scully – dangermouse.net

Being wary of cut grass

Not much to report about today, which was occupied with the usual online classes and comic writing.

For lunch I took Scully for a longish walk, paste the Grumpy Baker and around the harbour shore. I grabbed a spicy vegetable roll from the bakery for lunch and walked with Scully down to the grassy area by the water to eat it at the table there. But when we got there, there were gardeners cutting and trimming the grass, mostly completed.

Now, Scully loves cut grass. She loves to roll in it, getting it all over her fur, where it sticks and is nigh impossible to remove without painstakingly picking off each individual bit of grass. I’d planned to sit and eat my vege roll while letting Scully roam around and do her own thing. But now I had to keep an eagle eye on her the whole time and be prepared to run over and stop her if I saw a sign of preparing to roll in the grass.

Fortunately she behaved (mostly) and I managed to eat my lunch without ending up with a dog covered in grass.

In other news, I contacted my friend who lives in the Netherlands and told him the dates we’d be in Europe in June/July. He said he might have a spare weekend to travel on the days that we will be in Prague, and so might meet up with us there. It’s still a considerable trip for him, but in the past we’ve met up in Paris, Barcelona, and Essen, so it’s not beyond possibility that we’ll be seeing him in Prague.

Scully improving, economy not

Scully is doing better today, not having to poop five times like the past couple of days. Although she did wake me up before 6am for the first one of the day. Her blood test results came back negative for anything nasty, which is good. And she seems to be responding to the antibiotics and probiotic paste.

The other thing I want to comment on today is the insanity of the global tariffs that Donald Trump announced today that the US will impose on almost all other countries. The highlights (or lowlights), for posterity:

The weird magic numbers that they came up with on that chart for “Tariffs charged to the USA” are not actually tariffs in any sense of the word whatsoever. Many people have worked out where the numbers came from: They are the country’s trade deficit with the USA for 2024 divided by the value of US imports from that country.
Countries with a trade surplus with the US (such as Australia, whose calculation as above came out to a whopping -107%) are still getting slapped with a 10% tariff. For no apparent reason, even given Trump’s bizarre (and incorrect) notion that a trade deficit is a “bad thing”.
The list includes some sub-national entities, such as Norfolk Island, a part of Australia, which mysteriously got a contradictory 29% tariff despite Australia getting 10%.
Another part of Australia, the territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, got listed separately, with a tariff of 10%, despite it being uninhabited and having no imports or exports.
They also announced a tariff on the British Indian Ocean Territory, whose only population is a joint US/UK military base. So effectively the US has announced a tariff on its own military forces.

There’s only so much bewildered headshaking one can do in response to this madness. And not only is it uneducated and random, it’s going to actively destroy the US economy, as well as having negative effects on everyone else. As one of my friends put it in a group chat today:

It’s a bit like when a bunch of countries [implemented] sanctions to punish Russia so other countries can’t trade with them without penalties, except the US is doing it to itself.

I just have no more words I can add to that.

Scully at the vet again

Scully slept well through the night, but her morning poop had more blood in it. My wife decided to take the day off work and take her into the vet again. They took a blood sample (they tried to do this last night but Scully was too wriggly for them) and did some simple tests right there, and sent the remainder of the sample off for more detailed testing at a pathology lab. They’ve already ruled out giardia infection, or any liver or kidney issues.

They said Scully was a bit dehydrated from blood loss, so they kept her at the vet all afternoon with a drip for rehydration. Now she’s home again for the night, but we have an antibiotic to give her, and also some probiotic paste to restore her gut flora with all the good bacteria. They’ve also given us some special tinned dog food that will be super gentle on her digestive system for the next few days. We’re to give her the medication and monitor her condition and if there’s no improvement in a couple of days they might want to do an ultrasound scan.

Despite all of this, Scully is chipper and shows no signs of discomfort or lethargy or loss of appetite, so that’s good.

Otherwise I spent some time writing up brief outlines for new ethics class topics for the next few weeks. And some comics writing. And I took the opportunity with my wife home and Scully at the vet to go for a 5k run in the afternoon. It was warmer than the mornings, but the humidity was much lower today, so I managed a decent time.

For dinner I made the satay broccolini and tofu with rice that I’d planned for last night, but was interrupted by taking Scully to the vet. It turned out pretty good!

Internet and Scully off

I had an interrupted sleep because Scully woke up about 3am and wanted to go out for a toilet. I had to get dressed and take her out. This is very unusual – normally she sleeps right through the night. She did a poop, and then multiple more throughout today, again unusual. The last couple looked like they had blood in them, so we contacted the vet and took her in for an examination. Apart from that, she’s been energetic and lively as usual, no change in behaviour. So the vet was not terribly concerned and took some blood for a test, but suggested it might resolve without treatment. So hopefully it’s nothing serious.

Also today my Internet service went out just before 9am, and didn’t come back until 4pm. I had two ethics classes in the middle of the day. I cancelled one and then tried the second one using my iPad and a 4G connection. It worked okay, but was considerably more fiddly, and not something I’d want to do again unless I really have to.

So my day has been pretty disrupted, and I still can’t relax because Scully is still at the vet getting the blood test done, and we are waiting to be notified to go pick her up.

I’d planned to cook a special dinner tonight of satay vegetables and tofu with rice, and even specially bought tofu today to go into it. But we had to just quickly make some toast and eat quickly in between getting back from the vet and my evening ethics class starting. So overall not a great day.

Scully’s 7th birthday

Today was a big day. Scully’s 7th birthday!

My wife took her to work with her, because today we also had an electrician in to install our new light fittings. He arrived early at 07:30, and was occupied with working and making clutter with all of the boxes and packaging the light fittings came in. A couple of the lights needed some tricky reconfiguring of screw placements, due to overly large holes cut through the ceiling plasterboard. But he managed to successfully install everything within a couple of hours. And the new fittings look great!

But I had to go out and buy some new light bulbs, because the old fittings were all bayonet style, and three of the new ones are now Edison screw fittings, so the old bulbs don’t fit in the new sockets. So I went to the hardware store to buy some new bulbs, before returning to fit them in place.

My wife worked half a day and had the afternoon off to celebrate Scully’s birthday. I picked her up in the car and we drove over to Lil’ Mix bakery to get some food. My wife really likes it there, but it’s not open on weekends, so we don’t have much chance to go there during the week.

Back home I cleaned up the packing material and took it out to the bins. And kept some of the spare parts in case we need them later. I made fried rice for dinner, and then had three ethics classes in a row. And now I have a yummy cookie form Lil’ Mix for dessert.

Walking while the weather is okay

Scully didn’t get much walking time yesterday because of the heatwave weather conditions, followed by the evening hailstorm. So given today was a lot cooler, I made sure to take her out for a couple of good long walks. First thing in the morning I took her up to Moon Phase, the patisserie, and got myself one of their delectable char siu buns. Barbecue pork inside a delicately laminated pastry shell, with a super crisp sweet glaze on the outside. It’s an astonishing flavour combination and works really well.

I spent some time today assembling more Irregular Webcomic! strips, and also writing and making a new Darths & Droids strip. For lunch I just had some sandwiches with my home made sourdough, cheese, tomato, and lettuce.

After lunch I took Scully one a longer walk, around Waverton and down past the harbour shore. I also did an eBird count and tallied 12 different species. About average for a walk down there. The weather was mild and grey, and there were a few brief showers passing over during the day, with rumbling thunder, but nothing heavy.

Not much else to say about today.

New content today:

Christmas prep: delivery number one

This morning I slept in a bit. I’d had an early rise yesterday and Friday and needed to catch up a bit, so it was good to snooze a bit. After getting up and having a quick breakfast I went for my 5k run. It turned sunny and hot later in the day, but the morning was overcast and pleasantly cool for the run, which was nice.

After lunch we drove over to my mother-in-law’s place to take a bunch of Christmas goodies. Christmas lunch is there, and we’ll also be taking a bunch of food that day, so we thought it would be good to get a head start and take some of the other stuff today: drinks, gifts, and whatnot. Traffic was light, with a lot of people already away for Christmas vacations. But my mother-in-law lives adjacent to a popular walking track along the harbour shore, and that was very busy, with a lot of people enjoying the sunny weather and scenery along the walk.

When we came home my wife started Christmas cooking, making some gingerbread with bits of dried fruit in it, and some chocolate date balls with a white chocolate topping. I think she’s got something else planned too.

Oh, I forgot to mention Scully had her pre-Christmas wash and groom yesterday, and is looking neat and trim for the big day too.

New content today:

Photo dump

Today was my usual busy Monday, with many online classes to teach. So I thought I’d dump some photos I took over the last few days which I haven’t had a chance to share.

We’ll start with a jacaranda tree. November is the most beautiful month of the year in Sydney, with these large trees in vivid purple flowers all over the city.

Last Friday when I took Scully out for lunch, we walked home via a park, where I let her off the lead to run around. I took my eyes off her for one second to glance at my phone, and she was off to the swing set and the surrounding bark chip mulch that is there to provide a soft surface for kids. She loves rolling in this stuff, and it’s nigh on impossible to get out of her fur. It sticks like velcro and you have to tease every single piece out individually.

It took me maybe an hour of tedious grooming afterwards to get her looking respectable again. Fortunately she had a professional groom and haircut the next day.

On Sunday after my 5k run I spotted this butterfly on the ground and it stayed still long enough for me to get a close photo.

It’s an Australian painted lady, which has the awesome species name of Vanessa kershawi.

Finally, a photo I took today, of four tawny frogmouths. The two adults on each end are protecting the young in the middle.

This family have taken up a spot on a tree branch in the park across the street. It’s in a creek gully, and I took the photo from a bridge above, thus the overhead perspective.

The only other thing to report today is that my wife and I got our latest COVID vaccinations, since it’s been a year since our last ones. We booked in at a local pharmacy for after my wife got home from work, and they did it quickly with no fuss.

New content today:

Sydney ISO meeting: Day 3

This morning I dropped Scully off at doggy daycare again. They were going to deliver her back at home in the evening after my wife got home from work. Then I hopped a train into the city. The weather was lovely today, mild and sunny.

The ISO Photography Standards meeting today went through a bunch of different technical topics, covering: camera readouts and controls for HDR photography, camera memory model, digital camera pixel specifications, ISO DNG file format, low light performance with hand-held camera shake, depth metrology, image flare, and image stabilisation. We also had some additional discussion on the HDR topics covered yesterday, because there had been a failure to reach consensus on some issues. This was a… lively session.

After the meeting I headed home, where Scully still had not been delivered by the doggy daycare place. Then my wife got a message saying that she’d been delivered to her work! They’d messed up the address, and then left her with some of my wife’s co-workers, rather than try to contact us. So she requested they pick her up and bring her back home, but she also left to walk all the way back to work in case they took too long, while I stayed home in case she arrived here. I called up to find out what was going on and they said the delivery driver was a few suburbs away and because of the major crash on the Bridge traffic was banked up everywhere and it would be at least an hour before they could get back to my wife’s work. So lucky she left to go back there.

She arrived and fortunately Scully was safe and sound with her co-workers. But she had no harness or lead, and so couldn’t walk home with Scully! So I had to drive down and pick them both up.

I had a call with the doggy daycare and they were very apologetic, saying they’d already spoken to the delivery driver about leaving a dog with someone who wasn’t the owner. That absolutely never should have happened, no matter what the co-workers said, without contacting and checking directly with us. So it was all a bit stressful because we didn’t know for sure that Scully was safe for half an hour.

To end on a more positive note, some photos I took the past few days while on break from the standards meeting. First, the view from our meeting room window, with a coveted Sydney Harbour water view:

Jacaranda trees beginning to flower at Circular Quay:

Some of Sydney’s old and new architecture:

The Opera House with ferries crossing in front:

And the Art Gallery:

New content today:

Games night and a fast run

Friday I picked up the weekly grocery shopping in the morning. I order online, a habit I began during COVID, and continue because it saves me time wandering up and down all the aisles of the supermarket. When you order online, you can select a checkbox for each item saying whether it’s okay for them to substitute an alternate brand or product if the one you selected is out of stock. After some early experimentation with this, I simply set it to “no substitutions” for everything. Because sometimes I’d get stuff I really didn’t want.

But when I pick up the order at the supermarket, often they have still substituted something. But at least they let me know about and give me the option to reject the substitution and get a refund for the missing item. Yesterday I ordered a particular brand and type of bread. They had the exact one I ordered, and another different type, and asked me which one I would prefer, as if they were substituting something. But one was the actual correct product I’d ordered, so I pointed to that and said, “That’s the one I ordered.” They questioned again, asking if I’d prefer the other one. I had to say, “No, that’s the one I ordered, I want that one.” 🙄

I had a bunch of ethics classes. One had a returning student – I knew he was returning as I’d made a personal note about him in the private teacher’s notes section, just recording the country he lived in. I said, “Welcome back, you’ve done my classes before, right?” And he looked surprised and said, “No…” I said, “I’m sure you have, maybe a while ago.” He said it must have been a couple of years or so ago, which may well have been true. I think maybe he was impressed at my memory!

My wife and I went out to our local pizzeria for dinner. And then when we got home I joined online games night with my friends. It was just three of us this week, as one was away and another was busy moving into his brand new house (where we played last week, but he finally had his furniture moved on Friday). I won two games of Jump Drive quite dramatically – I was very lucky with drawing into strong synergies in each game. Then we played Luxor, which I came second in. One guy went to bed early, and the two of us remaining played Root on Steam. He played cats and I played the Alliance, with AI Eyrie and Vagabond, and I managed to win.

Scully slept better overnight. On Friday I wrote a note and put copies under the doors of all our neighbours in the building, asking if anyone had any new electrical devices running overnight that could be causing some high-pitched noise or other humming or whatever that might be disturbing Scully. Our neighbour directly below us responded and said they’d started using an automatic cat feeder on the weekend, and offered to turn it off to see if Scully would sleep any better. She did, but still wanted to leave the bedroom once soon after we went to bed. After wandering around the house for a bit she came back and then slept through the night, which was a lot better than the past several nights.

I think the experiment is inconclusive. I’m sceptical that a cat feeder would make a constant sound that would disturb Scully, and her behaviour seems more consistent with whatever is bothering her still being present, but maybe she’s getting used to it. Anyway, I reported back to the neighbour and they agreed to keep the cat feeder off for another couple of days to see what happens, and then maybe we can test it by trying it switched on again. If that makes Scully more agitated again then we’ll have some strong evidence.

After breakfast I went for a 5k run. I pushed a bit and recorded 26:38, my best time since back in March. So that was pretty good. It didn’t feel too hard either, like I still could have gone a bit faster.

This afternoon when out walking Scully past the small group of local shops, where the fish & chip shop is, we were lamenting that nothing there was open for dinner on a Saturday evening. But we noticed a new sign at the cafe, saying that it was now open for dinner from Thursday to Saturday! They only started this this week. So maybe in a week or two we might try going up there for dinner.

New content today: