“When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.”
That’s a hell of an opening line.
Woot, my knee-jerk don’t-overthink-it pub-quiz answer was Iran which seems to be [✓]. I ‘knew’ it was more populous than…
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Easter Show Volunteering – Shift #5 🎪
Today’s shift was at the Plaza Entrance, handing out maps and answering questions. It wasn’t very crowded at all, and it was fun to be in the carnival area. But after a lovely start to the day, the rain began to threaten…
On the upside, we briefly had a glimpse of a lovely rainbow over the Dome. But at 4pm or so, the heavens opened fully. It bucketed. Some folks had ponchos and umbrellas, but even then everyone got drenched. I was mostly able to stay under cover, but my poor feet still got soaked.
By that point very few people were actually entering the Show, and I was mostly just shouting to let them know where the exit was as everyone ran for their cars. My team lead let me go half an hour early as there really wasn’t much need anymore. Of course, I had one more stop to make…
Mac-and-cheese on a stick! You don’t get a photo of me holding it because I was juggling my umbrella and the plate. It was hot and crispy and gooey, though. It did have a tendency to fall off after you’d had a bite or two, but that was okay. Very tasty! And at $9 this was excellent value… but the staff very kindly gave it to me for free! So I’m prepared to vote Mac-and-cheese as the best Food-on-a-Stick at the Show this year. ❤️
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Links I’ve been enjoying lately
- State Library acquires Flinders’ original love letters – It’s more than just love letters, really. I’ve been to a couple events at the State Library of NSW in the past year and I’m always astounded by the depth of their collections. It’s as much a museum as it is a library!
- News Knitter – A data visualisation project where information gathered from daily political news was analysed, filtered, and converted into a pattern for a machine knitted sweater.
- The Commercial Pattern Archive – A wonderful resource that archives commercial sewing pattern data to preserve these ephemeral bits of our culture for the future. (Link via Metafilter.)
- The Easy Tiger Sessions by Charley Castle & The Boys in the Well – We heard this group playing a bit at Wayward last weekend and Rodd tracked them down. It’s “newgrass.” Very nice.
- Blogroll.org – I’m still on the hunt for more sites to add to my feed reader. Lots to explore here!
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Saturday in the Shire
Today is the day Mr. Snook’s homebrew club are filling the barrels*, so as chauffeur I’m enjoying some knitting time while smelling the serenity.
* Every year they all brew the same recipe, pour it in a couple old whiskey barrels, and let them age under a guy’s house. Then they all share the results…
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Persian Feast
While I was at the Show, Mr. Snook was whipping up a Persian feast! He made RecipeTinEats’ slow-cooked lamb shanks, saffron rice (Tachin), and cucumber tomato salad. He thinks the lamb came out a little salty, but it pairs well with the rice. And how good is that crunchy crust? 😍
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Easter Show Volunteering – Shift #4 🎪
The Farmyard Nursery on Good Friday was always going to be a challenge, but I started undaunted.
It was a warm day. I spent the first 3.5hrs outside trying to corral the ever growing queue. There were thousands, and thousands, and thousands of people.
After lunch I was on pram parking duty, which mostly consisted of making sure people didn’t sneak through the Dairy to cut the line. I was very happy to see my friend Alice and Luke Eller and their boys. Everybody seemed to be having a good time.
After my shift, I walked around the stadium to check my food options. Deep fried ice cream on a stick? WELL DESERVED, MY FRIENDS.
At $12, I was pretty pleased with this. It was basically a fried doughnut surrounding a puck of ice cream, smeared with caramel sauce. Very good!
I popped into the District exhibits on my way out. Impressive as always!
And then I headed for the train. I survived!! Time to enjoy the Long Weekend…
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Pub trivia update
The Purls of Wisdom romped home to another victory, even with a depleted team tonight! Some of the stumpers we grappled with:
- What were Queen Elizabeth II’s two middle names?
- What is the country with the highest population whose name only has 4 letters?
- Which Australian actor provided the voice of “Buzz” on the PlayStation 2 game of the same name?
- Which athlete was announced recently as the first one ever to become a Ken doll?
Read and add comments: Pub trivia updateOne response
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Joining the ADSEI Board
It’s been nearly six years exactly since I met Dr. Linda McIver from the Australian Data Science Education Institute, and I’ve been a fan of her work ever since. Now I’m proud to share that I’ve joined ADSEI’s Governance Board, and I’m excited to help Linda with her mission to build problem solving, critical thinking, data literacy, and STEM skills in Australian students. Expect to hear more from me about this topic in the future!
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The Great Moose Migration
For the record, I’ve been watching and sharing about the Swedish moose migration for four years now (courtesy of a recommendation from my Swedish colleague Gunnar)! This year it appears to be going viral, with stories on the BBC, New York Times, The Sizzle, and more. Can I take credit for popularising it? 😂🫎
I was shocked to see there have already been 16 moose crossings in the first three days this year. In the past I had to wait weeks to see a moose! Today I was really surprised to see a BEAR, which motivated me to learn about Swedish Brown Bears. (As Rodd pointed out, Björn means “bear” so I really should have expected it.)
