Baskets ain't baskets...

We've been having a lot of fun (and satisfaction) settling into our new place. We now have a phone; we've had people around for dinner and coffee; right now, we even have our first guest staying with us! More on that stuff later.

So Dave Jolly says to me, "The thing you need to do, to get better coffee from your machine, is this: ditch your crema-enhancing baskets." So I did.

On the left is my old filter. On the right is the new one that Coffee Snobs told me would fit my machine. The difference is that the new one has holes straight through; the old one has many holes in the top but only one hole in the bottom (and a very small chamber in-between).It was a bit of work to track down a supplier (both by phone, and then by car - to pick it up). But it was also good fun: my quest for better coffee continues.

My verdict on the basket (so far): The basket isn't a perfect seal (if the tamp/grind is too tight), but I am impressed with the extraction that I'm getting - much more work to be done here.

On a related note, I still have my little helper whenever I make coffee. Noah sits beside me on the bench and helps with grinding, especially. (His toes are visible in the above shot). The other day he even grabbed the handle, popped a basket in it, and shoved it toward the machine as if he were locking it in place - Barista Baby!

Return of the Tasmanians

Well folks, heaps has happened since the last post. I'll just give you a few highlights...

Back in December, we packed up our place in Darlington and popped it all into Nana and Pa's garage. It was a mighty effort by all concerned - including Noah - it involved my first time driving a truck (in Sydney traffic!) and a bunch of wonderful friends helping out.
We then spent five weeks in lovely Tassie. Suds and Del (friends from Sydney) popped down for a visit. And otherwise we spent the time catching up with friends and family, eating Chrissie food, playing at the beach, and all the other great stuff of holidays :)
Kate and I even managed to spend a night away at a B & B down along the Huon River. I've been down that way a million times, but it struck me on this trip, especially, just how beautiful it is.
And then there's the return journey... whoa! Ok, in two parts.

Part 1: Me. I drove back (a little before Kate's return). I realised that the only way to do the Spirit of Tasmania was a day-sailing: no sleep deprivation, no horror-snoring-stories. I then slept at Tracey's place and met a bunch of her wonderful friends and housemates - thanks for the lamb, Phil. Even Manny came over to say hello.

The following morning I embarked on the longest single-day's driving of my life. Left at 7am, arrived at just before 6:30pm. It actually wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected. I had a few fun stops, a nice lunch in Jugiong (at the Long Track Cafe), and then this...Suddenly the traffic had bunched up (see the rear-view mirror) and was absolutely crawling... the next thing I know there's this. What you can't see in the picture is the owner taking a photo just to the right of the picture - I guess there wasn't much else to do! Maybe he put it on his blog ;)

Oh yeah - and I managed to get a (fleeting) picture of this little spot. Four of you out there should know it: it's the entry to a truck stop just north of Yass. The site of the famous Skyline Club 5 breakdown of 2000.Part 2: Katie's journey. I'll leave it for her to tell, I think, but in short the plane ride with Noah was remarkably painless. Noah was great. They arrived in one piece. And we were back together again :)

Two of my favourite people in the world at the moment are Aidan and Uncle Bruce. They were the guys who helped me (one at each end) with re-loading the truck and then unloading our things at our new home. - our lovely new home, which is working out really well... but that's for another post. Anyway, it was very heavy work and they were both brilliant. Thanks guys.

That's That

First year of Moore College is all done! We finished with the Doctrine paper yesterday, and today was the final chapel and college lunch for the year: complete with prawns (!) and yummy icecreams.

Exams were all ok. The papers ranged from very straight-down-the-line (predictable), to really quite quirky and tricky. On the whole, I'm happy with how it all turned out, and very satisfied to be all-finished.

We have some holiday work to do. There are a couple of hundred pages of Calvin's Institutes to read, a Greek assignment, and a Hebrew assignment. I'm hoping to take the slow-and-steady approach. That seems to have worked pretty well for me through the year, and I'm hoping it'll make it more fun.

Before we come home we have a few cool things planned: arvo tea with Brendon and Hunnah, dinner at a Uighur restaurant, Christmas celebrations with the Hansard rellies. And we have some less-cool things planned: cleaning, packing, living out of suitcases ;)

I keep seeing ads for Tasmania on the tv... Not long now!

Happy Birthday, 2005

Two and half years ago my dear brother-in-law, Lukey, gave me this book for my birthday. Today, I am a very thankful that he did.

I'm now half-way through the exam period. Or, as I prefer to put it, 7 subjects down, 3 to go. Church History is now in the 'completed' pile. Hurrah!

I'd tell you why church history isn't dull (for those who might suspect it), or why Augustine was a real highlight of study, or why this book (above) is such a good read... but right now I think I'm going to blob on the couch and watch some West Wing.

Ask me about it sometime ;)

(Next week: Philosophy, Mission Foundations, Doctrine).

Timing and Answered Prayer

Timing. Yesterday afternoon I was struck down by some nasty gastro thing. I won't go into details, but it was pretty intense between about 3pm and 11pm. (Kate had the same thing 12 hours earlier). Gastro is a total pain whenever it happens. But today was my Old Testament exam - timing, huh!?

Answered Prayer. As you can imagine I was praying for a timely reprieve. I can hardly believe it, but I had a pretty good sleep and was well enough to sit the exam at 9am this morning! I could think clearly the whole time. Five essays in three hours. Questions were (mostly) on things I'd studied. Praise the Lord.

I still feel pretty mashed, but I think I'm on the mend. My next exam is on Wednesday, so I've got a window of time for recovery and more study.

PS. Noah has (thus far) avoided the bug.

Coming to a Chaser near You!

Kate and I took a wrong turn trying to find a little shop in the city this morning, so we wandered into Martin Place - just near the Lindt cafe - to find a throng of people doing not-very-much.

Then Kate recognised the Chaser boys among the throng. And shortly thereafter, 'not-very-much' became collaring some guy into a theatrical little dance number involving 30-odd people.

So, next time you're watching Chaser, keep your eye out for us in the background. (Me in blue, Kate in pink, Noah in blue/red).

The elusive 'Mind Like Water'

Ok, I expect about two of my readers will care about this, so this goes out to you guys :)

A couple of years ago I read 'Getting Things Done' by David Allen. It's about being productive and organised. The guy reckons everyone should have a way of managing their responsibilities so that as you work on any particular thing you can rest safe in the knowledge that it is exactly the thing that you should be doing at that time; nothing else is more important. A system that helps you achieve a 'mind like water'...

So, I've been unhappy with my staying-organised-software for a while, and yesterday I stumbled across a piece of software called Midnight Inbox. It's a really impressive piece of software to implement the David Allen stuff. Ingeneous, looks fantastic, costs ~AUS$40. Frugal-little-me then got looking, and I settled on dowloading iGTD instead. It has most of the features of Midnight Inbox, but looks (sadly) like a PC application :( even though it's OS X thru-and-thru.

I'm sorely tempted to get Midnight Inbox, still. I'll make that decision when I don't have exams to pass...

Exams

On that note, my Old Testament exam is on Monday. New Testament on Wednesday. Church History on Friday. I think all of them are on-track at the moment. It's just a lot of work. Thank God for exceptionally good lecturers, great blokes in my study group, and the real pleasure of learning the stuff.

One highlight? Hmmm... looking at Mark today was great. I was struck again by the way Jesus' kingship (messiah) is totally inseparable from his suffering: he's king in his crucifixion. That continues to stagger me. "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" Mark 10:45.