iPod

I got one of a.

How awesome! :)

Just the most beautiful piece of technology, so simple and elegant. The interface feels really intuitive, as I've never used the click wheel, but it really seems to work ok. I've got to get some protective covers for it though.

Unfortunately I couldn't get a black one, as there are only whites in Australia at the moment.

I'm very excited!!

Father Bob Maguire

Father Bob Maguire

He's been on a few of John Safran's shows, and on Denton. Very funny man.

This weekend...

Was really busy. Went to Healesville on Saturday, and also dropped in on Mike and Kylie. I've got the details for Phil's bucks night, which is on next weekend. Hopefully I can win some money at the races on saturday, so I can go to the bucks night. We saw pretty much everything, except for the bird of prey show, which was a bit sucky - Jude started playing up just before the show, so we went home. It was a long day for the little man.

Sat night, Rach's friend Kirrilee came over with her husband, and we played a new PS2 game called Buzz. So addictive. We actually went out tonight and bought it! :)

Today was pretty cruisy, Rach went out of lunch, so it was just Jack and I today, we had tummy time, floor time, sitting up time, and sleeping time. I managed to get a bunch of house work done, which was satisfying, although it would have been more useful to get some study done! That's what the train tomorrow is for, I guess.

Tomorrow is going to be super quiet at the office, with about half the office not coming in - Tuesday is a Public Holiday, so most people take tomorrow off and get a 4 day weekend. I'll be getting stuck into work, and playing with the new iPod. :)

Excited!

I get to buy one of these tomorrow!

AWESOME!

I'm hanging out to get it! It will probably mean that I wont have to lug this bloody laptop to work every day. I might need to burn off some cd's of source code and other things on this machine though. Otherwise, I'll be laughing! :) I should probably also get a 1-2gig memory stick for storing other bits and pieces.

Big Person Foodies

Little Jack has his first solid food - well, I say solid, but it's really pureed apples yesterday :) And He's going for jabs this morning too. Poor little guy. Not too many cries were had, which is good. He's so alert now, following you around the room as you walk. Well, following Rach anyway. :) I think he's a mummy's boy! ;)

Coming up...

Heading off the Healesville Sanctuary tomorrow, which I'm really looking forward to - I haven't been there myself for a few years now, and the kids will really love it. Well, I'm hoping that they do anyway. I just hope that the weather holds out - This is Melbourne, so it will probably be good at some stage tomorrow, just as it will probably be shithouse also.

Spring racing carnival is coming up, which means I have an opportunity to wear the hat I bought last year! Unreal. I'm going to look like quite the betting man. Chasing after the kids. :) I think it might be time to get a TAB card, we say that every year, but I really think we need it. Honest! Neil seems pretty keen to come and have a look at the races! As do Ben and Betsy. The carnival officially starts tomorrow, with Derby Day kicking off the carnival, then Cup Day Tuesday, Oaks Day Thursday and Stakes Day on Saturday. Mega!

Smoking..

Is back. Well, at least for me it is. I only lasted a couple of days this time. Next time will be longer, I promise. It's one of those things really, I quite enjoy it, even though I know that it's really bad for me. I had to go and get some smokes yesterday, after I found the bill for the last visit to the doctor, which cost me $50.

I got a strange message this afternoon, from the Connex sms notification service - talking about an obstruction at Mentone - 20 minute delays, which doesn't fill me with joy. It's looking pretty good at the moment though, down to Patterson without a problem.

Work...

We had the monthly staff meeting, which is always fun. Free food and drinks should never be knocked back. The share offers have come through now, so everyone seems to be pretty upbeat. The HR manager has tempted fate and sat some people through exit interviews, and I think I might be asking if I can sit through one too. It's getting to the point where I've got to say something. Edwin and I were discussing the hiring policy, which looks like it's focusing on hiring people at more senior levels, which means there are fewer opportunities for existing staff. Sucks to be me. Why not take people off projects, train them, and promote them from within? Hire graduates, put them in the support area, get them some practical experience, and then move them into the consultancy side of the business. Cheaper, and better for staff morale in the long run.

Fortunately, I ran into ET on the tram while going ot the staff meeting - he seems keen to get me on board for the Product team, which I'd be cool with - I wonder though if there would be a lot of travel, which would really suck ass. Oh well, cant have everything eh? Fingers crossed, it might mean that I'll be able to get out of the Overtime rut that I've been in, and start working normal length days!

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/guess-what-just-turned-34.html

stuff.

Ok - I ran out of ciggies yesterday, around 11am. Nothing dramatic, just went downstairs, had a fag, came back up. I'm feeling pretty good this morning actually, I'm certainly not getting any cravings, or shakes, or crazy stuff like that. I know I have a really addictive personality, so if I do get hooked on something I love, it's hard for me to give it up. Although, I love to have a bet on the horses, and restrict myself to the cup carnival. I will continue to update if any change to my physical condition. At least with a jiggy neck I dont have to worry about looking around. I woke up with Jack's little feet in my back on Monday morning, and it's screwed my neck. (Although, I did play snooker against Neil, and came from 6-32 down, to win 60-32!)

Spoke to Phil, who's getting married at the end of this month - he's doing really well - very busy with the plans for the wedding. His wedding is about 4 weeks away now. I wont be going to the bucks party, well, I might, but not to any part that involves money. Bummer.

I've got to ring Mike, and see how he's doing too.

Work is a bit nuts at the moment, I managed to sort out the reports on Monday (about 10 hours work!), and then move onto the stored procedure for Start of Day Load. Aparently we are soon to be asked to work 10 hour days and 7 day weeks. I thought the days of slave labour had finished? If you want people to work hardcore hours, go and outsource your IT to India or Bangladesh. I'm going to suss out work and see what they say about the overtime thing. It might be the catalyst for a resignation - given that the share letters are coming out soon.

I realised why I love the coffee at illia so much - they use Gravity, which is the same as the Bear Brass guys use! I've been going there for about 2 months now, and only just realised last week! Duh. When I took that first sip from the first coffee there was something familiar about it. It was just like the girls used to make it for me!

Early..

It turns out that I woke up early this morning - so I thought I'd catch an early train - unfortunately, I missed the 6:09 train, so that means it was a 20 minute wait until the 6:29. What is all that about? If there were more regular services, running from earlier to later, I have no doubt that more people would use the system. We also only have 155 trains at the momemnt, which means that there is no additional capacity to run more services. I guess with the driver shortage of the past 12-18 months, that's not realy been a consideration. With petrol becoming very expensive, I would have though that it's a great chance for the government to push the public transport barrow. Maybe not?

I finished my assignment on Friday night, submitted all on time. I'm sure mine was the crappiest one out there, but as far as I could tell, it met all the criteria. Who cares if it doesnt look great, as long as it's functional, right?

We were looking after the in-laws place on the weekend, so we watched a bit of foxtel. Saturday we got a pay-per-view of the new Metallica movie Some kind of monster. It was brilliant, seeing how these therapists work. Amazingly, the record company was paying $40,000USD per month! It's pretty good dollars, if you can get it.

Sunday was 'Pimp My Ride' day, so spent a couple of hours watching that. What a great idea for a show. Get people with shitbox cars to write in, take their car away, fix it all up, and give it back to them... crazy! I even saw a car with a spa in it. Seriously.

After we left the in-laws, I took Jude home on the back of the bike. He seems to like it, although it's a bit hard to tell, as you cant see his face. At least he doesnt spend the whole time screaming, or kicking you.

People...

How long between talking to people does it have to be to still
consider them friends? There are quite a few people that I haven't
spoken to for a few months, but I still consider them friends. Maybe
they are more like acquaintences?

Anyway, I've been suffering from bad stomach cramps - it might be time
to go and see the doctor. It has happened a couple of times after
I've had jester pies - mind you, the pies are really really good -
nice crispy pastry, and the fillings are amazing - real meat chunks in
the meat pies, as opposed to lips and assholes in a standard meat pie.

At work I'm on the timesheet bandwagon now, we have to fill out 2 lots
of timesheets - at least the ones we do for our employers are fairly
straightforward - as far as they are concerned, I'm working on one
project - it's just the client ones which are down to the half hour.
At least I've managed to get into the swing of logging stuff on a half
hourly basis, which I've been doing for the past month or so.

The useless programmer has gone on holidays for 3 weeks, so fingers
crossed we will have the actual coding mostly done. He can do his
head in when he tries to actually run his tests that he's written. We
went through his data dictionary, which was 120 pages - for about 15
tables. It's a bit much. We culled it down to around 100, but it
does seem that it was a pretty hardcore enterprise. Personally, I
would have just had a table with a couple of fields for each table -
Field Name, Type, Description, Example Values. And a paragraph blurb
about what the table actually represents. Easy - and only 15 pages.
That together with the data model, and you should be able to
understand what's happening with all of the information in the data
model.

It looks like I've been bumped off the 'Lead Developer' role, which is
a bit of a downer - A new staff member was hired, so he's taken on a
lot of those tasks - which is fine by me, but unfortunately I will
have to stand by the quality of the code that I've written. Damn.
That being said, I did learn a lot while I was in that project role,
and certainly as far as the office knows, that's what I'm doing. I am
planning on spending some time over Christmas to re-read the Java 2
certification book, and get the Support Centre to book the exam - that
will allow me to apply for SC roles at other places - and get myself a
20-30k pay rise.

Argh - here come the cramps again.

Sitting up...

Jack has been straining in his chair to pull his little head up - and this morning, while propped up on the couch, he spontaneously pulled himself up into a sitting position, which lasted for about 30 seconds, before he came crashing down. He was pretty pleased with himself, sitting up and looking around. Luckily Rach was sitting right next to him, but it might be time to spend some more time on the floor!

He's getting better with the rolling over, only from front to back so far.
I haven't re-visited his book of records recently, but that will be one of the things for the weekend.

Cricket..

What a letdown. Australia went into the match looking vulnerable, and
came out unified again. Stuart MacGill has to be the unluckiest leg
spinner of all time - coming along at the same time as Shane Warne.
MacGill has a fantastic record, taking about 5 wickets per match, but
he really struggles to get a game - except when the team is playing in
Sydney. Hopefully the selectors will see his brilliant 9/80-odd in
this super test and put him into the side for the West Indies early
this summer - They are notoriously bad at handling any kind of spin.

As with the one dayers, it really proves the adage: A champion team
will beat a team of champions. My current thoughts about the Aussie
Cricket team, mostly on the latest one day and test matches:

Matty Hayden is back in form, after curbing his previous
belligerent streak, he's done a fantastic job - Personally I would
have dropped him from the one day team a little earlier, as it was
obvious the pressure of getting on with it had been telling on him.
He played a fantastic match, taking a great catch of Kallis off Warne
- as well as Man of the Match scores of 111 and 77. It was not so
much about the numbers, but the way in which he made them. He slowed
his normal strike rate (of around 70-80 runs per 100 balls) to around
45-50 - and just waited for the bad balls - and did he put them away.
He hit some majestic drives and cuts, reminiscent of his hey days.

Langer got a brute of a ball early on the first morning of this
test, made a 30 odd in the second innings - Was fantastically
consistent throughout the Ashes, when the pressure was on Hayden, he
stayed in and helped us post reasonable scores. Took one easy catch,
but was pretty quiet for the rest of the match.

Ponting showed that he is easily temptable outside the off
stump, as Freddie picked him up with a beautiful swinging delivery,
moving away from Pontings off stump.

Clarke

Made a couple of average scores, but still hasn't been able to live up
to the standard he set during his first test series - taking Sri Lanka
apart. Also looked good against India too. Got bowled by a good ball
in the second innings, although he did play down the wrong line, and
the off cutter made it through the gate. Needs to tighten up a little
bit, but looks like a good prospect for years to come.

It looks like Katich is struggling, after a couple of 50's in
England, and hardly any runs during the Super Series, his place must
be under question - Hopefully Brad Hodge can come in and make an
instant impression - or put Mike Hussey in. Katich is also one of the
'over 30' brigade, with Hodge not much younger - Hussey proved his
class in the Super Series one-day matches, and should be given an
opportunity. Katich looked all at sea against Murali (although,
Murali makes a lot of batsmen look average!) - He just seemed rooted
to the crease, unable to get his feet moving - the shot he got out to
was pretty terrible, playing around his front pad, and bunting a low
catch back to the bowler. Might need to go back to state level to get
himself sorted out

Gilly looked a hell of a lot better, although it looks as
though Freddie Flintoff will be around for a while to unsettle the
Australian batsmen - Certainly Gilly looked suceptible to the 'around
the wicket' tactics of Flintoff, but in this series he did make some
fantastic scores in the one dayers (100, 60, 30) and a flowing 94 in
the first innings of the Super Test. Man of the series.

Watson

Given a chance to prove himself with the ball against some of the best
batsmen in the world. Was a bit one dimensional, not having much
lateral movement, or movement from off the pitch. Bowled a few overs
that he would prefer to forget - Sehwag took him apart. Batted
alright, but needs some good time in the middle.

Warne

Looks pretty good - a very different proposition to MacGill, but still
has enough experience to pick up most class batsmen - While MacGill
got the figures this match, a lot of that was due to the pressure that
Warne built up at the other end - forcing batsmen to take on MacGill
to score - and inevitably getting themselves caught or stumped.
Batting hasn't been great - I'm still waiting for him to make his
first test century - after being so close with a 99 a few years back.
I think from memory he's got the most amount of runs for a player who
has not scored a century.

Lee
Leaked runs like a sieve, but was fast and aggressive throughout - I
think Ponting was right on the money, when he first took the captaincy
- he wanted tighter bowling from Brett - you cant go for 5 runs an
over, even if you are taking wickets. Was unlucky at times against
Sehwag, and just plain bad at other times. Batting has been pretty
good, getting up towards Shane Warne in the batting stakes - certainly
in the one dayers he's been good in the 'lower order hitting batsmen'
role.

McGrath

Metronimic as ever - Very unlucky to tread on a ball in England, and
other than at Lords, didn't/couldn't really show his very best.
Missed one test, looked under-done for the one he came into - and was
behind the 8-ball in the last 2 test matches - I think he even sat the
last one out?

MacGill
An attacking bowler, took a fantastic bag of wickets in this test
match. Personally, I think the Watson/MacGill experiment worked in
this match. It's unlikely that Watson will play against a stronger
bowling attack, and will have a lot easier time of batting. MacGill
is clearly a number 11, but with the ball in his hands, looks likely
to take a wicket every visit to the bowling crease.

Stuff..

Not much really going on at the moment - We were planning on moving
into Rach's parents house - but it looks like they aren't going to be
moving anymore. That's a real bugger, as their house would have been
perfect - Large enough to have 2 lounge areas (one for adults, and one
for the terrors!), plus 3 bedrooms and a study. Also has 2 bathrooms,
but only 1 toilet. I think we will probably move down into Frankston
now, given that we can get a 3 bedroom house down there for about $200
per week.

We had also toyed with the idea of buying a Nimbus people mover from
Kylie's sister - After some research, we decided that it was probably
not a good idea - and the fact that she wanted $9,000 for it, and the
red book value was around $4,000-$6,000. Certainly not worth 50% more
than the most expensive price. Aparently, they have small engines,
and are regularly loaded up (with kids and stuff), so the engine
labours, and they get pretty tired. Basically warned that anything
over 10 years is probably not worth the investment. That now means
that we will be getting the little beast back on the road - so that I
can get to the station. If we move, it means that we can be a little
farther from the station, as I don't have to walk it.

There really isn't anything good on commercial tv any more - now that
we have ABC (and ABC2), and with the recent Ashes series on SBS - I've
found that the only commercial shows we watch are: CSI (Original) and
the Simpsons. And of course Neighbours. We watched a great show on
Sunday night, all about gold. Very interesting - talked about early
coins, and european kingdoms around Roman times. If I wasn't studying
at the moment, I'd probably do a history course on that historical
era. I might see if I can't do a single history subject anyway.

Crazy stuff...

So Rach was telling me that Roy and Renee broke up - unbelieveable.

It's one of those things, you never really know how someone else's relationship is going, until they call you to tell you that it's all over. I sent him a note on his journal, just to say hello...

:)

http://www.livejournal.com/users/uberjeep/

Excellent journal, very dark humour.

Friday night..

Was good - I ended up staying back at work until about 6:30 - and watched the cricket at work from about 4:30.

I went down to the Exchange Hotel, and met Paula, Ryan and Rach. They got on the fizz, and then we went to dumplings - my second visit that day! After feasting there again, it was off home to see the littles - both of them were out cold. Jack hardly stirred in the whole getting him home routine.

I was allocated the 'getting up in the middle of the night' job last night, but Jack decided that he would sleep through. What a good kid. I guess it helps when he has his warm sleepy sack, and a belly full of food. Even though he's been a bit unsettled, he's coming good.

small, but loud!

Now has his own room - rather than sticking him in with Jude, who already gets jiggy when he's disturbed, Rach re-organised the study to fix the little guy's bed. He seemed pretty happy with the sleeping arrangements last night, so lets hope that he sorts himself out. He did manage to put himself to sleep the other night on the couch, I was looking at him fight the sleep, but he eventually conked it in the end. :)

Specialness..

He's going as good as ever - it's his child care day today, so we will
see how that goes - he seems to get quite upset when Rach takes him -
and he cried nearly the whole time he was there last week. Poor
little tacker.

On the upside though, he's starting to count - he gets to about 8, and
then loses interest. To be expected. He knows where the 'lollies'
come from now, and will stand at the kitchen entrance pointing to the
cupboard saying 'more, more, more'.. :) He even managed to record the
answering machine message, which consists of him saying 'car, car,
car' for about 30 seconds.. :)

Bleh...

Had lunch with Reuben yesterday, which was fantastic - I haven't seen
him since the break up. Sounds like he's doing ok at the moment, but
know really knows? He's working at another bank down the road from
where I am, so we will probably start having more regular lunch
meetings - it's certainly closer than the last place he was working -
Dandenong!

Rach spent yesterday morning re-arranging the study so that Jack could
have his own bedroom - and it seemed to work alright last night... we
will see..

The trains have been a bunch better recently, certainly no need to
stand up the whole way home - I figure that was something happening
(probably a cancelled train previous), which caused 2 trains worth of
people to get on the same train. The main problem with that is when
there are so many people, the trains dwell a lot longer, so more
people are there when the train arrives, which means the trains are
fuller, and the trains dwell a lot longer at the next stop, etc etc...
it's a viscious cycle.

God, I love playing party poker - it's just awesome fun - scamming
poor people out of their hard earned credits! Woooo! I'm
consistently getting into the last 3 on the tournament tables, which
is testimony to me learning and understanding the game. I'm still not
fantastic at sucking money out of people yet though. Practice
practice.

Sardines...

Man, we had the most packed train ever tonight - I managed to get the 5:08 express train, but by the time it got to Flagstaff (2 stops!), it was standing room only. I don't think I've ever seen that before.

The other problem was one of the loops not running, so we had some people from gwy/alamein on our line.

Oh well, what can you do eh?

Happenings..

A few things are going on at the moment. Reuben and Paula have broken up. A real bugger that, so now they have to sell/buy out the house from each other. It's never good, but I hope that they can get through the house sale without resorting to lawyers, who just end up leeching a bunch of money from the both of them. The housing market isn't super flash at the moment, but I guess they have some time to sell. Rach thinks that Paula will probably go back to Ireland now, which is a bugger, because she and Rach are close. I called Reuben the other day, I'd heard that his laptop got stolen out of the back of his car! Talk about bad stuff happening all together.

Rach is really encouraging me to go and play cricket - which i think is great, because I've not played for a long while, and i'm really starting to miss it! At least it will get me off the couch on Saturday afternoons! I don't know how fit i'll get from it, but it's got to be better than doing nothing, right?

Very strange thing last night, I went out to feed the cats, was listening to the cricket, and decided to clean up the shed a bit - Opened the shed door from the inside, and saw there was a car there. Not mine (which is permenantly there at the moment!), not Paul's, but a strange car. Anyway, I looked towards Paul's place, to see if it was a friend of his (it was not a car of any of his family), and there was a guy standing in Paul's doorway. We had a quick conversation, I was trying to work out who he was looking for - some couple called Sean and Rosa, or something - I suspect that it was just a cover, and that they were looking for Paul, who just wouldn't answer the door. Anyway, the guy reluctantly went back to his car, and slowly drove off - I just stood in the shed waiting for them to leave. Weird.

Saturday night, I slept out on the blow up matress with Rach - Unfortunately, I managed to jigger my neck - I've started wit hthe anti-inflamatories, but it's stiff as a board - I've also taken my heat pack to work, so that I can get some heat/blood flow into the area. I need to be mindful not to get stuck sitting at my desk for a long time today.

Cricket..

What a great series - well, if you are an Australian cricket fan anyway. We comprehensively thrashed the world XI again - It seems to me that the old adage: A champion team will always beat a team of champions rings true - certainly when that champion team has just got back from a series defeat in the Ashes.

Gilly was back to his best with the bat, the loss (dropping) of Hayden hasn't hurt too much - I thought Martyn was on thin ice after his first match duck, but he came back to put together a 50-odd and 30-odd last night. It looks like Mike Hussey is going to be a player, very much in the mould of a Bevan, he's a nudger/accumulator, and accelerates when the time is right - He and Watson got us from 5/150 odd, up to 294 by the end of the innings. It seemed to be just too much for the World XI, who really struggled to get partnerships going - Brett Lee was fiery and hostile from the opening, removing Gayle in the first over. That set the tone for the fielding innings, and Glenn McGrath was metrononic as always. I was really impressed with Pidg's "Pitch Map", which basically has all of this deliveries landing in the same area. Brilliant bowling.

Here's hoping that this Friday's "Super Test" can be just as good a match. If it comes close to any of the Ashes test matches, then we will all be satisfied with the concept.

Cricket

The World XI has come to Australia to play the world champions - and how did that work out? It was a fantastic match, if you are an Australian supporter - We ended up making 8/255, a little below what they were on target for at the 20 over mark (around 280-300!), but it ended up being too much for the World XI, who struggled to get to 150. Shane Watson with 4 wickets was man of the match, and Brett Lee did another fantastic job with the bat, whacking 26 of 17 at the end of the innings. He's becoming a bit of a specialist slogger down the order.

The crowd seemed very disappointing, maybe 12-15,000 in, but seeing as it was a work day, it's probably too much to expect to have 30-40,000 in. Hopefully Friday and Sunday's matches will have big crowds, to get some good atmosphere going in the Dome. It looked a bit slippery (the affliction not only affecting footballers!), and the ground was very slow in some patches - with well hit straight drives stopping dead on the patchy outfield.

We batted very well, Katich a good move up the order, but Damien Martyn must be wondering (like the rest of us!) what happened to his great form of 12 months ago. It seems like only the other day he was is career best form, and we were all talking about how he could have been left out of the side for 6 years after the devastating loss to South Africa in the early 90's.

The fielding was still a bit shonky, with a drop each from Shane Watson, and Brett Lee - Katich also dropped a difficult chance at mid on - although he was running with the flight of the ball, which is never easy to do. Glenn McGrath was superb as usual, his first 7 overs going for 10 runs, and a wicket. You would think that someone who seems to bowl on the same spot all the time, who isnt express, would be a real target - As a batsman, if you know where the ball is going to land, why wouldn't you just try to step back and whack it?

Sangakarra was good, although he was gifted a life early on (by the Katich drop), he went on to make a respectable 60-odd, and when he was out, that was about 60% of the runs for the team. Unfortunately no other batsmen really decided they wanted to stay out there.

I managed to get an early train this morning, mostly thanks to Scully who woke me up about 5:30 - It was geting light, so I decided to get up anyway. This should get me to flagstaff around 7:40 or so, and I'll be able to get stuck into the work I've got to do, unless of course the machine I normally use has been taken/upgraded. I'm hoping not.

Sickness..

I've not been this sick for a while. Monday night, after eating some chicken tandoori - I spent the rest of the night on the toilet - until about 9am the next morning. I finally got around to not sitting on the toilet, and then spent nearly 2 hours waiting to see a doctor. Unbelieveable.

I actually got the shits with that place, and went to a late night clinic where you have to pay up front yourself, just so I could see someone. I got my certificate, luckily for a couple of days, because I woke up this morning, still getting the sweats. The only bugger was that I missed out on playing pool with Neil today.

I did terribly in my maths test this week - 4/17 - at least I know what I really need to concentrate my studying on now. I had been cruising through mostly on refreshing the memory of the last time I studied this subject.

Words..

He's started with more now:

Jude
Keat
pidey - or Spider. :)
Bus

That's about all I can remember at the moment.. :)

Bali

Another round of bombings. We have now decided that there is definately no chance that we will be back to Bali. It's really unfortunate, because it's a beautiful place, but it just seems to be a magnet for religious extremists. Hopefully the Balinese people don't suffer too much as a result of the lost tourism.

I think you will find that airlines will start cancelling services there, as the demand falls.