

My daytime occupation. I wrote a very fine piece of SQL using a custom Framework that we use. It was a very good exercise. Thinking up the actual SQL code took it's time though because I haven't done any for almost a year. I'm petty much back in the game because of this now though :-)

My evening occupation. I had a proper driving lesson in an automatic car today. My instructor is Chris Fisher who was a 1500 metre runner for Australia at the Munich Olympics of 1972. It went well and I was complemented on my nice and smooth driving. Next time we're going to do all the special driving tricks.

I made 3 sandwiches with ham, cheese and pesto when I came home.

Then I read the news and this photo fascinated me for many reasons. A bloke got shot in Amsterdam. It's most likely a liquidation but forget about that for a moment. This picture shows great emptiness. First there was live, now there's not. This man had an agenda, probably. The people he was going to meet will wonder where he is. Well, he's gone. The three guys standing around him are completely lost. It's like they're standing around the BBQ.
His life travelled for 34 years and lead to this spot where it was stopped and ended, at the spot, on the sidewalk, between two cars.

This photo holds a great sadness for me.

The new bird cages, phase one.

Today for lunch: Nicole's pea soup and a small piece of bread. It was prrrrretty good :-)

In the afternoon we made mandarin juice. have to do something with the mandarins before they dry up... Also prrrrrretty damn good.

In the afternoon I put two new bird cages together. These will replace their current homes that are too small and too inconvenient to maintain properly. We're going to give these birds some quality housing now :-)

Here is Nicole showing the cages. Oh, the cage is actually taller than Nicole *grin*