Round 13 Review

Keatsters v Tendulkars
Huge win by Keatsters over Tendulkars, with both coaches suprised by the final margin. Although Amol's team had a large number of strong performers, the non-performers were bad. An even team performance from Keatsters, including 130+ point efforts from his reserves leaves him with some tough decisions leading into the 1 v 2 battle this weekend. Tendulkars with work to do in the run up to finals time.

Alex v Crunchers
Crunchers class got them over the line, and put themselves only half a game out of the top 5. Alex was performing well, but since draft week, has not won a game. Maybe his lack of activity on draft night has cost him.

Black and Blue v Curly
Black and Blue are starting to get a run on, with 3 wins in a row. Curly struggling, but with Buckley back, and not selected (!), this hurt the team. Definately a contender for finals. B&B will need all their luck to get over Tendulkars this weekend to continue their winning streak.

Farts v Ducklings
Comfortable win by MIA coach Tan over strugglers Farts. Farts could really have put themselves up as a finals contender this week, but let the game get away from them. It's time for Farts to fire up, and make a big run for finals action.

Hooders v Losers
Hooders fell in against bottom of the table Losers by 4 points - Although Hooders is now in the top 5 by half a game, this kind of performance doesnt bode well in the run up to the finals. Will find strong competition from log-jam of 5 teams fighting for last finals spot.

Busy Weekend

A big weekend.

Sunday was cruisy during the day, and then we went to visit Mike and Kylie at the hospital where they had their baby, Jake Ashley Rackham Storer. He was born on Friday night around 10:20. Everyone seems to be going well, just tired I imagine.

Saturday was not too bad, had a bbq with Bill and Dotty and Jorja - for Rach's birthday.

Then on Saturday night, we went and visited Guyman at his new place - He cooked us dinner, Spag bol, and we put together his new BBQ. Then watched Australia take on our traditional rivals Bangladesh in a one day match. We flogged them, I didnt even get home before it was over.

Friday night was spent watching the stats on the footy, I had a few players going around from my BTC team, so I wanted to keep an eye on them. I'm pretty sure that I've had a good win. That would leave me 12-1 after 13 rounds.

Job Hunting Phase

Ok - I'm going to seriously look for a job. I've set up email profiles for a number of job sites, and put in nice and specific search criteria.

Now I just have to find the bloody job!

And go and talk to the current employer and see if they want to give me a pay rise. Or lots of training, and a performance review.

Yeah baby!

Which OS are You?

Spending Spree

It's Rach's birthday today - So I stayed home from work.

Well, It was also because Jude woke up about 10 times last night, and cried out until about 3am. Which means I didnt get to sleep until then. And still had to get up at 6am for work. Bugger.

Anyway, Rach was going shopping, checked the bank account, and found we'd been paid our $3000. Awesome. Shopping time!

We went and bought an LG 76 cm widescreen telly, a 7.5kg Westinghouse washing machine, and a Digital Set Top Box. Funky as.

I'm kind of watching it now infact. We also got some wiper blades, and the new Foo Fighters album.

Cricket

I dont know what happened to this entry, but anyway.

Australia are stinking up the joint, bad. What is the deal with that? How can we possibly lose to Bangladesh, as if a loss to England is not bad enough.

Glenn McGrath has highlights! Shane Warne is getting his rug replaced. Andrew Symonds is out on the piss.

Poor John Buchanan must be tearing his hair out. Maybe he can donate to Warnie.

Poker

Texas Hold 'em is the game. I love it! :)

I've even got Rach playing now too. We play at partypoker.com, just for play money. Very cool.

I might apply for the Australian poker championships - it's only $60 entry for one of the sattelite tournaments.

Jude just woke up, so gave him some nurofen, but he just spits it out. Oh well.

Holidays

My holidays are nearly over. It's been bloody busy with the new baby, and new car. I still haven't been down to Vicroads to register the bloody thing yet. I have to do that soon. Maybe at the end of the month when I get paid, seeing as we have about $50 left for the month.

Rach has sold the pram, and we got $150 for it, so I'm sure we could do with that money soon! Otherwise, I've got to get some sleep - it was a pretty sleepless one last night - baby after baby kept waking up, and then the Aus v Germany soccer match was on, so I just stayed up and watched it - and went to bed at 7am, and was woken up by Jude at 9!

Also, I signed up at partypoker.com and have started playing (badly!)

Ok, off to bed, and the last day of holidays, at least until christmas, or the next public holiday.

Second Checkup

today. Rach took him down there, in the car - it was bloody freezing today.

He's put on a little weight, but he's still feeding funny. He's still only a little guy though. I still haven't been arsed to get photos online yet, so I'll probably just do that from work some time.

We have heaps of them, so it's not like we don't have any, it's getting them uploaded/printed that's the problem. Anyway, Mike and Kylie gave us a half a dozen photo frames (8x10) so we can print a bunch of them and stick them up!

Round 12 Review

Keatsters v Farts
As expected, Keatsters returned to the winning list, with a thumping 50 point win over Farts. Dropping Brad Johnson had the required effect, with a fantastic even team performance. Brad Ottens has put his hand up for a rest this week, with an average performance, with Brendan Lade next in line for a call up to the seniors.

Tendulkars v Curly
Curly put up a strong performance against Tendulkars, but were overwhelmed by 25 points. Tendulkars with a great even team performance, with 10 100+ point players all contributing.

Ugly Ducklings v Hooders
Fighting 3 point win over finals challenger Hooders, with Ducklings scraping in. Hooders Michell kept his team in the game with a fantastic 231 BTC points, and Coach Tan left with a decision to make about players who are underperforming.

Black and Blue v Crunchers
Comfortable 18 point victory by Black and Blue, with Crunchers struggling to get up for a key game for them. Black and Blue look dangerous, and if their team clicks, they could be a real wildcard come finals time.

Alex v Losers
Suprise first win by Losers, getting up by 20 points over Alex's underperforming list. Hooray!

The top four teams (Keatsters, Ducklings, Tendulkars, Black and Blue) have cemented their positions inside the top 5 with strong wins, now 3 games clear with only 6 regular season matches left until finals. There are still 5 teams with legitimate claims over the last position in the finals. Larry's Losers might be the wildcard, once a team against which coaches pencilled in as a win, they are now competitive, which means that coaches will have to be on their games until the season is over.

500 Words

Who would have thought 500 words would be so hard to write. I've been busy trying to write them, and look after Jude most of the day - so it's been a bit of a struggle. Jude has been acting up a bit (for attention, and just because he's 15 months old!), so that's been a bit trying - Poor Rach is not getting much sleep, with the baby not really feeding so well on the boobies.

Anyway, gotta feed him now! :)

Little Fella

He's going pretty good with the yellowness, but he's still not eating properly - he tends to fall asleep, so a 1 hour feeding takes about 1.5 hours. Anyway, I'm sure he'll be fine.

Wireless baby!

I went and bought a wireless network card tonight! :) after about an hour of dicking around, we got it all going. I've even managed to allow my work laptop to connect. bonus!

Total Recall II - Cruise Control

Yes, I'm using the lamest sub-titles of movies on my follow up posts. You will see more as we go.

Anyway, having kids yourself makes you think about what you were like yourself as a kid, so I'm going to whack a couple of things here that I've recalled as I've been going along.

• Dad drove a red Renault Fuego, BZR-948
• We were up in the country somewhere in that car, and dad got a speeding fine for doing 110km/h - there was a vibration in the car at 100km/h (the speed limit), so he drove over the limit. Dad the hoon.
• There is a photo of me as a little kid sitting with headphones on - the big old ones with the sausage puff bits around the outside. Crazy.
  

Poo, Assignments, Holidays

Holiday eh! :) This is the hardest I've had to work in quite a while.

Actually, I shouldn't say that - the work that I've been doing at the bank has been pretty full on - just getting my head around the complex systems and rules for doing stuff in the bank has been interesting.

Jude has been a bit of a handful, as expected really - but it's harder to deal with when you don't get great sleep the night before. Rach is doing a fantastic job with the feeding of Jack, she's enjoying it a lot more than last time (which she didn't really enjoy at all!), which is great. I did have to go and get a couple of bottles, and formula ($50!) for the little guy when Rach was a bit frazzled. Jack has been having good poos - when you have kids, the poo is the topic of conversation - How many, hard or soft, what colour, do they smell?

The car is going really well, it's nice to be able to zip down to the shops and get something to drink, or go down to safeway at odd times to get something needed. The best thing is that we don't have to pay anything for it until much later in the year (or maybe next year?), except for the piddly insurance.

My assignment is going ok, not as well as I'd liked - I think I'd planned to have it done 1st draft by yesterday, which would give me a couple of days to go through the re-editing process. I also decided to change what I was originally going to argue. I found the con arguments were pretty shithouse really - a bit pathetic. I always wonder about what political leaning I am when I think about these issues, I'd consider myself someone who cares about the environment (for the kids), but at the end of the day, surely it's better to have Victoria as the leading destination for shipping cargo in Australia, isn't it? Are the 10,000 jobs currently related to the shipping industry more important than the microbes that live in the sediment of the Yarra river? How do you weigh them up and balance those two seemingly non-equal points?

Anyway, I'll argue for it, and see how that goes. I'm really looking forward to getting into this!

I took some fantastic video of Jude listening to my little portable mp3 player through headphones, and a couple of great photos too.

Yellow

Little Jack is still struggling with a bit of jaundice. He's still a little bit yellow, but the nurses have had a look at him a couple of times already, and they say that he'll be fine. He seems to get a bit of wind, especially at night, which doesn't help our sleeping arrangements!

We got the port-a-cot in the study now, which means that he has his own room (this room!), Jude has his, and we are back in the bed together.

Jack has put on about 45 grams since he left hospital, so that's an encouraging sign. He's also having bottles during the night, and breasts during the day. Lucky boy! ;)

Texas Hold Em

I really want to learn how to play good poker! :) I might leave the yahoo group to later.

Busy Busy!

Ok - Not much really happening at the moment - just sorting out the babies, and dealing with all that kind of stuff.

Did a 'mercy run' last night, picked up a tin of formula, and a couple of newborn bottles for the little guy - he was having problems with feeding. Rach I think used them in the middle of the night, hopefully everyone seemed to get some rest.

My btc team lost on the weekend, we are now 10-1. I'm not too phased, but apparently people in the office are very happy! :) Good luck to them! I've also won 2 awards for the btc articles that I've been writing over the past month. Have to get back on track and write some more.

Got the car insured today - for $19 per month! How cheap is that?

Finally got into the school stuff - And my first assignment is due on Monday - So I will make a short note in my other blog, and then get on with the business of writing it!

Meeting your little brother

Jude met his little brother yesterday, who was only a few hours old at the time. He had a big smile on his face, but I really don't think he understood what was going on.

I stole him back from Nanny's last night about 10:30, and put him straight to bed - And then he woke up crying about 45 minutes after I'd managed to get to sleep. We had some couch time, and a bit of nurofen, and he seemed good when I put him to bed again. He had a good sleep until 7:30, when we got up, had a shower, brekky and then back to Nanny's - He was very chipper too.

I've managed to lose the bloody prescription for him too. Shit.

He's alive!

Jack Reuben Oliver was born at 9:46am on 2nd June 2005.

Weighed in at 3.47kg (7lb 10oz) and 50cm long.

Both mother and baby are doing very well. He's a hungry little bugger too.

Rest!

I came home today during the day to have a "rest"! I found a $50 parking fine on the windscreen of the car when I went home. That will teach me to leave the car in the hospital car park without a ticket.

So far I have:

• Cleaned the kitchen
• Cleaned the toilet
• Folded the washing
• Washed 2 loads of washing
• Dried 3 loads of washing (and the cat pee rug!)
• Updated Jack's little book
• Talked to Monash about my $2000 of fees (unsuccessfully)
• Withdrawn from Monash Management subject (Cost: $100)
  
• Packed up CD's from Study
• Chatted to nan across the road about Jack
• Patted the cats

That's about it for now. Anyway, another load of washing is coming up, and I've got to re-start the dishwasher.

Rach is doing really really well, it's amazing how you can recover when you havent had to labour for 12 hours before major surgery. Little Jack is alert, coughing up a bunch of crapola, and has a good sturdy pair of lungs on him. He really loved walking around the ward today (the first time he's had his eyes open outside of his room).

Jack Reuben Oliver

His site is here.

Jack Reuben Oliver was born 9:46am on 2nd June 2005.

He weighed 3.47kg (7lb 10oz). He is very cute, and has quite a voice on him. Photos will follow, there are already about 100 on our digital camera, and I'm sure a few on others.

Busy Day!

We got an early start this morning, mostly thanks to Jude waking up early!

8:30 at Bunnings, to get a few items: Buckets for CD collection, Footy for Jude, Towel Rail, a toilet seat (which we didn't get!) and command hooks that we also forgot. That will teach us to go there early in the morning.

Dropped into SupaCheap auto to get a club lock, steering wheel cover, and look at shades for the new car - and a stereo too! :)

Then off to Frankston to pick up the new pusher, with a toddler seat on the front for Jude. We also got a second mattress for the new baby, and a lambs wool insert for the pusher.

After that, a rest, and play with Jude - he decided that he wouldn't have a sleep until 1:30, so we enjoyed the time between then and when Rach had to go into hospital (5pm).

We went to the hospital, got settled into her room (a single!), and then wandered down to Frankston to get some Japanese food - I had a fantastic tonkatsu don, some Sushi and Sashimi, and Rach had the teriyaki chicken, which was on a bed of the most awesome rice I've had for ages.

I'm just chilling at home, I've changed the Linux hard drive out of the PC, and pit the 120 gig storage hard drive back in - so we can download the pics from the camera in anticipation of tomorrow. Anyway, big day on the way tomorrow, and I'll be at the hospital at 7am, so I'm off to bed!