June-November

A quick update to fill in the gap between the last post and now:

The jaw is ok, not great. I've made an appointment to see the specialist again early in the new year. When the DOC hut bookings for the Great Walks opened in July we booked tickets etc. to do Milford and Kepler over Christmas/New Year.

Work has been reasonably good. I had several months with no synchrotron trips (hence no blog posts), but that gave me more time for some hefty data analysis and writing papers. I've also been invited to give a plenary talk at the Small Angle Scattering conference in Berlin next September (a conference I was planning to attend anyway). There are still changes afoot but not a lot of clarity.

Church has been good. Raewyn and I went through an apologetics series (of topics we chose) with the youth, and they all seemed to get a lot out of it, which is good to see. If I can get my butt into gear I'm thinking of posting the lesson plans (or more formalised versions thereof) on my other blog so others can use them also.

We took part in the Brisbane Bridge of Hope marathon for a third time, joined by Jan, another lady from church for 27 km of the walk. Raewyn and I raised over AU$8000 between us, which has meant that we have been offered the opportunity to travel to Nepal sometime next year to see the Bridge of Hope in action. Still trying to sort out the details on that one (including how much trekking we want to do while we are there).

I signed up for the Taupo Cycle Challenge again this year, specifically the 160 km solo road course around the lake. This was to test whether the Huka Challenge (which I did last year) is on par with the Solo, as claimed by the organisers. I finished it in 6:38, and felt quite good at the end. I formulated two conclusions: (1) the Solo is easier, (2) I'm not a road cyclist.

At the beginning of September, Raewyn got stroppy with a door in the middle of the night and kicked it. In mid October she found out that it was actually broken... (where have I heard that before?) At the time it put our Milford plans in doubt, but a few Sunday afternoon walks and a weekend up in the Tararuas satisfied us both that she would be able to do it. Which brings me to the next post...