Christmas Holidays 2014

Another Christmas has come and gone.  As with every year that seem to pass nowadays I'm surprised at how quickly it has gone.  This year has certainly been a big one.  As I look back I notice that I have not updated this blog since May this year and thinking of all the things that have happened I should have had many more entries than are there.  But I will not use this space for that suffice to say that it has been a very busy year.

This Christmas was spent at at my sister's place in Melbourne and I'll head back to Alice Springs next year.  It was a good Christmas with lots of presents, good food and family.  It was good to have Mum in Melbourne too for the lead up and part of Christmas day and it was sad to see her head home.

Max's 5th birthday was another highlight of my Christmas.  On the 28th we went to the zoo and had some of his impressive Olaf Birthday Cake.  After that we came home and watched Max open his presents and then had a fun time playing with all of them for the rest of the afternoon.

Max opening his his first present at breakfast.

The impressive Olaf Birthday Cake.

 Max looking at the present I gave him.

Max and all his birthday presents.

I also went out to visit Anne's Pa's farm and had a tour around the fields (paddocks) to see the sheep.  It is an impressive farm with quite a few sheep on it.  For the moment though the fields looked very dry and on the day we visited a fierce gale was blowing.  The visit to the fields, shearing shed, wool store and the homestead was very interesting thoroughly enjoyable.

And now comes the new year.  While I don't know what the coming year holds for me or others I hope that it is a good one for all.

To Yulara (...again)

Once again I'm in Yulara for work.  I can't even remember how many times I've been down here so far.  I'm down here again for work doing inspections in and around the tourist town of Yulara.  It has been a busy day with two hotels and a campground inspected.  Tomorrow looks like another busy day.

Me with Ayers Rock (Uluru) in the background.

Extracting stuff

It is now coming to the end of my second week in Adelaide.  I've been here for nearly two weeks working on my honours project at Flinders University.  This week I've been extracting DNA from my samples this week and will be starting on PCR tomorrow.  While it sounds exciting and brainy the truth is that it isn't really.  You just have to add certain chemicals wait, centrifuge the sample, and repeat (or there abouts).  I'm enjoying it and it makes me sound really smart when I say I've been all day in the lab!