Florida Girl in Sydney has a wonderful post celebrating her family’s three year “expativersary”. It’s a wonderful recap of the fears and worries they had when they moved here, the things they learned over the past three years, and the things they love about their new home. She’s also included some beautiful photos that show off the best of our city.

Geek Girl Runner episode 8 has been recorded… but it really sucks. I think I need to re-record. Basically, I put too much chili in my sloppy joes tonight and it lead to a major mucus issue. My first take ended up being ruined then by a serious coughing fit. Then my second take was ruined by the sound of me slurping on a cough drop and clearing my throat. Trust me; we’re ALL better off if I re-record. Hopefully tomorrow.

Dear Photon Group,
I understand that you’re in a bit of financial strife. Really, I do. You guys have been partying like it’s 1999 for years now. You’ve got to make cuts, and I get that. But would it KILL YOU to tell your employees BEFORE a 3-day weekend that you’re shutting their whole company down? Because otherwise they might go off and do silly things like buy several thousand dollars’ worth of kitchen appliances. And then they come to work on a Tuesday and you tell everybody that they’re fired and that really, really sucks.

No, the Snook isn’t actually fired. He’s one of the lucky few who gets to hang around for a few weeks and turn off the lights. They’ve said they’re going to try to find him another position in another Photon company. We’ll see. We’re not worried, but yeah, I might have hesitated on the goddamn oven if I’d known.

Edited to add: A little bit of further clarification. I’ve since been told that there were extenuating circumstances that prevented the news from happening last week, not the least of which was an attempt at a last-minute bail-out. I can appreciate that. Regardless of how Mumbrella have spun my post, I didn’t really mean to complain about FH management who were doing their best. I was (and am) just worried for my partner and dismayed at the timing of the announcement.

Rob Cockerham answers the important questions: Why are Reese’s Minature Cups so much better than the big ones? Turns out it’s the ratio of chocolate to peanut butter, of course. (I had a bag of the Minis at Halloween last year and the Aussies went nuts. I particularly recall Mary-Helen asking me to put them away or she’d eat them all!)

Hahaha… am I the only one who didn’t know that there’s going to be a Burning Man Festival in Bellingen?? That’s awesome. (Link courtesy of the Snook.)

Jamming
Last weekend the Snook made up a batch of “Christmas Jam” using some frozen Davidson’s plums his Mom brought us from their tree. He likes jam making, and so far everything he’s made has been delicious. However – I just found out you can make jam in a crock pot! (Crock pots. Is there anything they can’t do?) A couple recipes: Crock Pot Strawberry Jam; Crock Pot Apricot Jam; Crock Pot Apple Butter.