Ash’s party was loads of fun (well for them – we weren’t really allowed into the playroom). There was Twister, dancing and cake – what more could you want?

It was Mon’s turn for cake cooking and she set the stakes high:

However Connor was actually away for his birthday. Cuboree occurred at the same time and Connor, not being one to suffer from separation anxiety (“What do you mean it’s only 5 days?”) went off to Gembrook with loads of other cubs. They came back very smelly.

Whilst he was away we snuck in and redecorated his room. He was very surprised.

So off we went, about five minutes later.

First stop was the Discovery Centre, which is a fun science place in the style of Scienceworks or Questacon.  As well as the assorted little science stations, we watched the Explosions show, with a variety of flaming and pressure based explosions.  We were so inspired that I bought a Geyser Tube, a clever device for doing the Mentos+Coke experiment.  We’ve done this at home and videoed it, so you might get to see us doing it at some point.  Also, because we like to chat to people and it was a quiet day, we got talking to the guy at the front desk, who asked whether they had done the Milo Silo experiment.  We hadn’t seen it, and he was kind enough to take us back and show us.  We’re going to do this one soon too, so I don’t want to spoil it, but there will be flames!

The Discovery Centre also has the tallest drop slide in the southern hemisphere – it’s a sheer drop seven metres, you reach up to 40kmh in freefall.

Drop slide - too fast for photos

Connor had many goes on this

Connor went on this about 17 times.  I got on it, you hold on to a bar, slide down to hanging from the bar, then let go.  Hanging from the bar I pretty much changed my mind, but it was kind of too late.  So I had one go.

In the afternoon, we went to the Golden Dragon Museum. Many people from China came to Bendigo for the gold rush era and stayed, and in spite of 50+ years of the White Australia policy many remained, so the city still has a strong presence of people with Chinese ancestry. There is a beautiful Chinese Garden:

Spacious

Also Romantic

Inside the museum proper is interesting stuff about life on the goldfields, and the migration from China to Bendigo and Victoria in general. There is an array of amazingly beautiful furniture and household items brought from China. It was difficult to get good photos as you weren’t allowed to use a flash, and we had a cheap point and shoot that we had bought that morning on account of forgetting our camera so hadn’t worked out all the buttons and settings, but we got some.

I think the flash accidentally went off

Ash is not tall, but this bed would be too small for her

Obviously the highlight, especially for Connor, is the collection of Chinese Dragons:

Loong the Dragon

More Dragons

That was Saturday. Sunday morning, all you can eat breakfast at the Hotel Shamrock (hello bacon induced heart attack!) followed by mass at Sacred Heart Cathedral. The cathedral is beautiful of course, the kids were particularly interested in the carved angels on the ceiling, which reminded them of Weeping Angels in Dr Who, but the highlight for me was the pipe organ, which was played just stunningly by someone who clearly knew it well and made fll use of the range of tones in a good pipe organ. I highly recommend going to hear it, although we all highly recommend going when it’s warmer…

Nobody was harmed by these angels

Stained Glass Window and Pipe Organ. Can you identify the people in the window? We only got three...

Last on the itinerary was a place called Confectionery Capers. This is one man’s lifetime hobby, building and tinkering little machines that demonstrate various mechanical principles. It’s in a giant shed, and it’s a whirling, mind boggling chaotic orchestra of motion, toys and vehicles and things on the ceiling all powered off a generator at one side and driving by a network of belts and gears and pulleys and stuff across the ceiling.

It's a dead set madhouse

As you walk around there are also a hundred odd individual displays, where you can push a button on the fence to activate them. This is where Confectionery comes in, as the displays are built with chocolate and lollies and chupa-chups and whatnot. We were amazed by some of the retro chocolate packaging – remember when a block of Caramello came in a bright orange wrapper? So amazed we were, we forgot to take photos of them.

It was great fun to watch

You may have noticed the little items scattered between the machines. The place is clearly designed by a man who believes that too many dad-jokes are never enough, there are literally hundreds of little 3d rebuses made of doll and toy parts, as well as wall to wall puns on cards, chock full of groaners. Click the pictures below to see full size versions so you can truly appreciate the majesty!

Yay Puns!

Here comes the Jelly Bean train

Hi Family!

There were just so many it’s impossible to say what the best were, or to even photograph them all, but here’s a couple that caught our eye.

Alternating Currants

A Swing and a Miss

A piece of string walks into a bar...

So that was our weekend away. Bendigo is quite big and there’s plenty more to do, so we hope to get back there one day and do some more stuff.

The real killer though is on the back and neck.  Hunched over the desk perusing case records, academic textbooks and acts of parliament for hours at a time, it’s the upper vertebrae that take the beating.  We looked into what book holding devices are available, but it turns out not much.  There are lots like the recipe book holders for your kitchen that tilt your book up at desk height, but very few that lift the height of the book to an ergonomic height. You can get the excellent looking Levo Book Holder, however the standalone version is ~$450; the desk mounted one was less, but still quite expensive and also it was a several month wait to get them.

So while it can sometimes be a several month wait to get me to make or even fix something, that seemed to be the way to go.  So when Dad was down on the weekend, he and I threw some ideas around, particular the rail and wingnut setup that Dad knew of from my brother Dan’s art easel. We went to the shed, looked at what we had available, then had an excuse for a trip to Bunnings for a sausage in bread some wood and other bits I needed. Unfortunately, Mum and Dad had to go home before we could put it together, but I finished it off today and, well, it works.  There’s a lot more love in it than craftsmanship, but it also didn’t fall over under the weight of the Annotated Criminal Legislation of Victoria, so I’m calling it a success.

It holds heavy legal tomes

The finish leaves some to be desired, but I wanted to make sure it was fit for purpose before doing anything like that, so that any adjustments can be made without scratching the varnish etc :)  There’s a 20″ iMac behind it for scale – as you can see it’s not small but it’s not uncomfortably huge I hope.  You can adjust the height of the actual holder with bolt and wingnut setups, that slide between the rails on the sides.  It can go reasonably high, as Dad thought it could be useful in the kitchen that way too.

Loosen nut, slide up or down, tighten nut. Not complicated!

You can see there where the wingnut has bitten the soft pine, so I’ll get some washers to go back there at some point.

It’s also got some flexibility as far as the tilt goes, by loosening or tightening the rope that binds the front and back legs.  There’s not a lot of range for that though, as adjusting it too vertical will compromise stability – front and back legs would be too close together.  Likewise tilting it back further increases the footprint on the desk pretty quickly.  Dad and I had talked about options for tilting, but in the end decided that it was making it overly complex, especially since Mon had said she wasn’t too worried about that.

Book holder is admiring itself...

So there it is, designed from scratch and custom built for my lovely wife.

Nerdfest aside, we enjoy playing it for the above reasons, and are reasonably matched.  Ash plays occasionally and wins a few, maybe loses more cos she doesn’t get as much practice.  Mon didn’t really get into it for a few years – it’s takes a bit to get into it, she hadn’t really seen the cartoon, and it was a little nerdy for her, but a year or so ago, she decided maybe she’d like to learn.  So we taught her.  Big mistake.

She has lost one game.  Ever.

Excess packaging isn’t just a food problem though. A conversation on the way home from buying some DVDs and CDs at JB HiFi today:

Ash: Man I’m gonna be contributing to landfill with all the plastic wrapping on this stuff.

Jase: JB love to shrink wrap everything.

Ash: Maybe they should have Nude Food Day for other stuff

Jase: You mean like, Nude Movie Day?

Ash: Yeah………..NO!!!

“Just in case”

Just in case?  Just in case what?  In case he needs to plug a sulfuric acid leak, MacGyver style? He’s a good little cub scout being prepared with an easter egg in is pocket just in case.  We all had a good laugh.

As it turned out, the birthday cake was a strawberry cheesecake, the former half he doesn’t like and the latter half he can’t have, so Connor was wise to have brought an Easter Egg ‘just in case’,

This means there are times when she and I are in the study at the same time, which is quite nice :)

Although it was a bit sad the other day when I noticed that she is there surrounded by notes and articles and books, learning to be a lawyer, and I’m next to her…..reading comics!

Dodgy phone camera photo

It was a long day for the kids (we left home about 10:30am, and the concert was due to finish 10:30pm) so we loaded up bags of food, books, and charged all the phones and ipods to keep them occupied.  Connor was hanging out for Midnight Oil, who were, of course, last, but he went the distance well.  It was also Connor’s first concert, so we weren’t sure about the volume, but the MCG is so big it wasn’t stressfully loud, and he had earplugs for when it got too much.

It was just too cool to be at such an amazing event as a family.  Singing along with such legendary bands, and our kids knowing the words and singing along, was such a special time – normally when I’m in seating at a gig I wish I had gone for the mosh, but I wouldn’t have missed that day with my family for anything.

Contrary to the Herald Scum report, the highlight of the night was absolutely not Kylie Minogue, who claimed that I Still Call Australia Home was the defacto second Australian anthem.  Which just goes to show she’s lived outside Australia so long she hasn’t heard I am You Are, We Are Australian…why would we need to sing I still Call Australia Home, since we live here it’s quite obviously home. The fact that it’s the Qantas theme song, and Qantas were a major sponsor was not lost on us.  But other than that one bit of cynical marketing, the rest of the event was just infused with the community spirit of support for the victims of bushfire, and the coming together of artists and fans in support.

What was the highlight? There were too many big moments to honestly limit it to one highlight, but the biggest for Mon especially :

Hunners! (Photo from JamesDPhotography, CC licensed (by-nc-nd))

Bands that we’ve grown to love late in their careers, too late to have ever seen them live, and they were there.  Hunters, Oils, surprise guests Liam Finn’s Uncle Nick and N-Dog, AKA Crowded House, Split Enz…Split Enz, man, unbelievable, they broke up 25 years ago! These bands were all still great live, showing why they are legends.  Plenty of other bands were great to see – during Augie March’s One Crowded hour, the sky turned dark again, it was so in keeping with the style and content of the song it could’ve been deliberate!

The Melbourne lineup was so superior to the Sydney one – while Sydney had some good bands too like Little Birdy, Hoodoos and You Am I, we had the legends. Sydney was a bit more like a telethon…Marcia Hines…who on earth is Taylor Swift? And while Melbourne’s climax came courtesy of the reformation of live legends Midnight Oil, Sydney rocked out to………Barry Gibb??  Did your grandma stay up that late? :D