don't talk bad about them

apparently computers don't like it when you say bad things about them. i clicked on my blog yesterday to discover that the entire page of my blog was my last post "stupid computer" printed over and over again and all my other blogs went into archives. what made it bad was cleaning it all up cuz our computer is soo rediculously slow (i mean speed challenged). i have to delete each one individually and it involves opening up 4 pages every time and it got slower and slower each time i went through the cycle of clicking "edit Posts", "delete post", "confirm delete", and then the page telling me i was successful and i click "edit posts" again-- 15 times!!!!!

stupid computer

i've spent WAY too much time infront of the computer this weekend. i managed to get about 40 of 92 photos from our long weekend away from a CD onto the hard drive (that was about a 2 hour process and i spent another 1 1/2 hrs trying to get the rest of them on the computer but that's not gonna happen so i give up on it now). i just spent 45 minutes now trying to post a couple photos on a blog (unfortunately the best photos are in the part of the cd that doesn't want to go on the hard drive-- our cdrom drive is kinda broken, i don't think its the cd's fault or my bad relationship with computers). after going through about 8 different "help" pages on blogger (it takes anywhere from 30 sec-2 minutes to load every webpage on our computer) and clicking back and forth on my blog editing pages i dicovered that our computer isn't good enough to support the little icon (and bit of program that goes with the icon) to upload photos onto my blog. now i have to wait until we get our new computer (which hopefully should be very soon-- i gotta get onto zac's mum about that) before i can post any photos. once we get the new computer i'll be able to post the photos from our camera too though (the ones i have on cd are from zac's mum).

moths

i had some random thoughts about moths last nite. someone once told me that moths are trying to get to the moon and thats why when there's a lite they can get to the just keep flying into it over and over. whenever i see a moth doing this i wonder if he's just thinking "i made it" bump, "i made it" bump, "i made it" bump, "i made it" bump,... until the light is gone. but last nite i started thinking about it more. if its true (which i doubt) what happens to the moth that lives in a forest or somewhere where the only lite is the moon? does he just keep flying up and up until the air is so thin that he dies or he reaches the atmosphere and is burned up? and if moths like the light so much why are the nocturnal and stay in dark areas? wouldn't they be happier during the day when everything is bright?

cruelty free

we went to a cruelty free expo on the weekend-- filled with products not involving animals in the making or testing and organizations fighting for animal rights. some of the stuff there is pretty amazing. theres a couple chinese ressturants and shops that do all kinds of immitation meat. i tried a sample of satay "chicken" from a restraunt we've been meaning to go to-- it was AMAZING. i havn't had actual chicken in a few years but this would have to be as good as, or better than i can remember chicken being. i wanted to buy some frozen "prawns" to do garlic prawns with but we weren't going straight home after so they'd prbably defrost and do somethign weird in zac's bag before we could get home. one day one of us will have to make the effort to get out to the vegetarian asian grocery store to buy some (its in a suburb west of here and trams run north/south from our suburb north of the city and its actually a tough suburb to get to by tram or train cuz there's only a couple lines that run through it from the city and buses are really unreliable and don't even know where to catch one going that way). there was lots of other great stuff too like real looking fake leather bags and shoes (zac's got a pair of vegan dress/nice casual shoes). i also had the most amazing vegan cheesecake. creamy just like real cheesecake but no dairy or eggs in it (i've been thinking about trying to attempt making vegan cheesecake but we don't have vegan sour cream here yet and i think if i made tofu sour cream it might give the cheesecake a bit of a tofu-y taste). it'd be nice if a lot of the products we saw there were more available. a few things are available at major supermarkets but a lot of the really nice stuff is either online ordering or you have to go out to a shop they have in some random suburb-- not great when you rely on your bike or public transport). a lot of it is kind of expensive too cuz its not produced on a large scale yet-- hopefully one day it'll be the norm.
here's a good point to ponder though: humans are the only animal that drink another mammals' milk and we are the only animal that continues drinking that animals milk throughout adulthood.
i read that somewhere a while ago. then i started seeing stuff about the horrible ways cows are treated when they're raised for milk. its pretty sad. there's a lot of other easy sorces for the vitimins and minerals we get from milk, we don't need it for survival (a lot of people do better without dairy).
we have a bumper sticker on our fridge that says "meat and dairy based diets keep the rest of the world starving" the amount of grain we have to grow to feed 1 cow can feed a HUGE number of people (i can't remember the exact number but its rediculous cuz that cow doesn't produce enough meat to feed anywhere near that number of people).
i still haven't made the jump to veganism but vegetarian with just a small amout of vegetarian (non animal rennet) cheese and maybe a few free range eggs or eggs from zacs aunt and uncles chooks makes some difference and i feel better physically without meat in my body.

weird birds

its springtime and all the birds are out doing bird things, protecting their eggs and taking care of their babies. one bird here-- the magpie-- is known for getting a bit possessive and territorial. its actually recommended that people wear sunglasses on the back of their bike helmets or draw eyes on their helmets in spring cuz these birds are known to swoop and peck at people if you get too close to their homes. i think they do it even when they aren't near their homes too-- they're just mean. zac's mum had one swoop her on her bike last week. he didn't just do it once but he went at her (fortunately on the helmet) a few times and then landed on her shoulder to take a few pecks at the helmet. she was to scared to let go of her handlebar to take a swing at him to scare him away cuz she thought she'd fall off her bike so she just let him do it and then take off.
other birds get aggressive too. zac was at a pedestrian/bike crossing waiting for the light to change. another guy on a bike was there too, holding onto the signal button pole while he waited. a brown bird the size of a small crow (me and zac have been trying to remember the name of them for a few days and we can't) was just walking around on the footpath by them, pecking away at whatever he was finding on the sidewalk. all of a sudden he just jumped up and hit his feet into the helmet of the guy infront of zac and then just went right back to pecking the ground like nothing happened. the guy was a little confused and turned to look at zac to see if zac saw it happen too. a friend of ours came up with a theory. maybe the little bird hated the walk signal noise and saw the guy leaning on the pole with his hand by the button so he thought if he smacked the guy he'd go away and then there would be no annoying sound.
my favorite bird story is one i saw. i was biking home from work and a guy was biking down the footpath toward me as i was going down the side of the road. he had some kind of parrot on his shoulder. as he passed me i could hear him having a conversation with the parrot but he wasn't just talking to it he was arguing with it and saying in an stern voice something like "no, we're doing it this way!". was the parrot actually being that stubborn that he had to argue with it to get his way?

storm

we sat down to eat dinner last nite just as a big lightning storm was starting (pretty common in spring/summer here). the wind was blowing the rain into the window so hard it sounded like someone was standinng outside spraying the window with a hose. all of a sudden there was a HUGE gust of wind and a very loud crash of thunder boomed. then we started hearing crashing and banging noises outside and something hard was hitting the side of the house. both of us just sat staring at the wall wondering what was happening and what we were supposed to do. it got quiet and went back to just rain pounding on the window. we decided to see what hit the house cuz it was just a narrow alleyway between our house and our neighbour's (who are also our landlords) and whatever it was came from our roof or thiers. zac went down the dark alley and said something about tiles on the ground and asked me if i thought we had tiles on the roof. my thought was "no-- who tiles their roof? maybe he means shingles.". we went back inside to finish our dinner and leave it until morning. i went out this morning and the alley had broken tiles in it. i looked at our roof, its corrigated iron. the landlords roof is tiled (thats who tiles their roof). the landlords came by to check out damage to our house-- i hadn't noticed when i looked but the winds actually ripped some of the nails off on our roof and the sheets of iron had started to come off. the landlord said that a tree had also fallen through a window on their house. now we know what happened with that big bang (we thought maybe lightning hit our house or theirs-- maybe it did). the wind or lightning hit a tree and dropped it on their house, breaking the tiles on their roof and the wind threw them into our house. everyone is ok but our landlords have a lot of repair work to do.

monday/tuesday group

at the preschool i'm working at we always refer to the monday/tuesday group as the hard group. there's a lot of difficult behaviours in the group and it can be a challange to get them all playing nicely or sitting still and listening when they need to. they can be kinda funny though. the other day one of the women i work with overheard a child saying to a "difficult behaviour child" (who thinks she's a princess and acts really immiturely for her age) "are you like this at home? are you just always naughty?" it was nice to have another child telling her this-- might make her think about what she's doing and realize she's not funny even to her peers when she's doing her immature little games. another kid tried to tell me that i was naughty. he was mad at me because i'd asked him to leave an area after warning him twice about not playing properly (chasing and tackling another child). when he wouldn't pick anopther area to play in i just stood blocking his way so he couldn't get back to where he wanted to play. he just kept telling me i was naughty and trying to get around me without having to touch me. when i realized he didn't want to be near me i just said that i was going to sit in the area i was telling him to leave. he stormed off to tell the other staff i wouldn't let him play there (not really the brightest kid. he doesn't realize all the staff are on the same page when it comes to discipline for not playing properly with the toys or other children). several seconds later i hear my boss saying to him "shawna's naughty? i don't think so!"
fortunately its wednesday today so i don't have to deal with that group of kids until next week. 8)

melbourne drivers

vancouver drivers are known for their aggressive driving but melbourne drivers definately top vancouver. drivers here believe that they are the only ones on the road that matter and anyone in their way is wrong. rarely do i walk up to the shops near our house without seing a driver honk (usually repeatedly) at a car in front of him/her that is turning left or right at an intersection (completely legally). they think becuase they want to go straght that the car infront should not slow them down on the way to their destination. they get annoyed that the person infront has stopped to yeild to oncomming traffic or pedestrians or even just slowed to make the turn and they feel they have every right to be annoyed at them and honk repeatedly for the person infront making them have to hit the brakes. cars also have a habit of honking at each other while they're stuck in traffic and nobody is moving but they see a green light ahead and feel the need to just lay on their horn thinking that somehow traffic will magically start moving. it is kinda funny to watch as a pedestrian or as a cyclist riding past traffic lined up through 3 sets of lights but its annoying to listen to and makes you wonder what people actually think when they're honking at people who are in their way but are legally turning or are stuck in as much traffic as they are. i think something happens to people's brains when they get behind the wheel of a car and suddenly they think the world revolves around them.

go the demons!

i got to go to my first footie (australian football) game last nite. it was REALLY good. zac had a couple free tickets from work that he was supposed to give away but couldn't find anyone to take them so we decided to use them so they wouldn't go to waste. we were kinda thinking about going to the game anyway but it was supposed to be pretty wet all weekend so we never got tickets or anything. my team (melbourne demons) were down by about 13 points when we got there near the end of the first quarter (the team they were playing is #1 on the ladder right now, my team is tied for 5th and we're only a few games away from the grand final). they made a comeback though and were doing pretty good thru the 3rd and part of the 4th quarters. the way the clock works, you don't know when the quarters are going to end (it counts up and they add time on to the end instead of stopping the clock). it was definately near the end of the forth and they were down by 10 points so they needed 2 goals (6 points each) to win. fortunately the quarter was extra long and they did it, they got a few free kicks and got a couple points and 2 goals!! in the end melbourne beat the bulldogs 105-109!!

re-ajusting to australia

it took over 32 hrs of travelling (not including the shuttle bus to the vancouver airport and 2hrs hanging around there-- mostly standing in line to get a tax refund and then we had to leave while we were next in line cuz we were already late for our boarding call and still had to go through security to get to our gate) but we made it back to melbourne and its FREEZING cold winter weather. it really was freezing. it was 9 degrees when we arrived at 1pm and it had snowed that morning in south melbourne (only about 15kms from our house and not up any elevation gain). today we got stuck in a rain storm biking back from the shops (if we'd just spent 20 minutes more at the shops we would have been ok but we forgot that melbourne rain tends to only come in 20 min bursts and decided just to bike through it-- it stopped before we even got home). fortunately the jetlag isn't bad though (i think the fact that we were stuck in so many time zones over so many hours just kinda made our bodies forget any time). i managed to stay awake until we put a movie on at 7pm last nite and then slept mostly through the nite and got up 11:30 today and feel pretty fine (although it does seem weird that its completely dark a little after 6pm). its good though cuz i gotta get up at 8am tomorrow and deal with screaming babies all day. we were thinking of going to the footie (australian rules football) tomorrow nite but i don't think i'm that ajusted to the time or sitting in the freezing cold for a few hours yet.

cool animals

we made it all the way to palmer, alaska and back (almost 8000 kms and around 90 hrs of sitting in the car). it was definately worth it. we saw a lot of cool animals and mountains and scenery and got to camp at some really nice hot springs (and a lot of horrible little hotels in little towns) and did a couple days of ridiculously long drives (16-18 hrs). here's some of my favourite photos from the vancouver to alaska and back part of our north america trip.

this was our first moose siting. she even posed for us and then walked off after we finished taking photos

here's our first male moose (hanging out in a swamp on the side of the hiway in alaska)

buffalo on the side of the hiway (and on the hiway) our first animal siting of the trip: the road-liking caribou
one of four (6 if you count the 2 road kill ones) bears we saw (no grizzlys though)

i can't figure out how to get the rest of the photos i want onto this blog so i'm just gonna publish them another way (and they'll each have their own blog). they're kinda in reverse order (or not really in any order) of what i wanted them to be in.

our first alaska hike. apparently there's a lake right behind us and big mountains all around us.

cute little ground squirel thing on our first hike in alaska

zac by a glacier

my friend that we stayed with in alaska (good tour guide). its kinda cool that even though we live on opposite sides of the world, we still can see each other.