Let’s put my submissions to the NZAC Wellington photocomp first. Prancing Foal and Mare won in the Alpine Nature category, while Above the Summit Plateau was #2 in the Alpine Activity category. The categories are Alpine Acrtivity, Alpine Landscape, Alpine Nature, and Mountain and Climbing Culture.
Apart from that, mostly in December I was preparing for January teaching, and that has still been occupying my time through January as I write this. It feels like there is an endless amount of notes to prepare, although really, there are only 24 lectures, and there are some parts of the course that I’m reusing from previous iterations. Also, on December 20, I found out about a course swap: dropped graduate algorithms and picked up the graduate software testing course, which I’d run with the same content as the undergrad course.
And apart from course prep, there was also a trip to Pohara (climbing) and Angelus (tramping), an FM-TAP submission, and visiting Quebec for Christmas.
Health news
- Updated COVID-19 vaccine effective vs ED visits in children
- Improved T-cell function via liver cell reprogramming (in mice)
There’s also the monthly roundup from Absolutely Maybe:
Early-stage trials and preclinical results for mucosal vaccines. I wonder about getting the self-amplifying mRNA vaccine, which is authorized in Europe and Japan; but I’m not going to those places anytime soon.
Professional
Technically there are 21 work days in December, but the University is open for 17 of them. SE 465 showed up on 14 days and I worked on 18 days. In terms of research, I submitted to FM-TAP with the Estonian collaborators, and worked with Alex.
Teaching
At the end of December there was still a bunch of work to do but I at least had the first 5 SE465 lectures done, giving me some start-of-term runway (which is diminishing as the term proceeds). Preparing the next two weeks of lecture (on fuzzing) is a lot, but then it should be less after that. Plus a midterm and Assignment 2.
I also got a last-minute course swap giving me 3 courses in Winter term again. But I’m doing SE465 and ECE653 with the same course design, so it’s not too much more time.
Grad students/mentees/collaborators
Again pretty much the same as usual, meetings on 8 days, including many meetings with my student Alex.
Also, talked to some SE grads from a few years ago.
Collegiality/Service
In December I continued to worry about the upcoming reviews but didn’t really do any, mostly preparing for the upcoming NFRF reviews e.g. by printing out the proposals. I did read one or two in December. There was also some FAUW governance review work. The deadlines for that are ticking too.
Trips
One trip to Nelson Lakes/Pohara and then the Christmas trip to Quebec, leaving December 23.
Pictures from Wellington in December 2025:
Trip: Nelson Lakes/Pohara/Angelus (December 5–9)
I’d been to Nelson Lakes National Park a couple of times before: an attempt on Mount Hopeless in August 2023; and the Travers-Sabine in February 2024, for which I have posted 0 pictures so far (it’s on the list!).
Angelus Hut and Peak are also popular destinations in the park. I’d like to visit in winter as well. But we had a couple of days in early December, at the start of NZ summer, so the plan was to go up to the hut on Sunday (it was full on Saturday), summit on Monday, and then return on Monday. Before that, we would go climbing at Pohara for two days.
- Trip report: Angelus Peak Thrice in Three Days, December 5 to 9
- Serialized version of the phone-retrieval saga as a Mastodon thread
- Gallery: Pre-trip: climbing at Pohara, December 5
- Gallery: Pohara to Wakefield, December 6
- Gallery: Robert Ridge approach to Angelus Hut, December 7
- Gallery: Angelus Peak, December 7
- Gallery: First Phone Search, December 8
- Gallery: Second (Successful) Search & Back from Angelus Hut, December 9
Before the hike:
To Angelus Hut and the summit, first time:
Two more trips up Angelus, and back to Blenheim and Wellington:
Trip: Quebec (December 23–January 4)
Around Christmas, we were in Montreal and then Bromont. Then we went east, through Québec and onwards to Charlevoix.
Montreal (December 23–26)
First to Montreal (well, the suburbs) for Christmas with MP’s dad. (Thanks for the airport pickup!) I also made it to Beta Bloc twice with Marco, picking up Blake (what goes around comes around) at Montreal Trudeau airport. The new REM makes it quite fast to get from Montreal’s South Shore to the West Island, at least when it’s running.
I had a kind of annoying experience with TD and a forgotten PIN. My other card had some sort of fraud problem in 2021 and needed to be replaced, but that wasn’t clear at all, and I thought that the one I usually use was inactivated. Turns out, I just needed to go to a branch to reset the pin on that one.
Bromont (December 26–29)
Then it was off to Bromont to see MP’s mom. We stayed at the Gîte à Margot. Margot is kind of a force of nature, and also serves excellent breakfasts. She runs an old-school B&B, and we talked to many interesting people at breakfast, mostly but not all from Ontario—also some immigrants to Québec. There was notably a Waterloo student.
I managed to get more skiing than usual this year. In the Eastern Townships, I went to Sutton twice: at first we were thinking about a half-day, but in the end we did a full day, and I rented high-performance skis for half the day while I was getting my ultralight skis tuned. Figured they wouldn’t be the best for the many glades at Sutton, including the triple-black-diamond ones. Only when I had the downhill skis did I realize there were some runs with 1km ski out, which would be ideal for my touring skis. Anyway, there was good snow.
I tried to get to the touring-like runs again the next day with the “$20 for skiing the last hour” deal but you can’t actually get there fast enough. We also went for a hike at the Parc des Sommets to the lofty elevation of 472m on Mont Bernard. They rented us some snowshoes which were completely unnecessary in the conditions: we weren’t sinking.
The next day was rainy and icy. We went to the power centre (boo) where MP did not buy anything, and then had lunch at St. Hubert. We also went to Granby. I thought about going to the climbing gym but I didn’t go. Maybe I should have. We had dinner at MP’s mom’s again and that was our last day in Bromont.
Charlevoix (December 30–January 2)
Onwards: December 30 was the big driving day from Bromont to Baie St Paul. I’d been checking the weather (see: icy) but it was fine as we had to drive. I checked in with the car rental place but it would actually cost $135 to add MP to the car rental, which would not be value for money. Nor was it a very good use of time to drive into Quebec City.
Anyway, we stopped in to look at Le Massif (windy and cold) and the Sentier des Caps de Charlevoix. We’d be back to both of these places. We checked out Baie St Paul (I think we’ve been there before) and went for a walk at the Boisé du Quai. Probably we should have gone to a restaurant, but we got food from a grocery store.
The next day we actually went skiing at Le Massif (before the strike!). It was slightly less cold than the day before, and we skiied the whole day. Many of the runs that I really would want to do weren’t open, but also, I was on my ultralight skis, so it was fine. I did most of the open black diamonds. MP continued to do well on her snowboard.
The view from Le Massif is indeed impressive, though it is not really as impressive as the view from Treble Cone in NZ. The skiing is different. In general I’d say that NZ skiing can be better than East Coast skiing but Alberta and BC are better, I guess. Also, the price at Le Massif for a one-day ticket is impressively high, like $180.
We failed to dine out on New Year’s Eve in Baie St Paul. I think nothing was open. We successfully made a reservation, but then the place was closed and thus didn’t honour the reservation. Fortunately we had food in the fridge and a kitchen.
Both Mont Grand Fonds and Le Massif are pretty close to Baie St Paul. Le Massif is 20 minutes west, while Mont Grand Fonds is 40 minutes east. Grand Fonds is much smaller and much cheaper, and we went there on New Year’s Day. It opened at 11, MP went for a lesson, and I just went skiing in, again, good ski conditions. I’ve heard that the snow is generally better than near Montreal, but I only have two data points. Sure, it was good on those days.
We did manage to go to the Bistro de l’Estran for a New Year’s dinner. Somehow we were the only people there. It was a 5-course tasting menu. Leftovers ensued.
After that, back west. Sentier des Caps for snowshoeing to Lac Gauthier (snowshoes not really needed until the lake, where they were maybe useful). In the woods meant that the wind wasn’t as much of a factor, but it was still chilly. Then worthy poutine at Le Shack à Patates next to Mont Ste Anne and walking around Quebec City in -30 wind chill.
Québec (January 2–3)
Yep, it was cold. Got croissant at a good bakery near our hotel, got pictures of the ice on the trees, and visited the Chapelle des Ursulines. Then back to Montreal. Tried to get food along the way but GPS directed us to the mall in St Bruno, which had more people than I’d like. I returned the car and flew to Toronto the next day. (MP drove me to the airport).
Travel Planning
I did not record any travel planning in December, though we did stay at a hotel on the South Shore of Montreal because MP’s dad had a cold, and I added a pod hotel in January in Toronto after the first day of class, since MP was coming in on that day. I guess we’d planned everything before that.
Movement statistics
No travel and one hike means a three-digit walking number.
Movement statistics:
- 🚶 Walking: 101km on 20 days
- 🚲 Biking: 63km on 11 days
- 🚠 Cable car: 0.7km (1× Wellington)
- 🚗 Driving: 1378km on 15 days: South Island (486km) and Quebec (889km)
- 🚗 Taxi: 30km on 4 days (WLG ×3, Montreal for Beta Bloc/car rental)
- 🚌 Bus: 13km on 1 day (Wellington)
- 🚆 Train: 81km (Wellington, REM)
- ✈ Plane: 15697km (WLG-BHE, BHE-WLG, WLG-AKL-YVR-YUL)
- ⛷ Skiing: 66km on 3 days (Sutton ×2, Le Massif)
Transit was 94km. There wasn’t really a transit option for getting to Quebec City and beyond; sometimes there is a train to Charlevoix, but not this winter, and it wouldn’t get us to Baie St Paul.
Walks
Another turn on the Wellington Skyline, as well as Angelus (up Robert Ridge and down Speargrass), and La Grandiose at the Parc des Sommets in Bromont.
Pictures
I’m writing this on January 14th, and I have a set from Te Papa on January 14, 2024, so just barely less than 2 years of backlog. There is also a large set in February but then I have some breathing room till May. What happens is that I’m teaching in Winter terms, so I don’t take many pictures, but I also don’t process many pictures.
One side benefit of teaching, though, is that I was forced to learn about the Piwigo API, and so I went ahead and wrote a script to automate the creation of links on these pages. Which saves a lot of time creating these pages, actually, and is just a better workflow.
Picture logs available, and, as always, pictures are clickable to go to the full gallery (with the help of my new script!)
- Sets of pictures processed: December=27, November=27, October=39
- Total pictures selected: December=919, November=1043, October=1330
- Total pictures in selection pool: December=3092, November=3592, October=3883
- Accept rate: 30% (min 14%, max 62%)
- Pictures posted on this page: 179
Birds, other animals, and plants. (There are both sheep and vegetable sheep). The paradise shelducklings were getting quite big. In the highlights above, I finally photographed a grey warbler. Not a great shot, but they are hard to see, even though they are so easy to hear. Definitely fewer exotic birds than last month.
Not birds:
Flora:
Miscellaneous
Pretty normal teaching-focussed month. One other thing I can mention is that we went to the Michaelangelo—A Different View exhibition in Wellington, though it travels around. Worth going to: you get a better view of these (replicas) than you do in the real place.
Posts
Just the Angelus trip report, which I turned around quickly.
Books
- George Penney. Tiny Moments of Joy: inspiring anecdotes of George Penney’s observations, mostly of Market Day in a small town in Aotearoa.
Acquisitions
- Peak Design Camera Clip: helps a lot with reducing weight around the neck when carrying around the camera; at first I didn’t know what the lock button did and was unscrewing it to get the camera off. A bit unwieldy to put down the camera when the tripod/clip attachment is attached.
- Two Icebreaker merino wool T-shirts purchased duty-free at AKL, NZ$160 for both. They don’t last forever, but they are good while they last.
Sports
Faultline 11×, Beta Bloc 2×, outdoor climbing @ Pohara 2×, judo 3× (was busy the first week of December, then away for other practices). That was a lot of climbing!
Food
South Island:
- PC Eatery at the Pics peanut butter factory: well, I didn’t expect that at the peanut butter factory, but they make it work.
- Nikau (Pohara): went back here twice (also there weren’t a lot of choices), but the greenlip mussels were numerous, and better than the previous ones I had.
- The Smoking Barrel: this time for a serious burger, one of the better choices in Motueka between Pohara and Nelson Lakes.
- Renwick Takeaway: quick stop on the way to Blenheim Airport, but a surprisingly enjoyable egg burger.
Wellington:
- Otto Champagneria: didn’t have champagne, but did have a solid Hash Benedict, which is one variation on eggs Benedict I guess; met up with some people from Mastodon there.
- Pravda: hadn’t been there before, there is actually some Estonian text, generically good choice.
- AXL Coffee: new ice cream and coffee place with enthusiastic owners replacing old gelato place.
Montréal:
- Hồ Gươm: good Vietnamese food; it’s the newer kind-of-expensive-but-high-quality kind.
- Chez Cora: well, it’s a huge chain, but I haven’t been there in years. Sure.
Volunteering
Hopefully getting close to the WJA constitution, and worked on the FAUW constitution. I think there was just an OAC Board meeting.
Conclusion
More teaching prep, a bit of research, Angelus, and Québec. Teaching can take a lot of time.