Decorating for Christmas

Today we decorated the house for Christmas, which was a lot of fun.


The cats, of course, helped enormously with unpacking the decorations...

Feeding the Birds

I've been feeding our local magpie family, which has successfully fledged one baby. They get fed mostly either chopped beef or sausage meat in the morning, and often the baby is on the porch... Today the magpie also tried to feed the very realistic butcher bird our artist friend Jim made (not sure what the real butcher birds thought of it all...)

First Thanksgiving in Brisbane

This year for the first time since moving to Australia we actually had a real Thanksgiving meal with turkey, stuffing, homemae cranberry sauce and great pumpkin pies (both large and mini-versions!). The dinner was hosted by our friend Meg from Boston.

Talk in Melbourne

Today I gave an invited talk at the Faculty of Old Age Psychiatry meeting down in Melbourne. My colleague Gerard Byrne (a psychiatrist) and I also were promoting our joint psychology/psychiatry conference we are holding next year on the Gold Coast in November.

Visit by a Rhinoceros Beetle

Tonight we were visited by a rhinoceros beetle, which all the cats found quite interesting. Rhinoceros beetles are the strongest animals on the planet in relation to their own size. They can lift up to 850 times their own weight - so Denali better watch out!

Major Gardening

We are doing some major gardening in anticipation of an open house Christmas party we are having early in December.

Setting up Fishtanks

Today we finally got fish for our 80 gallon tank at home, which we have been preparing for a few weeks. The fish shown are from the Apistogramma family of south American cichlids, and a cool ghost black knifefish (which I've wanted for AGES...). Early in the new year we are hoping to add three discus fish.

The other fishtanks we have are also doing well, including the Siamese fighting fish in our bathroom named The Audacity of Hope (because he lives in an open bowl in a house with five cats)...



...and the fish in my office, which include a large tank of native red scats and another fighting fish named Bony Prince Charles.

A great dinner

Today my friend Kate and I were in Adelaide for some meetings. For dinner last night we ate at the Manse, a terrific restaurant located in a beautiful Victorian Mansion built in 1884. We had the duck (as Kate and I usually do when we go out to eat) and I had chocolate souffle for dessert. Yum!

Baby Blanket Finished!

Today I finally sent this baby blanket to my friend Debbie in California. I made it for her son Carter, and the pattern is alternating hearts and the letter "C".

Heavy Storms hit Queensland

This week heavy storms hit southeast Queensland, with very high winds. This caused a lot of damage especially in our old suburb of The Gap. Luckily we had no damage at our home.

Workshop on the Gold Coast

We spent a long weekend down at the Gold Coast as I was giving a series of workshops for National Psychology Week. We had a lot of fun trying the local restaurants to find the best eggplant parmigiana.

Denali Helps Tim Mark Exams

Birding

Today we took our friends Roger and Karen out to bird. It was a gorgeous day and we say lots of young birds including this grebe and her baby. We also saw a swarm of crabs, shown below.

Congratulations, President-Elect Barack Obama

What an amazing day for America! Everyone here in Australia, it seemed, was glued to a television set, watching history unfold. In the School of Psychology we had a large room set aside with a projection TV, with a map where people coloured in states once the results were known, where together we watched that amazing speech. (When Barack Obama spoke of people huddled in a corner of the world listening to a radio, our Head of School quipped "That's us in Australia!..."

:)

For the first time in a really long time I was not just grateful to have been born in America, a land so rich in opportunity, but was fiercely proud to be American. To be from a country which can inspire such hope to people around the world when we set our mind to it. And you could see that hope mirrored in people's faces all around the world, people celebrating in many dfferent places in the world, wishing us well for the future, wanting to pitch in and help us in trying times. It is so wonderful... Congratulations President-Elect Barack Obama!


Honolulu, Hawaii


At Obama's former school in Jakarta, Indonesia


Barack's step-grandmother Sarah Obama in Kogelo, Kenya.


Sydney, Australia


Japan


Beijing, China

Lovely Dinner with Friends

Today my PhD student from Portugal Daniela and her partner Carlos came to dinner at our home before flying back to Portugal to spend Christmas with their families. Daniela baked the most delicious Portuguese dessert... most of which I ate myself the next day!