Adrian Tritschler's stuff
My website, an agglomerative mess, probably half-eaten by a grue
© 1984 - 2026 Adrian Tritschler
Adrian Tritschler's stuff
My website, an agglomerative mess, probably half-eaten by a grue
© 1984 - 2026 Adrian Tritschler
Travels Day 1: Arriving….
Heathrow, Sunday morning, 6.15 am. Three plane loads of people arrive at once to queue for immigration. Me in the short EU queue and Jo in the very long other — we didn’t realise that she could come through with me. She found out and chased after me — too late — I was in that trance-like post-aircraft state and went through alone, leaving her to queue up behind a jumbo jet load of Nigerians for a very slow trip through customs.
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Airline food, handle with care
Journal for [2003-08-23 Sat]
One row from the bulkhead in the 747, there in front of us is the seat row with the babies. Not one, not two… there are three babies in the row, all poised to make life hell for the 26 hours to the UK. Two babies and a toddler. A quick stare and a roll of the eyes distracted the crying one for long enough — it stopped crying. Meanwhile the toddler is busy pinching his baby brother.
Journal for [2003-08-22 Fri]
I thought the work day would never end… But it did. Home at last, packing, getting ready to leave.
Faulty towers anyone?
I called Qantas this morning to enquire whether it was possible to check some of our luggage through from Melbourne to Geneva, even though we’re spending a couple of days in London. Thirteen minutes on hold listening to an endlessly repeating tape, then a voice comes on the line. “Yes, there’s no problem with that,” said the nice lady on the phone. “Just call back with the flight numbers so we can check that it’s with an airline that we share with.
Riding in the hills
Picked the wrong day this weekend to go for a ride — too cold and too windy — but the scenery more than made up for it. Inspiration had struck on Friday and we tried to retrace parts of the MAD ride — drive out to Yarra Glen, ride to Healesville, then up Myer’s Creek road to Toolangi and back.
Yarra Glen to Healesville was mostly flat, but with an icy northerly blowing, not really enjoyable.
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A map of a bike ride
New tyres
Two new tyres for Norky bike, I thought it better get them now rather than feel foolish somewhere on tour. Hutchinson Tom Slicks at $120 a pair! A bit pricey, but they look to be just what I’m after. Fitting them was a pain, after weeks of being folded, they didn’t want to unfold and sit on a wheel. Might need to get some new — narrower — tubes as a result though… We also picked up two cardboard boxes from the two bike shops up the street.
Richmond Saturday breakfast
Saturday morning, slept in until nearly eleven, then got up to find that one of the neighbours must have assumed we weren’t here and has stolen the newspaper. That’ll teach me to be slovenly.
A quick walk up the street to the vege. markets, then we breakfasted at Kojo Brown’s, up on Bridge road. It’s been up there in the “must get around to trying their menu” list for quite a while.
Bad bad bad Mr taxi
Taxi driver of M-6897, you’re a very naughty boy… Not only are you forbidden from smoking in your cab, but throwing the lit cigarette butt out the window is littering. Its a good thing that both the Victorian Taxi Directorate and the EPA are so keen to take reports on people breaking both sets of rules. You probably shouldn’t have had your arm stuck out the window either, maybe next time a cyclist won’t slow down and you’ll get whacked on the elbow by a handlebar…
Journal for [2003-08-11 Mon]
Off to the dentist this morning, an hour of sitting with my mouth jammed open, far too many implements and fingers being stuffed in there. If only I could have chosen better tooth genes… Perhaps nanotechnology tooth-repair, it would have to be better than drillings and fillings. Felt too woozy afterwards to go to work, I’ve come home to spend the day sulking on the couch.
The weather’s been in tune with my mood too — gray and dismal all day.
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Jo cycling up the Basin-Olinda road in the Dandenongs. Vic, AU.
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Cycling up the Basin-Olinda road in the Dandenongs
More hill training
More hills, more hills! Time to ride up some more hills… Richmond to The Basin along Canterbury road, then off through the forest along the Basin-Olinda road, a dirt road that winds peacefully up through the hills before popping out in the midst of Sunday tourist mayhem.
There was more traffic today than I’ve met on previous rides up that road — some days I haven’t seen anyone else during the whole six kilometres, today there was traffic in both directions, slippin’ and slidin’ on the slick clay road.
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New toy, the X-Drive II, somewhere to store all these photos (S/N VP2060.023221)
Fast services
Fast service. They promise two day delivery on the website, but the new toy arrived today. (S/N VP2060.023221). Definitely easier than lugging a laptop around overseas. Now if only it had a few more smarts and an ethernet port…
Chased up the broken toy too. Although they didn’t give us any warranty cards or paperwork with the TV, at least Dick Smith could tell me that there’s a three year warranty on it and to call TEAC directly.
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July entry for the 2003 pasta challenge
Journal for [2003-08-06 Wed]
There’s a white-faced heron that’s been stalking around beside the bike path for the last few days. I think it must live somewhere near the Glenferrie road underpass, some days it perches on the spillway downstream from the road, other days I see it walking around on the grass…
More toys on the way… today I bit the bullet and bought an X-Drive II, so I’ll have some way of saving my digital photos while away travelling.
Countdown
Yay! Only 13 more working days until we go on holiday… Monash was getting me down today — just a few too many cases of people not reading instructions and ringing up to query things.
SPAM, spam, spam, SPAM, spam, spam…
Dear Senator Alston.
Since you seem to be under the impression that you can control the internet, here’s a sample of today’s spam. Once you’ve passed your anti-spam laws, I’ll be forwarding all I receive straight to your office so that you can best deal with transgressors.
1 O Aug 04 Fulfullmentcent ( 0) Friend, your favorite breakfast food - ou 2 O + Aug 04 butedo@comic.co ( 0) Fw: Hard anaI ACTl0N!
Journal for [2003-08-04 Mon]
More fun-and-games on the bike path under Glenferrie road this morning… a warning sign and huge row of orange cones. Is it flooded? Are they trying to install a dyke to keep the water out? I slowed as I entered… no, there’s a film crew setting up for a shoot in the storm-water drain. There’s lights and generators and cables and wires and chairs and people everywhere. Shame that some of the public are actually trying to use the bloody track to get to work!
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Jack assisting with the catering at his after-christening lunch
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Jack and all four god-parents
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Jack and all four god-parents
The church and I
Off to church this morning! A very strange thing for me to do — I can’t remember when I last entered a church… other than for weddings, or , or to admire the architecture. This was another christening, but it came at the end of the weekly service. Quite unsettling, as I had no idea what was happening at various times, and kept suspecting that as one of the god-parents, I’d be expected to know what was happening.
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Evan testing the snow on the Warburton-Healesville road
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One of the options for the descent from Mt Donna Buang
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Jo and Evan and our three bikes at the summit of Mt Donna Buang
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Jo riding up Mt Donna Buang in the snow
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Jo and Evan disappear up Mount Donna Buang
Mt Donna Buang in the snow
It seemed like a good idea at the time… If we’re going to be riding in the Alps next month, Jo thought she should have a little hill riding as training. Over a beer or two last night Evan mentioned that he hadn’t ridden up Mount Donna Buang for some time, and what a great ride it is at this time of year, especially with the Warburton-Healesville road being closed over winter.
QOTD
Do not confuse concubine with porcupine.
Just a statement that came up at dinner time this evening.
Journal for [2003-07-30 Wed]
I don’t really mind riding in the rain — although I prefer the rain to be on the ride home, rather on the way to work. What I do find annoying is when it starts hailing on me. Just a little bit too uncomfortable… It really makes me think that I should have dressed up in the waterproofs and ridden the motorbike, or just stayed home in bed!
About time I wrote something I think.
Journal for [2003-07-29 Tue]
More running around to be done to get to the bank before work. The motorbike isn’t quite sure what’s going on — being ridden so many times in such a short space of time.
Money was extracted from the bank, money was deposited to the travel agents. They’re almost as leech-like as each other, with STA travel threatening to charge 2.5% extra for credit cards or cheques, are we expected to carry around enough cash to pay for $2000 international air tickets?
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Allan's carrot cake
About
ajft looking stylish and black
…The Owner
There’s not much more I can add to who I am.
…The Site
Vanity site? Technology experiment? Learning tool? Blog? Journal? Diary? Photo album? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you…
I experiment. I play. I write and I take pictures. Some of the site is organised around topics, other parts are organized by date, then there’s always the cross-references between them.
Its all been here a fairly long time. Like the papers on my desk, or the books on the bedside table, the pile just grew… and it all grew without much plan or structure. I try not to break URLs, so historical oddities abound.
Long ago it started as a learning experiment with a few static HTML pages, then I added a bit of server-side includes and some very ugly PHP. A hand-built journal/blog on top of that PHP, then a few experiments in moving to various static publishing systems. I’ve never wanted a database-based blogging engine, so over the years I’ve tried PHP, nanoblogger, emacs-muse, silkpage and docbook before settling on Emacs Org mode for writing and jekyll for publishing. But the itch remained… I never really liked jekyll and the ruby underneath always seemed so much black magic. So now the latest incarnation is Org mode and hugo.
…The ISP
- Hosted by @cos