Cats Being Cute

Different Approaches to Yard Maintenance

Birding Day Trip

Today we took our friend Chip, a visiting professor from the University of Calgary, out birding in the nearby Lockyer Valley. We had a great day out, seeing over 60 species...

Garden continues to expand!

We had another spurt of gardening over the weekend, putting in lots of plants including those pictured above (from the top, native frangipani (small tree), native indigo (medium bush), hop bushes (which come in pinks and creams) and lime berries (which attract birds).

Dinner with a Canadian Colleague

Today we went to a great Thai restaurant for dinner with a visiting professor from the University of Calgary, Chip Scialfa. Chip is a very keen birder, and I foresee a lot of birding trips in the next two months while he is here. Back at his home university, University of Calgary, Chip runs the Perceptual and Cognitive Aging Lab. Chip is off this weekend to hunt for the elusive Mangrove Honeyeater in the wetlands north of Brisbane...

National Stroke Foundation meeting

Today went to Melbourne for the day to take part in a meeting called by the National Stroke Foundation of Australia. They are putting together a national action plan to try to deliver better services for people who suffer from strokes (there are about 350,000 such people in Australia).

Trip to Newcastle

Am in Newcastle for a few days, for a series of meetings on the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health. The study's data collection center is located in Newcastle, a coastal town about 2 hours north of Sydney.

Celebrating Annette's PhD

Tonight we went out to dinner in Ipswich to celebrate our friend Annette getting her PhD awarded - we had great food and wine and good laughs...

Test results continue to look good

Today had my hormones checked, and last week I had my pulmonary test and my bloods checked. All tests showed good results: the blood values are all in the normal range, my hormones generally look good (though not yet 100% normal) and the lung tests show slight improvements, even with the blood gas exchanges. So this is all good, and further improvements in the lungs and hormonal functioning in the next six months could also be expected, according to the docs... So I don't have to see the metabolic doc any more, as the hormones are OK and my thyroid can be monitored by hematology. All good news!