Quick note

Pre-flight champagne + pre-dinner cocktail involving manuka honey flavored vodka + glass of pinot noir during dinner + Bailey’s during dessert + dessert wine with the cheese plate = vomitting into a plastic basin in the galley because both toilets were occupied, and this despite the fact that I actually had dinner before the flight.

I generally don’t get all crazy with the alcohol during work travel but being on holiday, and paying for the tickets myself, made me feel like I should take advantage of what I paid for — though I’m not sure if drinking on flights is really taking advantage of anything as it really only serves to dehydrate you.

Inaccuracies in Google Maps Australia

I was driving with Michelle over to a housewarming party of sorts when, following the directions provided by Google Maps (from my desktop), I ran into a dead-end. While we resolved this moments later by doing our own re-routing, I later on decided to test the Nav4All GPS/navigational program that I had installed earlier on my BlackBerry and to my surprise it correctly showed the dead-end!

When I checked again with Google Maps I noticed that when trying to go into Street View mode it does recognize that Niara Rd is a dead-end and does not continue onto Aitchandar Rd as you can see from the blue outline below:

Dead-end on Niara Rd

However, when I got Google to create a simple navigational instruction from one side to the other it again gave directions to drive onto Niara Rd and continuing onto Aitchandar Rd. Turning on Street View turns it into a rather comical directional aid (click for larger image), one that made me think there’s a Hibiki Ryouga working at Google Maps Australia:

Straight through the front yard!

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened and frankly I’m quite annoyed. I used to use MS Streets’n Trips while in the US and given that it was “offline” you’d think there would be more inaccuracies with that program. Nope! So you’d think an online program with Street View, satellite view and all would be a lot more accurate. Not sure what’s going on with Google Maps Australia but I do hope they fix this crap soon.

First harvest and more!

Last week we had our first harvest and enjoyed a simple salad of lettuce, feta cheese marinated in olive oil and said olive oil.

Home-grown lettuce, feta cheese marinated in olive oil

That was last week. And as is obvious, our lettuces are doing quite well:

Lettuce

and more letuce

As usual, the mint, parsley, etc. aren’t doing so hot. I’m seriously ready to give-up on them (if I haven’t already):

Not so good looking plants

The tomatoes and basil plants in the fourth pot, however, are doing quite decently. The tomato plant leaves aren’t looking so hot but we do have tomatoes growing! The basil, on the other hand, is flowering, which meant we started nipping them so as to keep it growing longer. (Yes, I screwed-up the depth of field in some of the shots. Oh well.)

Tomatoes, basil, oh my!

Growing tomatoes

Big boy

Teeny tiny tomatoes

Basil flowers

So far, not sure quite what to make of all of this. We definitely still have a bug problem but the plants seem to be stronger and more resistant to them. Maybe the sprinkling of pepper and the chili spray worked? Maybe it’s just the liquid fertilizer in the water every week or two? Or maybe it’s the cute lady bug that I saw for the first time on one of our lettuce plants tonight? (I read that lady bugs are good against these infestations.)

Either way, it’s a good learning experience for both of us and when things go well, a pretty tasty experience as well!

Improving

I haven’t written anything lately since our little garden was in a pretty bad shape and I was just on the verge of giving-up. I went from checking nearly every single leaf every morning and evening to just giving the pots a quick look and watering them. Partly I had my mind on other thing, but mostly I was sick and tired of not seeing the army of pests being reduced. One night I went out and nearly emptied a small container of pepper after Michelle had read that we can water the plants and then sprinkle pepper on them (the water makes’em stick).

The next morning, I repeated the process.

And in the short term, I saw no real gain and I attributed this to the fact that the pepper bits were stuck on top of the leaves while the little buggers were eating from the bottom.

The past few days, however, I must admit I had not seen as much lil’buggers as I used to. I still see a few but not nearly as much as when I started checking leaf by leaf. So maybe the pepper treatment did work.

Here they are:

More room for everyone

As you can see, we’ve also bought a new pot and took out five lettuces and placed them in their own pot. I can’t imagine how crowded things would’ve gotten had we simply used the two original pots. I have to thank my girlfriend for moving them in her usual “kick the front door and shoot everyone” approach and getting them done in record time. Granted, seeing her carefully grab’n yank each plant before plunking them into the new pot nearly broke my heart, but at the same time, if I had done it then I’d have been out on the balcony for a good hour or so. A day or two after the move they looked pretty dead but I’m happy to say that nearly a week later they look good.

Here they are in close-up:

Lettuce

I think this is cos lettuce (romaine)? Maybe they’re a bit on the small side, but aside from that one scarred leaf, I’m tempted to eat it now. But given that we can only pick 1/3 of the leaves at a time, this won’t really give us much. Maybe for a small sandwhich?

and more lettuce

And here we have another one of the healthier plant … not quite sure what kind of lettuce this is though. But whatever it is, it looks good to me as well.

Parsley

And here’s a peek at the parsley. Looking healthy except for a few of the yellowing leaves. Supposedly parsley and mint shouldn’t be around each other, much less side by side. We’ll see I suppose. We’ve already taken advantage of the parsley by using it in one of my dishes. Though given its small size I really can’t wait to be able to eat some of the lettuce leaves so that I can actually say I’m eating (and substantially chewing) stuff we’ve grown ourselves!

Mint

The one stalk in the back looks a bit bare because I’ve pulled off quite a number of leaves as they were being attacked by the little green worms. Starting this morning though I tried to just take out the offending creature and squashing it on my balcony instead of plucking every leaf (then again, what leaves I’ve plucked were pretty sad looking).

And no, I have not forgotten about the tomato and basil plants. Just that they aren’t looking so great and I’m really trying hard to care about them at the moment. They don’t seem to be under attack anymore but the basil is starting to show signs of injuries again.

The unforgotten tomato and basil and stuff

Unwelcome visitors

I’ve developed a new after-work routine this week. Leave work and head home and check on the plants regardless of the time and available daylight. The past few days I’ve noticed new holes in leaves, new brown spots, etc. and last night it paid off as I discovered one spider looking creature on one of the lettuce leaves. After killing it I did a few google searches and determined we’ve got maybe aphids, spider mites, and who knows what else. I was pretty happy with killing that one creature and hoped all was solved.

I woke-up this morning to discover that there were more holes on the leaves and it became obvious to me that I was not facing an army one. Following one of the pages I read the previous night I began to look at the underside of the leaves on almost every plant and discovered a few more here and there. I killed them off and yanked out leaves with black dots on them–I wasn’t sure if they were droppings or eggs. I went to work hoping I had finished them off.

To my dismay, I got home tonight to discover yet more damaged leaves. Armed with a flash light, I again began to examine the underside of the leaves.

I began with the tomato plant and discovering nothing moved onto the basil plant and zeroed in on a leaf with a nice round hole on it. I examined it with a flashlight, lifted it up and peeked underneath and discovered Exhibit 1:

Basil leaf and worm thingy

I inspected as much as possible all the other leaves and discovered a few more. Unlike the first one whom I granted a brief career in modeling the rest went straight between the mini gardening shovel and the balcony floor.

Next to be examined were the the mint leaves. Again, I looked under the damaged leaves (hmm … I should start looking under the un-damaged leaves as well) and after one or two (or maybe even the first) I discovered a similar worm looking creature. Here I present Exhibit 2:

Mint leaf and another worm thingy

As you can see, this is one fucking hungry little bugger. It too briefly tasted the modeling life before tasting crushed mint. (I have to admit I really enjoyed crushing the little shits on the basil and mint leaves as the leaves produced nice aromas.) I found a few more and they too enjoyed crushed mint fairly quickly after discovery.

Then I moved onto the lettuce pot and after a few leaves discovered an aphid looking thing:

Possibly aphid on lettuce

Lettuce, unfortunately, does not produce any aromas when crushed. Too bad. One or two more and then I discovered another one of the spider looking thing I saw the previous night:

Possibly spider-mite on lettuce

I discovered only one or two more of these and further inspections of the other leaves and plants yielded nothing and I called it a night.

I decided to water the lettuce and herbs pots but left the basil/tomato pot alone as it has a water well at the bottom and I found out that both basil and tomato plants only needed to be watered 2-3 times a week, not to mention that basil “hates” having water on its leaves.

Here’s hoping no more damaged leaves tomorrow morning! Else we’d really have to start looking into creating home-made fertilizer (organic of course).

Oh, and if you wanted a close-up look of the bugs, here they are:

Tonight's cast of characters

A week later

As I mentioned in my previous post, our little herb garden isn’t doing so hot a week later.

For one, it seems that we were supposed to put the fertilizer fairly soon after potting them. So when some leaves turned yellow we thought it was just a case of malnutrition and we poured some liquid fertilizer late last week.

And as of this morning, the herbs and veggies are doing okay though two of the lettuces seem rather dodgy:

Herbs and veggies galore

And here’s a close-up of the dodgy lettuce:

Dodgy lookin' lettuce

However, if that looked bad, what I saw on the free tomato plant we got surprised me even more:

Time to go ...

While this surprised me, I didn’t do anything about it except water it. I figured the dead leaves will wither, fall, and turn into compost. Michelle, however, checked it online earlier this evening and decided it had a case of either a fungal or viral infection. Either way, it was time for the freebie to go. So shortly afterward I yanked the plant out, put it into a plastic bag and tied it up, hoping the other plants will be okay. We saw some of the other leaves and we think they’ll be okay.

Herb garden

My girlfriend (and I) decided to start a herb garden. As usual, this remained just a “decision” until last week when we got a chance to see a herb garden at her godparents’ place. After remarking how we’ve been meaning to start one of our own they took us to town into a gardening store and we got ourselves a few pots, potting mix, and some starter herbs and veggies. Here they are in the first morning after we re-potted them:

Lettuces

Above are several types of lettuces … four types in fact. But hell if I can remember them all. I’m not quite sure why some of the leaves are broken. Throughout the week last week I noticed as I watered them that there were quite a few broken leaves. Maybe the wind? We did have some windy days last week.

Herbs

And here we have eggplant and capsicum (aka. green bell-peppers) along with parsley and mint. The eggplant and capsicum will be moved out this coming weekend, time permitting.

Tomatoes and basil

We got a free tomato plant from a good food event at Hyde Park last week and we had also picked-up a cherry tomato plant at the garden shop, and one of the other kit actually came with another tomato plant so we’ve got three tomato plants growing here along with basil as we’re told that ought to keep flies away.

I’ve got visions of the Hanging Garden of Kings Cross (you can think of Kings Cross as a modern day Babylon …) but as I’ll detail in a follow-up post, we’ve ran into issues just this past week and I’d be happy if at least one lettuce survives long enough for me to pick-up some leaves for a sandwhich or salad!

Sydney restaurants on the downhill

For the past few months I’ve noticed that restaurants are increasing their prices across the board–from the holes-in-the-wall joints to the high-end ones while at the same time portions are getting smaller.

On top of that, many restaurants also seem to be on the downhill when it comes to the quality of their food.

Not a good trend.

Be good to your friends

Three years ago today I lost one of my best friends in a mountain climbing accident, and three days later, sometimes about 9-10pm I came across an email from a close friend of ours telling me to call him at any time. Stupid me thought it was good news. And it was only when I had to re-read the email to get the second phone number (he had listed three different numbers) that I realized the instruction to call him “at any time of the day” was not an indication of good news.

Patrick Wang was my first friend when I moved to the US. His house was about a 10-15 min. walk from my apartment, though later on getting to his house became a matter of crossing the backyard of my apartment, someone else’s backyard, that same person’s front yard, and then across the street and a few houses down the left.

I still remember the first time I had to call-in sick and miss school for a day. Pat was the person I called to ask about homework (all I remember is the awkward English I used, specifically, “… from what number to what number?”). I remember being so nervous as I was speaking a foreign language, despite the 2-3 years of classes I had already received by then.

But that was all in the distant past.

A few years later we developed a close friendship (especially after the infamous “Doc Project” for our Advanced World History class in 10th grade) and he was also the first person I called and got in touch with after moving to Alabama in the summer between my 10th and 11th grade. He was “quite honored” I recall him saying over the phone. And since then our friendship was nearly exclusively phone/email based as we were always quite a distance apart, though we were geographically nearby when I attended university in Connecticut and him in our hometown State College, PA. However, where I ended-up in Boston after graduating, he ended-up at first in California and then Oregon. And so our phone/email friendship continued.

Actually, now that we were on our own and could afford our own phone bills the “phone” portion became a bit more noticeable though it was still mostly all emails. And to this day this is where I really feel that I dropped the ball.

When I still lived in the US he called me up once a month (almost religioiusly) but sometimes I avoided his call. And now, now I can only wonder what he would have thought of Sydney as he was set to visit around mid-2005.

So today, on this day, I promise and hope to be a better friend to all my friends, many of whom I know I’ve neglected. Just as Pat called me up once a month, then maybe it’s up to me to keep in touch with some of you.

He was a friend, a rock star, a nerd, an Intel engineer, an adventurer, a traveller, a photographer …

… a dear friend whom I sorely miss still.

Recently …

Well, the return of my interest in politics was decidedly short, and probably for the better for most people. After all, who’d want a sane person actually running the country. Ron Paul may not have been the most charismatic talker or most uplifting, but the man is a damn genius, of sound mind, and … well, just too good for the American public. My good friend Mr. Pengo provides a far better discourse on this topic over various entries at his blog. Check it out if you’re interested.

That aside, I finally got Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii last week. Not sure about elsewhere, but here in Australia Activision recently released a “limited edition” double-guitar set for the Wii and with a 15% pre-Easter sale I got the whole thing for AUD 170 (it was 169.something). Not a bad purchase especially as it already had a chance to liven-up a party.

Also of recent interest was my work trip to Tokyo. Not much to say as I was pretty much working every day but I did get a free day on my day of arrival (Sunday) and an old friend from Wesleyan, Janice, was kind enough to take me around Ginza, which happened to be just next door to where I was staying, Marunouchi. My last night there, a Friday night, was mostly a blur with much drinking and laughing capped by a 4.30am trip to Tsukiji Fish Market for some fresh sushi breakfast. Unfortunately for me I was rather ill after staying up the whole night and just managed to wolf down my food. But yes, it was fresh.

On this trip I discovered that Banana Republic now has a store at Paragon in Singapore and also at multiple locations in Tokyo (one of which was practically across the street from my hotel)! Now if only their American website will ship internationally.

I attended the Easter Mass this past Sunday but was mostly bored and falling asleep as I stayed-up rather late the night before watching The Prestige and it was standing room only at St. Mary’s Cathedral. Thankfully I had a pillar to lean on. I have to admit I still have mixed feelings about attending a Novus Ordo mass, even if this was a “Solemn” Mass (is there any other kind?) which apparently meant that much of it was sung (in English). I can only imagine a Latin High Mass being celebrated inside St. Mary’s–it’s actually quite a decent cathedral.

The SonyEricsson W910i phone is a pretty damn sexy phone, especially the red colored one. I got one for my girlfriend as her old Nokia guaranteed a one-sided conversation for anyone whom she called (or called her on) from it and now I can’t help but drool over it every time I see it. Between the crappy 5MP camera on my new K850i (the old K800i produced far better images than this) and the stupid firmware issues SE has with this phone I wish I could exchange it. The biggest reason though is the little “H” icon at the top of her display that I see all the time. I switched to Telstra as I was getting fed-up with Optus (for a variety of reasons) and also because I wanted to get on their NextG network (their branding for HSDPA). Telstra, however used the 850 frequency–unlike all the other local provider or most of the world for that matter–so I had to make sure my phone would be able to use the 850 frequency. However, ever since I brought this phone back from Singapore all I see is “3G” and “H” only very rarely. Her phone (which is only capable of using UMTS 2100), on the other hand, is always showing “H” on Optus’ network. -sigh-