Juniper training

I spent three days in North Sydney at the Juniper Office doing training on Juniper Routers. It has severely impacted my very poor knowledge of Cisco commands as Juniper has a much better and very similar command structure.



And I bumped into Stilgherrian, met Kate for the first time and then Pong over lunch and by chance.

Yass Junction

The next day I drove back to Sydney. I started earlier than I would normally as Jeremy and Elisse work morning shift. So I arrived at Yass a few hours earlier than I expected. Cathy was still at lunch. It turned out when I did meet her that Ingo and the kids were in town. Frank, Mietta were also passing through. While I was waiting I headed out to Yass Junction Station and took some photos.





Wikipedia says: The station is in its situation due to the refusal of the former Engineer-in-Chief of the New South Wales Railways, John Whitton to build the Main Southern Line through the middle of Yass itself. After a visit on 8 December 1871, to investigate possible routes for the extension of the line from Goulburn, Whitton remarked that "to bring the station to North Yass would increase the length of the line by about three quarters of a mile; that the cost would be considerably more than I had recommended, probably £30,000 or £40,000 for works alone; and that in an engineering point of view [a] divergence to North Yass could not be entertained. Despite continuous objections, none of Whitton's working plans or other Government surveys were not able to find a suitable route for the railway to pass through Yass. Instead, the present route from Gunning to Bowning was chosen which passed several miles to the north. After a Government Bill was passed "to authorise the construction of tramways along certain streetts and highways in the city and suburbs of Sydney and elsewhere", a tramway was built from Yass Junction to Yass Town to convey passengers. The trams departed from a small dock platform behind Platform 2 (the Melbourne-bound platform). The line opened on 20 April 1892.

Australia Day 2009 - a day for catching up with people

Australia day was also a day of meeting people and eating. I met up with Rodney in the morning for Breakfast on Brunswick Street in Carlton. I was a little early as I had misjudged the time to drive to Fitzroy from Werribee. So I took a few pics.





In the afternoon I went around to visit Helen and Monica Morgan and share in their Australia Day family BBQ.





And then in the afternoon I met up with Mike and Jess at the Melbourne Flickr Photo meet on a roof top in Melbourne.





I did not end up going to Arcanacon for the post arc party as I was felling very tired after all the exertions and had to drive back to Sydney the next day.

A day with the family

The 25th was the day for visiting the family. There had been some infighting, but in the end more people met each other that would otherwise have happened.

At the start of the day, I had bacon and home grown eggs with Jeremy and Elise.





Then I picked up Alicia in Gisborne and headed out to my mums place in Seymour. We saw her shiny new car.



And then in the evening I picked up Chenaye and we went to my step mother's place for Chinese New Year dinner.

Arcanacon

Well I spent one day at Arcanacon. I had last visited in 2006. This year I played three sessions, but did not take many photos. As usual the place was efficiently run.

The first game was based on Ghost Busters. It would have been good if I had watched the movies again in recent memory. But we managed to save the world and sink our cruise liner in the middle of the Hudson River in New York. Quite a good days work.

The second was a AD&D by Gary Fay. It was a bit long, but I think in the old days we would have romped through it. I always like Gary's modules.

The third was a side adventure to Peter Strong's now complete anime inspired Japanese 14 part game. It was a bit weird know what would happen in the future but the team an module were good. We managed to completely destroy the opossing companies research facility and grab their artificial intelligence creations.

driving to Melbourne

I drove down to Melbourne for the long weekend and stayed at my brother's place in Werribee. I spent the day eating. First was a cheesy toasty for brunch...



Then a chicken burger in Holbrook for Lunch.



and then dinner at Baffetti a Ristorante éBar at 106 Watton Street Werribee. A surprisingly good meal. I had the mixed platter of kangaroo, lamb, and spatchcock.

Danni's going away

Had a dinner in the Cricketers Arms Hotel for Danni's a-going to Deutschland.

Dinner in Penrith

Well I had dinner at Penrith, in what is turning into my 6 monthly visit to the Penrith Flickr group. They are still having dinner by the banks of the Nepean River at the Log Cabin Hotel. Now that it is summer we sat outside and were treated to quite a nice sunset. The food is moderately priced and reasonable for the cost. I was lucky and got in just before about 30 teenage girls turned up to order their meal.