Quiet Friday

Blogged on Friday, and attended a farewell tea for three University of Queensland employees. Budget cutbacks hurt, and the St. Lucia campus appears to be gobbling up the satellite Gatton branch.

There have been any number of fires nearby for days, some controlled burns, but some uncontrolled as well. Today there was thick smoke up on Mt. Glorious.

I went bird watching again at UQ Gatton's Lake Lenore, and saw that familiar, yet unknown, species of spider again in the bird blind. It looks nasty - I won't touch it...

Saw several birds, including:

• Dusky Moorhen;
• Australian White Ibis; and,
• Plumed Whistling Ducks.

In the evening, Andrew, Gary, and myself went to a Christmas dinner for Campus Staff. I wondered why the Christmas dinner was so early, and Gary said it was because the semester was now over, and if they wanted to do anything at all for Christmas, they had to do it now, or few people would be left on campus for a December dinner.

The meal selection was excellent: roast turkey and ham, sweet potatoes, and plenty of vegetables. It was appropriate that it was also Thanskgiving Day in America.

On the drive back from Theodore, on the radio, the station's Washington correspondent reported on the strange American tradition of the U.S. President pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys. 'Flyer' and 'Fryer' had been pardoned by President Bush and would live out their lives at Disney World, which struck the Australians as surreal.