January is gone, with little recollection of where the 31 days went. Bugger.

Had a gecko visit the other day: these creatures are fast. It took me almost half an hour to catch the silly fellow to chuck him out.

This is the gecko running across the ceiling.

I managed to sew up a small curtain for the kitchen, where the trash bin is now (and a dishwasher may spring into existence at some future stage). I will never amount to much at sewing, though. Thanks to Anitta for lending me her sewing machine!

Work is as usual: the place is way overcooled. It really sucks to have 33°C outside, then maybe-20-and-a-bit inside. Despite the sweater I'm ususally wearing at the office (looks silly with shorts) I'm cold and sneezing too often. The one subject I've got this semester is pretty full. Not too bad so far, and I've managed to submit two papers related to my PhD project in the last few weeks. One is for a conference in Vienna in July keep fingers crossed...

On the flying side I've reached the 80hrs mark with a nice afternoon ridgesoar on Saturday. Sunday was muggy and humid and hot, and I spent it with a big headache in bed sleeping 19 hours that day: got up around 19:00 and went to bed at 24:00. I seem to have needed it.

Finally brought my reserve parachute to Phil for a repack. These things should be repacked every six months, to ensure they open without trouble. Mine was last packed in October 2003...I guess it was time again.

On the topic of flying and luck: I just bought a used CDMA mobile for $20, on the grounds that I'm getting away from the hill more often nowadays and thus may need some retrieval or coordination - with the hills around here having between little and zero GSM coverage. We'll see how that works out when I manage to find a CDMA prepaid starter kit (what for, you idiots? CDMA phones have no SIM cards anyway...) and convince Telstra to (re)activate the thing. Tricksy Thiefing Telstra, we hates them my preciousss! ahem that'll be subject of another rant RSN.