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I was a little concerned that the special effects in this movie was going to be too much in my face: but I was pleasantly surprised -- the effects are a vehicle for a great story. In fact, a simple story that is very well developed into a complex movie that grips from the beginning to the end.

Certainly fast paced (if you can cope with 4 different paces at once).

Very much appreciated the snippets of humour that relieves the tension when it's starting to get too much.

Highly recommended. Though not for people who've had their brains pre-addled and find reality difficult anyway Has a lot to say with keeping in the present and reality.

Our trusty Festiva was nearing another registration and the clutch was getting pretty desperate and so we asked ourselves the question: "Would it be better to get the clutch done and keep the Festiva another year (and get the house paid off); or would it be better to borrow from the mortgage and get another car now (and have the house paid off later)?"

We did our sums and it was a little cheaper to keep the Festiva, but it did carry the risk that if it didn't last the full 12 months without spending extra money that it would have been cheaper to buy another car now.

We decided that unless the perfect car came along, we wouldn't worry and we'd take the risk and therefore get the house paid off first. Personally I was much happier with getting rid of the mortgage sooner; somehow Sandi interpreted it to mean that she was to go out shopping in search of the perfect car, which of course is what happens when you start to look

So I came home one night to a very excited Sandi saying that she had not found just one perfect car, but she'd found three... and a couple of others that'd be OK

Sandi had definitely found a good car: just 12 months old and only 9,000 km on the odometer and it was a Hyundai company car, so all the services were done; in fact it still had four years of its factory warranty to go! And Sinclair Hyundai were going to give us a trade in on our basically worthless Festiva to bring the total price under $14K and pay the registration transfer fee too.

So, before my eyes and without wanting it to happen, the Festy quickly morphed into our new Getz:

We've had our Dux Heat Pump for about a year now so it's time to look at what the electricity usage and costs have done...

I mentioned in this post "Heat Pumped Hot water" that the water managed to heat to about 50C, eventually we got a little jack of that so got the temperature increased to what it was previously (apparently there is a bit of a loop-hole in the law where the temping valve can be left off if the hot water cylinder was replacing something identical; plus our plumber said that there were no kids in the house. Isn't the law an ass??). 50 degrees really is not enough, it means that you can't heat up the washing up or the bath when it's cooled and have to replace the water!! And since getting the temperature back to what we were used to it has been fantastic.

What this graph shows is our Off-Peak usage and costs over 9 years: KWh/Day in Dark Blue and $/Day in Pink.

Clearly visible is a seasonal difference where we used more hot water during winter months: up to 7 KWh/day. Thankfully it also shows that as time progresses the longer winter showers and more baths dropped (or became more reasonable). I'm not sure how much the colder air temperature makes a difference to the hot water usage?

The drop in usage is, I presume, linked to the drop in the number of people living in our house (the kids leave home...)

OK, what's the Heat Pump done for our usage and expenses?
I calculate that we've saved about 2,044 KWh or 8.3 KWh/Day in the Winter Quarter and 2.9 KWh/Day in the Summer Quarter. Though I'm confused and slightly bemused that the last quarter's usage is less than the what was generally the summer low.

The amount of money we've saved is not as exciting. The installer suggested that we change from Off-Peak 1 to Off-Peak 2, this involves an increase in the cost of the electricity (It nearly doubled, from 5 cents to nearly 10 cents per KWh).

I mentioned in "A Dux Heat Pump is on its way" that I'd calculated that we'd save half our current Off-Peak costs. How accurate was I?? The average for Off-Peak on installation was 53 cents/Day; the average after installation is 21 cents/day: nearly half

But instead of saving $113 in Off-Peak 1 charges, we've saved $53 (including the swap from Off-Peak 1 to Off-Peak 2). Consequently we're seriously considering changing back to Off-Peak 1... we've never got close to running out of hot water in the last year, the numbers in our house keep getting smaller and we don't lose anything giving it a try!

Anyway, we're still very happy with it (except that the cost of electricity keeps going up ).

This has been a real favourite ever since Keren introduced the family to it many years ago. Goes well with crusty bread as a hearty meal all on its own.

Sandi's first few attempts at this recipe resulted in the lentils sticking to the pan and giving the soup a characteristically smoky flavour: so ensure that you stir the soup whilst the lentils are cooking.

Ingredients

• 2 Onions: diced
• 2 tablespoons curry powder or paste
• 1/2 medium pumpkin: chopped
• 1 tin of evaporated milk
• Bay leaf and a few good sprigs of parsley
• 2 cups of water
• Salt to taste

Method

1. Gently fry the onions and salt in a large saucepan until clear.
2. Add curry powder or paste and cook gently for 2 minutes.
3. Add water, pumpkin and red lentils and boil until soft, stirring occasionally.
4. Remove bay leaf and Blend until smooth.
5. Add evaporated milk and serve.

I don't often do a dinner party for Sandi's birthday, and I'm not sure what prompted me to do one this year, but I decided I would. It ended up a bit of work, but everyone enjoyed it.

I planned, in general terms, to do South-East Asian flavours in a French style...

Pre-Dinner
I gave the task to Nathanael to do the pre-dinner drinks. He decided on (per glass):

• 4 Strawberries
• 4 Lychees
• 1/2 Lime
• 4 ice-cubes
• half a nip each of Cointreau and Vodka
• lemonade to mix

Method

1. Combine fruit, ice, Cointreau and vodka in a shaker
2. Squash and shake
3. Serve with parfait spoon and straw and top with lemonade

Extremely light and very tasty.

Carrot and celery sticks with cashew & parmesan dip and a cucumber & mint raita were also available for nibbling.

Entrée
Garlic mushrooms with green onions, topped with fried noodles (with paprika)

Main Course
Prawn and Pumpkin Curry, on rice with lemon broccoli (fresh from the garden)

Desert
Caramelised Bananas with ginger almond toffee.

Birthday Cake
Keren was given the job of coming up with a cake, he decided on a Pear, Raspberry and Ginger cake with a raspberry and white chocolate ganache.

Nathanael and Monica helped with their exceptional waitering skills to ensure that the meals were still warm and well presented when put on the table.

After Dinner
We watched Joe Leahy's Neighbours (last week we'd watched the first of the Highlands Trilogy First Contact as part of my birthday celebrations, and as soon as we can get the tribe together again we'll watch the third part of the trilogy: Black Harvest).

The Recipes

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We'd never visited Armidale before (always seemed to be in too much of a hurry and driven past ), and not having visited my high school friend Hugh, we decided to make the trip. Other friends Stephen and Ann live in Brisbane so we thought we'd include a stop-over there while we were so far North.

Just a week long and finishing with my Mum's birthday on the way back home...

The Short Photo Tour

Day One
Sandi was keen to stay out of Sydney on a public holiday eve, so we headed up the coast via Wiseman's Ferry: it was certainly pretty but definitely the long way around! We lunched at Ourimbah (the rest stop is excellent), stopped for coffee in Taree and finally arrived at that night's accommodation in Bowraville at about 7PM.

We'd booked a night in a double room in the Bowra Hotel (see Bowra Hotel website). Bowraville is a little inland than we'd originally planned, but the couple of Hotels we tried that were on the main road were booked out with holiday traffic; didn't know anything about it apart from what Google told us -- but it was well worth the short drive!

We got there just in time to get a meal in the restaurant, which was served in a formal dining room with linen table clothes, napkins, etc! We both had prawn & pumpkin Thai curry: really excellent (and perfect value for only $10 each): what could be better that sitting in a warm dining room, log fire crackling away and fine art on the wall:

After diner, maybe because we'd just travelled 585kms and spent 8.5 hours in the car, we walked around the sleepy and dark Bowraville. Didn't take all that long, but we were impressed with the town: clean and tidy, most shops filled and the public toilets were lit and open all night!

Day Two
The accommodation included "a light" breakfast, but this was more than light... serve yourself Just Right or Weetbix, all the tea/coffee you like and toast with spreads: all eaten on a wonderful wide veranda over looking the town.

We headed off up the coast just after 9AM, lunched in the Bicentennial Park in Ballina, and arrived at Stephen and Ann's place late afternoon.

It's always an exciting time at Stephen's, and although this was a very short trip and Stephen was busy getting his orchestra ready to take overseas (hope it's still going well Stephen?), this stay turned out no different. Stephen always has some of his culinary genius up his sleeve (sounds messy, but you know what I mean ).

Day Three
On Sunday we went into Brisbane and had a wander through an amazing garden close to his school, then strolled off to South Bank for a coffee and look at the markets.

We headed back home to have a typical family meal with all the kids (and girl friends): a real treat seeing these guys turning into adults .

Day Four
Monday, a public holiday, dawned with Stephen doing his breakfast thing again (which was pretty awesome to behold), then we were off to Armidale. Stopped at Kyogle for lunch, but honestly couldn't find anywhere that didn't look greasy and full of loud locals, so we continued on to Casino. Stopped at a nice little bakery, Kibbles of Casino, that had just about sold everything it'd baked that morning, so maybe everyone else had given Kyogle a miss too? The girl serving said they were seriously worried that they were going to run out of food! But we found something tasty enough and the coffee was acceptable.

Hugh had suggested a nice and scenic route into Armidale, and it was very much that, but the last hour or so got quite tough when the sun went down and the fog rose and then the drizzle started. But we finally got to Pembroke Caravan Park at about 7PM, just in time to join Hugh and Claudio for dinner at The White Bull. Actually, we were trying to SMS Hugh for the last couple of hours into Armidale but had no reception until we were just about in Armidale: thought that was pretty hopeless.

We'd opted for the cheapest on-site caravan they had ($41/night), which was a two berth.... but it did have heating! There obviously had been some miscommunication between the management and the cleaners, because our caravan was not cleaned and had the last occupant's linen on the bed (and 4 litres of milk in the fridge). When we let them know and asked what they wanted done with the linen they offered us a different van, but because we'd already unpacked we declined (though if they'd offered to pass on some of the savings they'd received by not cleaning the van we would have very much accepted).

Day Five
Hugh organised a bushwalk he'd never done for the next morning, out near the blue hole (a well used swimming hole apparently, but not in winter ). It was beautiful weather, though cool:

We actually had no idea the Armidale district had such beautiful gorges (gorgeous gorges we kept saying . In many respects it was quite similar to our Blue Mountains, and made it feel very familiar.

We even saw a rock wallaby (let me know if you can see it too):

After the walk we headed back for a quick kebab from ISPA Kebabs (highly recommended by Hugh who warned not to call it Lebanese food as this was definitely and aggressively Turkish), eaten in the park:

That night we entertained Hugh and Claudio with a B.B.Q.; Actually, the Caravan Park was very well set up: the B.B.Q. had tools chained to pulleys and weights so that you could still use them but not take them; the BBQ area had sinks, fridges and kettles for use: just brilliant!

Day Six
The morning dawned with the most lovely misty sun-rise, I just had to stand there for a couple of hours and time-lapse it:

After which we headed off on a wee bushwalk by ourselves; Hugh had suggested that the Wollomombi Walks were spectacular and he was right:

We'd done just about all we could when we decided to take the track down to the river (a bit of a climb), but were stopped just after a lookout where a sign said the track was closed. So we headed back to our wee tin can to unfurl our culinary genius in a single saucepan.

Day Seven
This morning was a shock of awe and wonder:

After we recovered and had some breakfast we headed off for Mass at the Cathedral, which was almost as awesome as the sunrise (just wonderful when Jesus meets your needs in a simple and profound way). After Mass (and moss) we headed off for a wander around town before lunch with Hugh in the Art Gallery Cafe.

We found Caffiends in the Mall and as it was a cold day, we decided to opt for a warm cafe and hot coffee. The size of the cup was a bit of a surprise though...

Sandi being Sandi wanted to check out St. Vincent de Paul opportunity shop... and we found a book of Judith Wright's poems that Hugh was extolling to us. He'd shown us a memorial garden that the city had installed. Incidentally, I thought the space was one of the most obscure spaces I'd been in for a long time, especially as it was dedicated to a poet: it spewed you out almost as soon as you entered it. Sandi really had to struggle to pose for these shots:

Lunch at the Art Gallery, a tour around Hugh's workplace (where Shizuko also works), then off to the Bicentennial arboretum, which looked like it had not received much attention since 1988; but it did have lots of nice plants and a great pond (with a non-working fountain):

Day Eight
Another different dawn, this one sunny:

We were sharing breakfast with Hugh, Shizuko and Claudio before heading off down to Mum's. Hugh suggested Bottega and it was one of the nicest cafe's I'd eaten in for a long, long time!

After a sumptuous breakfast we headed off about 10AM for the 400 odd kms down to Mum's. Hugh suggested Thunderbolt's Way (also know as Bucket's Way) as a nice way to go: and it was!

Just after Walcha there was a huge house that seemed to have it's own lay-back for people to stop and take a photo... so we did!

We stopped for lunch in Stroud at the Capitol Cafe, which served me the worst coffee I'd had in a very long time... I'd started with the best and finished with the worst, funny, eh?

After we'd recovered from Stroud it was an easy drive down to Mum's and her birthday dinner (Happy Birthday again Mum!!). We stayed overnight and headed back home to our frost ravaged garden, hoping not to drive anywhere else too soon (we had driven over 2,000 kms and taken 845 photos and kept all within $900).

What's next? We're thinking of walking out to Kanangra Walls next Spring and spending a week doing the walks around there.

The Lenten Journey was written during and after Lent 2010; a poem in three parts, it helped to put my journey, struggles and successes into perspective as I worked through them. I can hear two voices when I read these, especially in Parts 2 & 3, and can hear Sandi reading them with me... but that's my interpretation.

Part 1: The Journey Home

Self obsessed I have craved
His blessings and graces I've prayed
All the good things of God I've dammed.
Self deceived I've tithed
and done and given and bribed,
by manna and anger I am damned.

Like Jonah running away with his pride
in the end there was no where to hide,
Yet even in the depths God is Lord of our breath.
And what was once trusted and envied by me
has become burdensome, foul and obscene,
It drags me down to face my death.

Alas my heart it was filled too full
for love to reside it was too cruel,
yet in wilderness it's mysteriously grown.
If nothingness is something to be got
through flow we have and yet have not,
finally it's better, not knowing, but known.

Part 2: After the Catharsis

After the catharsis calms
How can we live again?
The crashing thunder a distant rolling
The warmth around feeds our ground
And we feel like all our victories won.

Levies need mending and fields their tending
compass points washed away in the storm
every direction an option in this new morn'
but facing each in its turn, one by one
leaves me spinning and giddy without a boast
the simplicity of victory a fleeting ghost.

After the purification abates,
How can we live again?
In the silence of a landscape sketched in black
the gentle rain greens our pain
and all our fears are swallowed in hope.

Wells need sinking with serious rethinking
all our old plans judged and found to be wanting
every habit clamouring for a new sounding
but rejecting each in its turn, one by one
leaves me forlorn in this empty place
alone and waiting for a busy space.

After the turmoil's quieted
How can we live again?
The yeller whispers sweet nothings in my ear
softly lullabyes our jumbled cries
and our relief denies all of life's hate

Garden's dejected, every fruit tree rejected
each strength shown for the weakness it was
every path's journey a fruitless cause
but taking each in its turn, one by one
leaves me searching for a probable plan
not knowing if my strength can.

After the love's complete
How can we live again?
The gentle eyes that can see what can be
my soul implored forever more
and all our energy's consumed by bliss.

Floors need sweeping and clothes their cleaning
each job that's done seems to persist
but the old house could just as easily not exist
and facing each chore in its turn, one by one
leaves me grasping after what used to make sense
confused and unable to commence.

Part 3: Feast on Hunger

There is a tree
no flowers or seeds,
but with foliage so rich
as it has no needs.

I was fat
and you fed me,
I was in prison
but you celebrated my sin,
I had everything that I needed
and you gave me more,
I wanted it to stop
but your answers were not to my questions.

There is a tree
that flowers in need,
not in abundance
of over-supply and greed.

I was fat
but you knew my emptiness
I was inside my prison
and you took me deeper
I had everything
but you knew I didn't
I wanted it all to stop
but you gave me answers before I asked.

Feast on hunger
Rejoice in want
Hide your strength
Grow your need.

There is a tree
no flowers or seeds,
but with foliage so rich
as it has no needs.

I was fat
and you fed me,
I was in prison
but you celebrated my sin,
I had everything that I needed
and you gave me more,
I wanted it to stop
but your answers were not to my questions.

There is a tree
that flowers in need,
not in abundance
of over-supply and greed.

I was fat
but you knew my emptiness
I was inside my prison
and you took me deeper
I had everything
but you knew I didn't
I wanted it all to stop
but you gave me answers before I asked.

Feast on hunger
Rejoice in want
Hide your strength
Grow your need.

When Sandi was in New Zealand I had a crazy idea for our Toilet wall...

Our Toilet is pretty horrid: dark, airless and small. It also had an extractor fan that had not worked for a very long time, and was filled with old spider webs. We'd removed the extractor fan out a little while ago which let in a lot more light and air: the effect was good.

So, while Sandi was away I decided to improve on it a little: I lined the hole with some tin to keep rain out of the wall.

I also thought that it'd be neat to put old bottles into the wall The idea has been rolling around our brains ever since we helped a couple build their mud-brick house in Tasmania on our honeymoon and we built a big glass bottle into their wall.

So armed with a hole drill and some colourful empties I started with two bottles!

Sandi got a great surprise when she came home, and thoroughly approved (in case you were wondering).

Now we're after nicely coloured bottles to add to the wall

NANY is a wonderful annual event where software authors of all levels of expertise pledge to release something new for the New Year. It's all about fun and challenge, and over the years 100's of free applications have been released: 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2010.

This year I'm extra excited because I not only get to help again with the event, but because the timing has been lengthened, I also get to enter the event; which is a little bit scary (but you only live once...). I'll be posting about it over here.

DonationCoder.com is a surprising online community that is based around "all things computer"; and is made up of software authors, connoisseurs and fanatics. It has an abundance of free / donationware software available, as well as vibrant discussions around every aspect computers and software.

We had an extended discussion this year about the development of the NANY event, which revealed some very surprising aspects and possibilities for online communities. Managing a major event without ever seeing your fellow workers has its own issues; communicating without looking at their faces or hearing the inflection in their voices made for interesting discussions, especially when we all felt strongly about what we were discussing.

The good will that was evident in these discussions made the whole thing work, even though there were some very sticky points discussed. The outcome for NANY 2011 was exciting: an open event that encourages quality software without restricting the entrants. It really is testament to the quality of the DonationCoder members, and what can be achieved when the goal is the focus rather than personal wants.