Eleven friends for a weekend of sun, surf, fun and sheer abject terror.
The tag line for a new hollywood slasher flick? No, its my weekend holiday experience.
My engineer friends and I went to a lovely quiet coastal town called Shoal Bay. Its within the Port Stephans area. This long weekend started hilariously with the car trip up. Five guys stuck in traffic and the rain on what became a 4 hour journey. Boredom quickly strikes when you are stuck in a car, but my particular group is funny to travel with.
So whilst we are driving along, we start hiring this regular thump. At first we ignored it, but then it became more insistent. It turned out that the windscreen wiper rubber blade was slowly but surely slipping off and striking the car as we kept driving along. So here we are going at 110km/h in pouring rain without a windscreen wiper. Its all good, we can SORTA see the car in front...
We made multiple stops and made attempts to fix it. We stuck a woodchip inside to block the blade. About 30seconds into the drive, it flew off. We had more success with a tiny stone, which as far as I know is still holding that blade.
We arrived in Shoal Bay around 7pm and then hung out with Nish, Dennis and Neha. For entertainment we hired Batman Begins/Coach Carter & The family man which we watched over the next few days. We waited for Sonia and co. to arrive at 1am. Of course instead of doing the smart thing as soon they came and sleeping, we played poker until 4:30am. This appears to be a common theme on all our holidays.
Day 2
So its overcast, and grey, but its NOT raining. Good enough for us, we decided to go and get some beach on! The good thing is, not many people were on the beach so we had all of it to ourselves. So us girls and guys got some beach cricket, beach volleyball and swimming in on a day where most people would have stayed inside and grumbled. I was tremendously of our group.
We even hired some kayaks and did crazy things in the bay. I've still got a cramp in my knee from holding three kayaks together with my thighs alone for the ultimate dragonboat AS well as operating rudder.
We had lunch at good old Aussie Bobs (a tradition after 5 trips). Speaking of tradition, I dropped by the old Golding house where Rosy and the remains of the Fishery were having their annual holiday as well. It was nice to see them and there was no animosity amongst us, which was great considering they didn't invite me. Bastards! :P
So you ask, James where is this sheer terror you speak of. It is coming.
We had a bbq for dinner. Whilst the idea of us cooking is scary, its not really that which is the problem. After we watched Coach Carter, we congregated in Nish's room and just had a chat whilst people were trying to sleep. For some unknown reason, we decided to talk about a movie. Wolf Creek.
I shall not elaborate here, but this movie was described in a disturbing manner by Jessie, who didn't waste time on the gore factor, but on the psychologically disturbing feel of this film. Needless to say the entire room was silent and disturbed after this and retired to bed soon after.
Around 3:20 AM, I woke to the sound of the most terrifying scream I've ever heard. I was shocked awake, then I heard cries for help, then someone yelling, "the lights are cut!". With no street lamps in the area, it was PITCH black in the room. With a combination of all these, and the unfamilarity of the room, I was effectively paralyzed until someone managed to get a light activated which bought some sense back to me. After a desperate scrabble to find my glasses, I ran out of the room to find the others also coming down in a state of terror. Jessie and Louis both claimed to hear footsteps just before the scream and we all heard the scream. Louis was the one yelling for help after the initial scream until someone switched the light on. We ran into the main living room and huddled together in this unfamilar house which had massive windows with few curtains, which lead us feeling exposed. We had no idea what happened and to this day still do not really know. Did someone have a really bad nightmare and scream out in their dreams? Was it inside the house, or was it outside. We called the cops, who never came, but eventually around 5am, from sheer exhaustion and fright we all crashed into bed. Most of us were petrified, so we bunked closer together instead of separate rooms where we could.
So it wasn't really the best way to spend the night, but outside of that, it was a enjoyable weekend.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Receptionist Followup
So someone suggested doing a follow-up article to The Receptionist which I posted several months back, and I went, that's a great idea!
This is mainly because things have changed so much in that time. So for everyone who didn't catch the first part of the story, read the above link. This article is partly self-reflection, but its also to clear up a few misconceptions people have.
In order to keep things anonymous and so I don't need to keep typing The Receptionist lets name our receptionist Rachel.
Now despite my utter fear during the time of the first article, I managed the day after that article, to say hello and introduce myself, thus starting a long and odd friendship.
Rachel is a lovely girl, very bubbly, easy to get along with and surprisingly easy to hold a conversation with for someone who has no knowledge/interest in IT. She's attractive, but she doesn't flaunt it which is a huge plus point. (Okay that said, she could be flaunting and I might be just ignorant of it). Shes actually quite young at 20, so really a baby compared to the age of most of the people at our work. Shes got a boyfriend whose moved in with her. Hes a nice bloke, but my opinion of him took a massive nose dive when I realised he was a smoker and a real estate agent. (Bad experiences have made me realize Real estate agents are the scum of the universe.)
Shes on the way to the coke machine so I often get to talk to her. Its a silently (or in Mr R's case, not silently) accepted fact that the coke run is really a 'Chat with Kylie' run. I don't think anyone minds.
Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not really that attracted to her in that way. I like to make other people think I do, and sometimes I even try and convince myself I do like her in that way. But she simply just doesn't measure up to my ex, who despite her severe parental issues is still the most awesome girl in the world for me. That said, I really enjoy hanging around Rachel regularly because shes just got that awesome friendly vibe. She doesn't expect you to be witty, or intelligent, you can just be yourself. There is also something else... I think Sam de Brito's article's article on how to avoid a Princess said it best when he said
"Deep down, I think men are actually quite flattered when a princess chooses them because ... doesn't that make you a prince?"
So being friends with a Princess doesn't make you a prince, but hell at least you're a courtier or someone the Princess hangs with. Outside of the normal commoners. Shes also the only chick besides Katherine who I can talk non-work related issues with, so that's a big bonus. Shock! I do actually like talking femme things on occasion, as terribly gay as that sounds.
Rachel is a slight pain in the ass to get a lunch date with however, and I'm not entirely sure why. She often says for example, lets do Thursday and then shes like fully busy on that day. This could well be because shes busy, as shes often the only one holding down the fort. I'm also likely to believe its because she doesn't want to lead me on and give off the wrong signals. Which is admirable, because one should always be faithful to their partner. But its also hard to tell a chick that you're not interested in them without them bringing it up, since its effectively saying that you ARE interested in them, which leads me to quite a quandary.
Why do I keep asking if I keep getting turned down? Well a) shes not saying no, and b) well I'm annoyingly persistent. You know the saying about a dog with a bone...
This is mainly because things have changed so much in that time. So for everyone who didn't catch the first part of the story, read the above link. This article is partly self-reflection, but its also to clear up a few misconceptions people have.
In order to keep things anonymous and so I don't need to keep typing The Receptionist lets name our receptionist Rachel.
Now despite my utter fear during the time of the first article, I managed the day after that article, to say hello and introduce myself, thus starting a long and odd friendship.
Rachel is a lovely girl, very bubbly, easy to get along with and surprisingly easy to hold a conversation with for someone who has no knowledge/interest in IT. She's attractive, but she doesn't flaunt it which is a huge plus point. (Okay that said, she could be flaunting and I might be just ignorant of it). Shes actually quite young at 20, so really a baby compared to the age of most of the people at our work. Shes got a boyfriend whose moved in with her. Hes a nice bloke, but my opinion of him took a massive nose dive when I realised he was a smoker and a real estate agent. (Bad experiences have made me realize Real estate agents are the scum of the universe.)
Shes on the way to the coke machine so I often get to talk to her. Its a silently (or in Mr R's case, not silently) accepted fact that the coke run is really a 'Chat with Kylie' run. I don't think anyone minds.
Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not really that attracted to her in that way. I like to make other people think I do, and sometimes I even try and convince myself I do like her in that way. But she simply just doesn't measure up to my ex, who despite her severe parental issues is still the most awesome girl in the world for me. That said, I really enjoy hanging around Rachel regularly because shes just got that awesome friendly vibe. She doesn't expect you to be witty, or intelligent, you can just be yourself. There is also something else... I think Sam de Brito's article's article on how to avoid a Princess said it best when he said
"Deep down, I think men are actually quite flattered when a princess chooses them because ... doesn't that make you a prince?"
So being friends with a Princess doesn't make you a prince, but hell at least you're a courtier or someone the Princess hangs with. Outside of the normal commoners. Shes also the only chick besides Katherine who I can talk non-work related issues with, so that's a big bonus. Shock! I do actually like talking femme things on occasion, as terribly gay as that sounds.
Rachel is a slight pain in the ass to get a lunch date with however, and I'm not entirely sure why. She often says for example, lets do Thursday and then shes like fully busy on that day. This could well be because shes busy, as shes often the only one holding down the fort. I'm also likely to believe its because she doesn't want to lead me on and give off the wrong signals. Which is admirable, because one should always be faithful to their partner. But its also hard to tell a chick that you're not interested in them without them bringing it up, since its effectively saying that you ARE interested in them, which leads me to quite a quandary.
Why do I keep asking if I keep getting turned down? Well a) shes not saying no, and b) well I'm annoyingly persistent. You know the saying about a dog with a bone...
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Burning Out
I'll be speaking today about something thats close to my heart at the moment.
And before any of you smartasses say anything, no its not our resident darling receptionist.
Its about career burnout.
Its been my first year of work, and I think we've all felt it to some extent regardless of how long we've been working. Its that feeling you get when you just don't get anything out of going to work anymore. You can still feel ok at work and maybe even fine about going to work in the morning.
Doesn't mean you're not burnt out.
Okay just answer this honestly.
Have you felt in the last few months that your work is underappreciated and underpaid, that you're not getting to where you want to be, you question if you're better off somewhere else or that you just don't feel satisfied that you're getting what you want out of work anymore.
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you're probably burning out.
And this is ok. Really it is. We're all prone to it, I don't think anyone is 'weak' because they are burning out. Its a byproduct of our society that we're all more likely then ever to burn out. We've got such high expectations of ourselves and our families/friends reckon we're able to do more then what we really can do.
I've read this fascinating article on burnout, and I'll summarize it a bit. There are so many misconceptions about burning out that its worth clearing them out. First and foremost, burnout is less about overwork and more about Expectation to Reward. If you have high expectations (like most high achievers out of university), you're almost guaranteed to burnout. Sometimes you get lucky and do something that rewards you, with promotions, money or gratitude, but most of the time you'll work your butt into the ground and at the end of it you'll go... thats it? Thats all I get?
And I think you need this shock to the system. Everyone of us do. For its at this point that the crucial decision happens. You do one of three things, 1) quit, 2) keep going unhappy or 3) re-prioritize your life. As obvious as it looks, no.3 is the way to go.
Corporations are really quite daft in a way. They like the idea of people who are committed to the job and where their work is the most important thing in their life. What they don't realise is, this is one the primary reason they either lose said individuals when they burn out, or get suddenly a far less effective worker. By working too hard, you can actually get poorer quality workers.
One of the other misconceptions is you can love your job and still burnout in the process. So never think, I'm in the wrong place because you don't like what you do anymore. Think about WHY you don't don't like your job anymore.
Most likely its because you're not feeling appreciated anymore, or the work has become too much of the same. You need to chat with your boss/coach and let them know whats going on with you. If you do and they don't do anything, you're probably in a company who doesn't care about you. This is a good time to start looking elsewhere. Not only are you getting out of dodge, but its a chance to find new challenges.
And before any of you smartasses say anything, no its not our resident darling receptionist.
Its about career burnout.
Its been my first year of work, and I think we've all felt it to some extent regardless of how long we've been working. Its that feeling you get when you just don't get anything out of going to work anymore. You can still feel ok at work and maybe even fine about going to work in the morning.
Doesn't mean you're not burnt out.
Okay just answer this honestly.
Have you felt in the last few months that your work is underappreciated and underpaid, that you're not getting to where you want to be, you question if you're better off somewhere else or that you just don't feel satisfied that you're getting what you want out of work anymore.
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you're probably burning out.
And this is ok. Really it is. We're all prone to it, I don't think anyone is 'weak' because they are burning out. Its a byproduct of our society that we're all more likely then ever to burn out. We've got such high expectations of ourselves and our families/friends reckon we're able to do more then what we really can do.
I've read this fascinating article on burnout, and I'll summarize it a bit. There are so many misconceptions about burning out that its worth clearing them out. First and foremost, burnout is less about overwork and more about Expectation to Reward. If you have high expectations (like most high achievers out of university), you're almost guaranteed to burnout. Sometimes you get lucky and do something that rewards you, with promotions, money or gratitude, but most of the time you'll work your butt into the ground and at the end of it you'll go... thats it? Thats all I get?
And I think you need this shock to the system. Everyone of us do. For its at this point that the crucial decision happens. You do one of three things, 1) quit, 2) keep going unhappy or 3) re-prioritize your life. As obvious as it looks, no.3 is the way to go.
Corporations are really quite daft in a way. They like the idea of people who are committed to the job and where their work is the most important thing in their life. What they don't realise is, this is one the primary reason they either lose said individuals when they burn out, or get suddenly a far less effective worker. By working too hard, you can actually get poorer quality workers.
One of the other misconceptions is you can love your job and still burnout in the process. So never think, I'm in the wrong place because you don't like what you do anymore. Think about WHY you don't don't like your job anymore.
Most likely its because you're not feeling appreciated anymore, or the work has become too much of the same. You need to chat with your boss/coach and let them know whats going on with you. If you do and they don't do anything, you're probably in a company who doesn't care about you. This is a good time to start looking elsewhere. Not only are you getting out of dodge, but its a chance to find new challenges.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
The Bloc
I've been getting back into the dating/search game of late and darn isn't it hard to find someone these days. I've been out of it for a long while and considering the unusual circumstances that led to me and my ex getting together, I could honestly say I have -NO- experience in the field at all.
I went the bloc last night with my mate Ellie. I was rather apprehensive, since clubs usually are just a waste of money. And spend money I did. 15$ cover fee, and probably 40$ in drinks (mostly for other people too!). So rather expensive night in that regards, but the music was good, the place was bopping so it was money well spent.
So anyway, one of Ellie's friends joins us and she brings along a girl who is really kind of cute in a 'Willow from buffy' way. Her name was Cathy and I got this definite flirting vibe from her. Of course I make this often incorrect assumption that if someone laughs at my stupid jokes and talks to me that they're vaguely interested.
One of the funnier moments was when I asked Ellie to find out with Cathy was single and she said when she did, she'll give a big thumbs up, else a big down.
So then 15mins later, we're all dancing away together and she starts doing this big thumbs up, and I've completely forgotten what she said and I'm like ' thats an interestin dance' and then she start nodding her head and making the thumbs up even more obvious and I'm like 'what??' and she just rolls her eyes and drags me off and goes 'shes single you dumbass!'.
So I play it cool and just start talking to her more. Then after it became really late, I offered a lift and she and her friend accepted. Here I'm thinking, 'w00t OMG I might get a phone number'. Of course I could feel it in the air that this wasn't going to work out in reality. I'm just not that lucky.
And of course I was right. I dropped Claire (her friend) at her place and then Cathy got off as well instead of getting a lift all the way home. As we drove off, Elle went 'I meant to explain earlier, but she doesn't think you're her type and she wants to be on the market'. Oh well, so close but no cigar.
I was pissed off on the night, but I got over it quickly. Cos it was a fun night and it was a good chance to practise. I don't think I've really found anyone whose fit my requirements at all yet. Its hard when my ex set such high standards to begin with.
I went the bloc last night with my mate Ellie. I was rather apprehensive, since clubs usually are just a waste of money. And spend money I did. 15$ cover fee, and probably 40$ in drinks (mostly for other people too!). So rather expensive night in that regards, but the music was good, the place was bopping so it was money well spent.
So anyway, one of Ellie's friends joins us and she brings along a girl who is really kind of cute in a 'Willow from buffy' way. Her name was Cathy and I got this definite flirting vibe from her. Of course I make this often incorrect assumption that if someone laughs at my stupid jokes and talks to me that they're vaguely interested.
One of the funnier moments was when I asked Ellie to find out with Cathy was single and she said when she did, she'll give a big thumbs up, else a big down.
So then 15mins later, we're all dancing away together and she starts doing this big thumbs up, and I've completely forgotten what she said and I'm like ' thats an interestin dance' and then she start nodding her head and making the thumbs up even more obvious and I'm like 'what??' and she just rolls her eyes and drags me off and goes 'shes single you dumbass!'.
So I play it cool and just start talking to her more. Then after it became really late, I offered a lift and she and her friend accepted. Here I'm thinking, 'w00t OMG I might get a phone number'. Of course I could feel it in the air that this wasn't going to work out in reality. I'm just not that lucky.
And of course I was right. I dropped Claire (her friend) at her place and then Cathy got off as well instead of getting a lift all the way home. As we drove off, Elle went 'I meant to explain earlier, but she doesn't think you're her type and she wants to be on the market'. Oh well, so close but no cigar.
I was pissed off on the night, but I got over it quickly. Cos it was a fun night and it was a good chance to practise. I don't think I've really found anyone whose fit my requirements at all yet. Its hard when my ex set such high standards to begin with.
Buffy. Bad for your hormones
So I watched Buffy Season 3, 3rd last episode, 'The Prom' and I got all teary. And slightly mad. Then I thought to myself, why the hell am I getting mad. I thought it must be due to the fact I never had a highschool prom (ok formal in Aussie terms) date. All these gorgeous girls with their handsome guys having dates and little old me without one.
30 seconds of anger later, I remembered, 'Wait up, I had a date'. Anger vanishes. Okay sure it wasn't a proper date, it was just a friend I went out with, and sure she ended up making out with some other yr 10 guy at the end of it, but hey I wasn't by myself either.
Yes I have the maturity of an highschool student still. Or maybe its just the excessive amounts of buffy in a short period of time. I blame that! The good thing about gaming and work is that it suppresses your hormones whilst still offering a good mix of ambition and relief. With Buffy thrown into the mix, its like an external activiation of a whole bunch of useless hormones.
30 seconds of anger later, I remembered, 'Wait up, I had a date'. Anger vanishes. Okay sure it wasn't a proper date, it was just a friend I went out with, and sure she ended up making out with some other yr 10 guy at the end of it, but hey I wasn't by myself either.
Yes I have the maturity of an highschool student still. Or maybe its just the excessive amounts of buffy in a short period of time. I blame that! The good thing about gaming and work is that it suppresses your hormones whilst still offering a good mix of ambition and relief. With Buffy thrown into the mix, its like an external activiation of a whole bunch of useless hormones.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Roadkill
Today's topic is rather sad, so avert ye eyes if you are of the feeble type, for it deals with mans greatest enemy. Death!
I've never really had to deal with death directly before, or even suffering that much. Most of the time, i have a fairly detached way of looking at it. On tuesday I had a front seat view.
When I was driving home from music I encountered some strange traffic where everyone was driving around some obstacle. This obstacle was a gorgeous husky dog which came off second best against two vehicles. It was bleeding from the mouth and its back legs were quite evidently broken. Being in so much pain and utterly frightened, it snapped at anyone near it, so me and this other young fellow got a tarpaulin under the dog and lifted him off the road so he didn't waddle into more traffic.
After we sent off a bystander to run upto the nearby vet, it was a death vigil. The dog was alert and active at the beginning and was even trying the hero, 'I'll be right and be on my way' angle till its legs just collapsed on it.
It was after it came out of shock it realised how screwed it was, and began howling and braying.
We did the best we could to try and keep it calm and alive. The pet ambulance finally came after some 40mins. Slow bastards, but I suppose they came from fairly far away. The veterinarian injected the husky with a calming drug which kicked in about 5mins later. Then the cops finally turn up as well, but by this stage there were just too many cooks in the broth, and after the dog left, I bid my farewells to those around me and left myself.
I didn't feel so bad about it at the time, but after I got home and talked with my ex, thats when I really felt bad about it and how that poor dog is probably in the heavens now.
I've never really had to deal with death directly before, or even suffering that much. Most of the time, i have a fairly detached way of looking at it. On tuesday I had a front seat view.
When I was driving home from music I encountered some strange traffic where everyone was driving around some obstacle. This obstacle was a gorgeous husky dog which came off second best against two vehicles. It was bleeding from the mouth and its back legs were quite evidently broken. Being in so much pain and utterly frightened, it snapped at anyone near it, so me and this other young fellow got a tarpaulin under the dog and lifted him off the road so he didn't waddle into more traffic.
After we sent off a bystander to run upto the nearby vet, it was a death vigil. The dog was alert and active at the beginning and was even trying the hero, 'I'll be right and be on my way' angle till its legs just collapsed on it.
It was after it came out of shock it realised how screwed it was, and began howling and braying.
We did the best we could to try and keep it calm and alive. The pet ambulance finally came after some 40mins. Slow bastards, but I suppose they came from fairly far away. The veterinarian injected the husky with a calming drug which kicked in about 5mins later. Then the cops finally turn up as well, but by this stage there were just too many cooks in the broth, and after the dog left, I bid my farewells to those around me and left myself.
I didn't feel so bad about it at the time, but after I got home and talked with my ex, thats when I really felt bad about it and how that poor dog is probably in the heavens now.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
The Receptionist.
its been ages since I last wrote in my blog and I figured its now a good time to write in it. The last few days have been sort of funny, yet 'deep' in some ways so I figured its worthy writing about.
So the last few days we've been having training on object oriented design and analysis. Good course, but totally boring blogging material. The day before the training started, I fantasised that the instructor would be some totally hot girl from the states who I could take out to lunch, and maybe show around Sydney, you know as a good host does. Of course knowing fate the way it is, it turned out to be a dude. If I was female, I might have actually gone for him, cos hes the smart Owen Wilson type. Charming yet intelligent.
However, my prophecies did not go completely unfulfilled. The training is held on the ground floor (which I usually miss since I'm coming from the basement). The ground floor receptionist is...for the lack of a better term... a complete smoking hottie. We're talking the COMPLETE (physical) package. Black/brown hair, beautiful eyes, about 5-11, slim toned and of course, well proportioned in the upper body. (ah hem).
Everytime I walk past from Level 3 to training and back again, I got more and more smitten, but of course, had ZERO balls to talk to her. That didn't of course prevent me from spending ages thinking of various scenarios asking her out for a lunch date. So she got a stalker, woopdie do.
So I started asking people upstairs if they knew her name. Since I'm terrible at description, I usually go 'shes the one with black hair' and EVERY single guy I asked said (whilst doing the appropriate hand movements), 'is she the booby one?'. To tell you the ABSOLUTE truth, I had no idea what she looked like in that area until everyone else said that.
Of course my Irish mate goes 'Good to see you're getting back in the game and starting from the top whilst you're at it. Pity shes got a boyfriend though'.
Then my old boss goes 'Yeap, but good try. You know what you say, you start from the top and work your way down'. We all had a good laugh (most at my expense) but I know they mean well. They've known me for 3 years which is a long time really.
Oh noes... hopes crushed. But still ..maybe they broke up of late or are in some bad water and shes just waiting for an excuse to bail... Every stalkers fantasy right? Of course before long it spread through the test team (to some extent I aided it, cos its just plain funny because shes Grade A material and I'm me, so its a pair made in Opposite world). I even spent ages waiting for someone to ask me a difficult decisionjust so I could say 'This is one of those difficult decisions, like choosing between a lunch date with(the receptionist) or going to see the Veronicas at a lunchtime gig at the macq center.". Someone went, "you've been saving that for ages haven't you".
My good friend Katherine at work of course gets annoyed and goes "of course receptionists look good considering they spend ages doing make up and they always dress like they're going for a interview or nightclub. Most of them (or all) are uneducated as well!" (She doesn't think too highly of them as you can tell). Everyone of course had a laugh at that.
But it did get me thinking. What the hell was I thinking.
This is the complete opposite of what I want. Shes most likely
a) poorly educated - I like my women with a brain thank you.
b) high maintenance - girls who are pretty and know they are, will ALWAYS demand more (and I'm a stingy bastard).
c) hard to keep a hold of: Cos every other guy wants her and really she can move on with no bother.
The problem here was, I normally like stable commited relationships. That is until I got into and broke up from one and I realised, I really don't want one anymore. I just want someone to share time with and to have fun. I don't want to worry about getting their parents approval, I don't want to discuss life time committment or any of that other crap.
So I fell for someone who is completely the opposite figuring that'll meet my requirements. WRONG WRONG WRONG.
My requirements are DIFFERENT, not completely opposite to what I had before.
That said, I've got two more days of training and thats two more days of eye candy. Who knows maybe i'll dig up some courage and just say Hi.
After all, whats the worst that can happen......
So the last few days we've been having training on object oriented design and analysis. Good course, but totally boring blogging material. The day before the training started, I fantasised that the instructor would be some totally hot girl from the states who I could take out to lunch, and maybe show around Sydney, you know as a good host does. Of course knowing fate the way it is, it turned out to be a dude. If I was female, I might have actually gone for him, cos hes the smart Owen Wilson type. Charming yet intelligent.
However, my prophecies did not go completely unfulfilled. The training is held on the ground floor (which I usually miss since I'm coming from the basement). The ground floor receptionist is...for the lack of a better term... a complete smoking hottie. We're talking the COMPLETE (physical) package. Black/brown hair, beautiful eyes, about 5-11, slim toned and of course, well proportioned in the upper body. (ah hem).
Everytime I walk past from Level 3 to training and back again, I got more and more smitten, but of course, had ZERO balls to talk to her. That didn't of course prevent me from spending ages thinking of various scenarios asking her out for a lunch date. So she got a stalker, woopdie do.
So I started asking people upstairs if they knew her name. Since I'm terrible at description, I usually go 'shes the one with black hair' and EVERY single guy I asked said (whilst doing the appropriate hand movements), 'is she the booby one?'. To tell you the ABSOLUTE truth, I had no idea what she looked like in that area until everyone else said that.
Of course my Irish mate goes 'Good to see you're getting back in the game and starting from the top whilst you're at it. Pity shes got a boyfriend though'.
Then my old boss goes 'Yeap, but good try. You know what you say, you start from the top and work your way down'. We all had a good laugh (most at my expense) but I know they mean well. They've known me for 3 years which is a long time really.
Oh noes... hopes crushed. But still ..maybe they broke up of late or are in some bad water and shes just waiting for an excuse to bail... Every stalkers fantasy right? Of course before long it spread through the test team (to some extent I aided it, cos its just plain funny because shes Grade A material and I'm me, so its a pair made in Opposite world). I even spent ages waiting for someone to ask me a difficult decisionjust so I could say 'This is one of those difficult decisions, like choosing between a lunch date with
My good friend Katherine at work of course gets annoyed and goes "of course receptionists look good considering they spend ages doing make up and they always dress like they're going for a interview or nightclub. Most of them (or all) are uneducated as well!" (She doesn't think too highly of them as you can tell). Everyone of course had a laugh at that.
But it did get me thinking. What the hell was I thinking.
This is the complete opposite of what I want. Shes most likely
a) poorly educated - I like my women with a brain thank you.
b) high maintenance - girls who are pretty and know they are, will ALWAYS demand more (and I'm a stingy bastard).
c) hard to keep a hold of: Cos every other guy wants her and really she can move on with no bother.
The problem here was, I normally like stable commited relationships. That is until I got into and broke up from one and I realised, I really don't want one anymore. I just want someone to share time with and to have fun. I don't want to worry about getting their parents approval, I don't want to discuss life time committment or any of that other crap.
So I fell for someone who is completely the opposite figuring that'll meet my requirements. WRONG WRONG WRONG.
My requirements are DIFFERENT, not completely opposite to what I had before.
That said, I've got two more days of training and thats two more days of eye candy. Who knows maybe i'll dig up some courage and just say Hi.
After all, whats the worst that can happen......
Sunday, July 23, 2006
The horrors of installing Gruff
Whilst most of my ruby experiences have been very pleasant surprises, getting the graphing subsystem of the project to work has been truly truly unpleasant.
The main ruby/rails graphing library that gets bandied about mostly is Gruff graphs. Admittedly once it started working, its been reasonably good (ignoring a few irritating things with bad documentation and lack of features). Its the getting it to work part that was truly horrible.
There is a LOT of stuff on the web about this, so I'll make it less painful by starting from scratch (as far as I remember anyway).
There are 3 critical ingredients to get gruff to work. These are
ImageMagick's main saving grace is ./configure gives a nice summary of what it thinks it has and doesn't have. In my case, it picked up bad paths for the fonts, and the debian install didn't have libjpeg or libpng installed, both of which caused issues with installing. So I installed libpng (apt-get install libpng12-dev), and it got picked up no sweat. libjpeg was a little more annoying however. I had to download libjpeg from the website, untar, make, make install and of all things, copy into /usr/local/jpeg-6b.
After that I had to run configure in a bizarre manner
CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/jpeg-6b LDFLAGS='-L/usr/local/jpeg-6b' ./configure --with-gs-font-dir=/usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts/
The gs-font-dir is to kill my 'can't measure text' problem by making sure it used the correct fonts path for the machine, rather than the default. A make;make install later, I had a installed ImageMagick with correct support for fonts/png/jpeg.
The next thing I did was to install Rmagick (again from source).
Previously when I tried to install RMagick from the gem, it installed successfully (until you tried to use it, at which point it went poof), so source I go...
Once the RMagick installed (with no errors from the make), I installed gruff from the gem, which went smoothly. And voila, everything worked! Thank goodness. Undoubtably the most unnecessarily painful thing. That said, its not that bad once you know what you're doing.
The main ruby/rails graphing library that gets bandied about mostly is Gruff graphs. Admittedly once it started working, its been reasonably good (ignoring a few irritating things with bad documentation and lack of features). Its the getting it to work part that was truly horrible.
There is a LOT of stuff on the web about this, so I'll make it less painful by starting from scratch (as far as I remember anyway).
There are 3 critical ingredients to get gruff to work. These are
- ImageMagick
- RMagick
- Gruff
- uninitialized constant Gruff
- uninitialized constant Enum
- No decode delegate for image format JPEG
- Can't measure text. Are the fonts installed?
- Can't find libMagick or one of the dependent libraries.
- Unknown format: PNG
ImageMagick's main saving grace is ./configure gives a nice summary of what it thinks it has and doesn't have. In my case, it picked up bad paths for the fonts, and the debian install didn't have libjpeg or libpng installed, both of which caused issues with installing. So I installed libpng (apt-get install libpng12-dev), and it got picked up no sweat. libjpeg was a little more annoying however. I had to download libjpeg from the website, untar, make, make install and of all things, copy into /usr/local/jpeg-6b.
After that I had to run configure in a bizarre manner
CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/jpeg-6b LDFLAGS='-L/usr/local/jpeg-6b' ./configure --with-gs-font-dir=/usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts/
The gs-font-dir is to kill my 'can't measure text' problem by making sure it used the correct fonts path for the machine, rather than the default. A make;make install later, I had a installed ImageMagick with correct support for fonts/png/jpeg.
The next thing I did was to install Rmagick (again from source).
Previously when I tried to install RMagick from the gem, it installed successfully (until you tried to use it, at which point it went poof), so source I go...
Once the RMagick installed (with no errors from the make), I installed gruff from the gem, which went smoothly. And voila, everything worked! Thank goodness. Undoubtably the most unnecessarily painful thing. That said, its not that bad once you know what you're doing.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Career Development Part 1
The entire performance based culture is tough, its not like a normal company where you can be guaranteed to go up a bit just by 'being'. If you don't raise the bar for yourself everytime, you'll never get promotions and you'll never get raises.
Its good and bad at the same time. Improving yourself is always something to be happy about, but lifting that bar will get harder each time.
I know personally I have a few issues that I have to work out. The first and most important one is to use my coach better. I've got this great resource thats sitting there and I've never used it beyond the basics. I've been classified as a DPH person for coaching purposes after I tried out a assessment form. That is directed, programmatic and holistic. Before you think this makes no sense and sounds like psychobabble, let me clear it up. A directed coach will teach you thinks by telling you how things are done, what you can do to improve yourself, give you feedback externally. By programmatic, it means you should meet regularly in order to discuss how you are going and how to improve yourself. Finally holistic means that I'm not interested on learning about just day to day skills from my coach, but more about the overall career development. So I'm going to have to have to raise this next time and get it organized. Its my responsibility after all.
Also at work I'm a 'yes' person and it means I'll say yes to something that I cannot promise without working like a dog, which of course leads me wanting to cause mayhem and chaos. So really I need to learn to say no. I can say no plenty of times at home, but at work, I'll do it if someone says to do something.
I was shown a nice diagram which I'll remember pretty well. It was three concentric circles. The center most one is your comfort zone, the middle ring is FEAR and the outer ring is growth. I'm one of those people who have a comfort zone and a thick ring of fear around it. But I'm slowly getting better at breaking through the fear barrier of late to get something done. But its hard, but thats what personal development is about right?
Its good and bad at the same time. Improving yourself is always something to be happy about, but lifting that bar will get harder each time.
I know personally I have a few issues that I have to work out. The first and most important one is to use my coach better. I've got this great resource thats sitting there and I've never used it beyond the basics. I've been classified as a DPH person for coaching purposes after I tried out a assessment form. That is directed, programmatic and holistic. Before you think this makes no sense and sounds like psychobabble, let me clear it up. A directed coach will teach you thinks by telling you how things are done, what you can do to improve yourself, give you feedback externally. By programmatic, it means you should meet regularly in order to discuss how you are going and how to improve yourself. Finally holistic means that I'm not interested on learning about just day to day skills from my coach, but more about the overall career development. So I'm going to have to have to raise this next time and get it organized. Its my responsibility after all.
Also at work I'm a 'yes' person and it means I'll say yes to something that I cannot promise without working like a dog, which of course leads me wanting to cause mayhem and chaos. So really I need to learn to say no. I can say no plenty of times at home, but at work, I'll do it if someone says to do something.
I was shown a nice diagram which I'll remember pretty well. It was three concentric circles. The center most one is your comfort zone, the middle ring is FEAR and the outer ring is growth. I'm one of those people who have a comfort zone and a thick ring of fear around it. But I'm slowly getting better at breaking through the fear barrier of late to get something done. But its hard, but thats what personal development is about right?
Saturday, June 24, 2006
How to get things done Part1
Something bizarre happened today. I asked something to be done, and it actually got done quickly! Now you are probably asking why is this bizarre?
In big firms, there is a lot of bureaucracy to get something done. The change I wanted was small, but it could have other ramifications. Most of the people I spoke to said I'd have pretty small chance of getting it done soon.
I put down the quick response to a few things, which I'll share with you. It seems obvious, yet you can easily forget any of these.
1. Find the exact person to talk to: In most firms, there is some highly complex 'ticketing' system when you request a change. If you don't fill in the fields correctly, your service ticket will bounce between people, all of whom don't really want to look after your problem. Often your co-workers will know who was the person who looked after similar problems before. So the best thing to do is email that person and then state your problem and ask if you need to raise a ticket. The ticketing system is still good, since it means you can priotise work, and the person answering it gets recognition, but by asking someone directly, it means you can write the ticket to go to the correct person first go.
2. State your request clearly. If I don't see something numbered and easy to do, chances are I won't do it. So don't say things in a roundbout way, but just say, I want A, B, C done by preferably Y at the latest. This basically means it'll be done by 5mins to Y, but better than two weeks after Y.
3. Allay any fears: People are scared that when they do something for you, that they'll be creating more problems for themselves later. Make it obvious that its a simple one off thing. You're not lying, you're just being optimistic...
5. Follow-up. Everyone loves recognition for doing a job well, but people are lazy giving recognition out. In bars, we tip, partly to recognise and appreciate their work, but more realistically its because we want to given just as good service next time.
In firms we can't do that, so we do the next best thing. Tell that person's supervisor that your needs were helped by their help.
In big firms, there is a lot of bureaucracy to get something done. The change I wanted was small, but it could have other ramifications. Most of the people I spoke to said I'd have pretty small chance of getting it done soon.
I put down the quick response to a few things, which I'll share with you. It seems obvious, yet you can easily forget any of these.
1. Find the exact person to talk to: In most firms, there is some highly complex 'ticketing' system when you request a change. If you don't fill in the fields correctly, your service ticket will bounce between people, all of whom don't really want to look after your problem. Often your co-workers will know who was the person who looked after similar problems before. So the best thing to do is email that person and then state your problem and ask if you need to raise a ticket. The ticketing system is still good, since it means you can priotise work, and the person answering it gets recognition, but by asking someone directly, it means you can write the ticket to go to the correct person first go.
2. State your request clearly. If I don't see something numbered and easy to do, chances are I won't do it. So don't say things in a roundbout way, but just say, I want A, B, C done by preferably Y at the latest. This basically means it'll be done by 5mins to Y, but better than two weeks after Y.
3. Allay any fears: People are scared that when they do something for you, that they'll be creating more problems for themselves later. Make it obvious that its a simple one off thing. You're not lying, you're just being optimistic...
5. Follow-up. Everyone loves recognition for doing a job well, but people are lazy giving recognition out. In bars, we tip, partly to recognise and appreciate their work, but more realistically its because we want to given just as good service next time.
In firms we can't do that, so we do the next best thing. Tell that person's supervisor that your needs were helped by their help.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Why SQL Performance Tuning is 'teh suck'.
At work of late I've been doing performance tuning in SQL. In postgresql to be precise. A friend of mine said that its great and you learn a lot. I'd say the second part is true, but the first is wrong. SQL Performance tuning, especially in postgresql is truly an abysmal process!
Part of the problem is that you have to work with a poor mans toolkit. In postgresql, your best friend for tuning your queries is explain. And thats it.
There is a visual version, but for the really complex queries (which are usually the ones that NEED the tuning in the first place), this visual version will choke and die as it requires just too much power to generate an visual display of these often frightening queries.
Explain basically tells you what the database 'planner' is probably going to do to answer your query. I.e, what tables it will hit, what merging, connecting, sorting etc it will do to answer your demands. This planner is quite intelligent in most cases, except with complex databases like the one I'm working on. This is where you have to dabble in the black arts. Eye of newt, and key of foreign table style.
Things that help the planner
One thing that really helps the planner is making your foreign keys explict in joins. So sometimes if a table has a foreign key back and forth, just mention them both and it can often improve things dramatically.
Beware of joining views which have unions defined in them. Unions seem to create temporary tables which means bye bye indexing. Which leads me to the next point. When it comes to searching, indexes are king. It can vastly improve the speed of your joins if you use indexes, so never sacrifice (or forget indexes). Sequential scans are very costly, but index scans can be much faster. But do be aware, that when the table is too small, indexes won't be used (seq scans are faster), and when the table is too large, sometimes it won't use indexes either!
Avoid using tables which you know are going to be huge, but which you can avoid. Postgresql is particularly relevant here. Since it allows using inheritance, your smaller specialised 'sub tables' could be more useful for the join than the big table since it can be scanned faster. It also be fine to scan each of those sub tables separately and union them at the end before joining (because you'd have got smaller filtered sets to work with).
Relative sizes also matter. Say if you are joining Table A to Table B to Table C, and you know A and B are generally smaller than C. Its a lot faster to join A and B first, and then join the results of this to C. Rather than joining all at the same time.
I'm working in Postgresql 7.3 and granted this is getting a bit old. 8.0+ has apparently made a lot of improvements and hence half the work I've done is probably no longer necessary. Which begs the question, why aren't we using pgsql 8.0. Well dear reader, thats a question for another day :)
Part of the problem is that you have to work with a poor mans toolkit. In postgresql, your best friend for tuning your queries is explain. And thats it.
There is a visual version, but for the really complex queries (which are usually the ones that NEED the tuning in the first place), this visual version will choke and die as it requires just too much power to generate an visual display of these often frightening queries.
Explain basically tells you what the database 'planner' is probably going to do to answer your query. I.e, what tables it will hit, what merging, connecting, sorting etc it will do to answer your demands. This planner is quite intelligent in most cases, except with complex databases like the one I'm working on. This is where you have to dabble in the black arts. Eye of newt, and key of foreign table style.
Things that help the planner
One thing that really helps the planner is making your foreign keys explict in joins. So sometimes if a table has a foreign key back and forth, just mention them both and it can often improve things dramatically.
Beware of joining views which have unions defined in them. Unions seem to create temporary tables which means bye bye indexing. Which leads me to the next point. When it comes to searching, indexes are king. It can vastly improve the speed of your joins if you use indexes, so never sacrifice (or forget indexes). Sequential scans are very costly, but index scans can be much faster. But do be aware, that when the table is too small, indexes won't be used (seq scans are faster), and when the table is too large, sometimes it won't use indexes either!
Avoid using tables which you know are going to be huge, but which you can avoid. Postgresql is particularly relevant here. Since it allows using inheritance, your smaller specialised 'sub tables' could be more useful for the join than the big table since it can be scanned faster. It also be fine to scan each of those sub tables separately and union them at the end before joining (because you'd have got smaller filtered sets to work with).
Relative sizes also matter. Say if you are joining Table A to Table B to Table C, and you know A and B are generally smaller than C. Its a lot faster to join A and B first, and then join the results of this to C. Rather than joining all at the same time.
I'm working in Postgresql 7.3 and granted this is getting a bit old. 8.0+ has apparently made a lot of improvements and hence half the work I've done is probably no longer necessary. Which begs the question, why aren't we using pgsql 8.0. Well dear reader, thats a question for another day :)
Sunday, June 11, 2006
You know what blogger really needs? Categories!
This blog was called Technica obscura and I don't think there is anything technical in it at the moment. And I'd like to put some techy stuff for some readers who are into learning new things and also as a way of storing things I've learnt. But of course I also got to look after my regulars who like to find out about the wonderful dreary mess that is my life.
So I shall start hunting down how to put these things into categories!
This blog was called Technica obscura and I don't think there is anything technical in it at the moment. And I'd like to put some techy stuff for some readers who are into learning new things and also as a way of storing things I've learnt. But of course I also got to look after my regulars who like to find out about the wonderful dreary mess that is my life.
So I shall start hunting down how to put these things into categories!
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Eating your co-workers. I mean with.
On saturday night, I went out to dinner and drinks with a few work friends. Nothing major, just about 15 of us having a bit of fun outside of work. We went to this great little place called Thai Foon in Darling Harbour. I can highly recommend it if you ever do dinner in the city.
The food was good and well priced, the service was great, even for our large crowd (we had our food out in 10mins!) and there was nice views of Darling Harbour.
One of these work friends commented that it was weird seeing work people outside of work. A few years ago I would have thought so, but lately I'm not fond of this notion. When you spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week with these people, then theres no reason why you can't be friends outside of work. Generally, you'd think this would lead to better productivity as you know what your co-workers are like, and also mean you got someone to turn to when you're in difficulty.
I think it helps if they are reasonably in the same age group though. After you go about 10 years one way or another, its not that straightforward. There is definitely a massive generational gap every decade and you can't always relate. There's some overlap but not as much. Anyway I should do some work. As they say, TTFN. Ta Ta for now!
The food was good and well priced, the service was great, even for our large crowd (we had our food out in 10mins!) and there was nice views of Darling Harbour.
One of these work friends commented that it was weird seeing work people outside of work. A few years ago I would have thought so, but lately I'm not fond of this notion. When you spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week with these people, then theres no reason why you can't be friends outside of work. Generally, you'd think this would lead to better productivity as you know what your co-workers are like, and also mean you got someone to turn to when you're in difficulty.
I think it helps if they are reasonably in the same age group though. After you go about 10 years one way or another, its not that straightforward. There is definitely a massive generational gap every decade and you can't always relate. There's some overlap but not as much. Anyway I should do some work. As they say, TTFN. Ta Ta for now!
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Why software engineering is the hardest profession.
This is a highly debatably topic, but I think its quite valid and besides I enjoy a bit of shit stirring!
Firstly lets go with a definition of 'hardest' to put this into context. By hardest, I mean to include the stress, the hours, the bang for buck factor and the respect factor.
Your typical software engineer often does not get the level of respect they deserve. Often they are thought of as mere 'IT workers' or 'programmers'. If this was true, they no way would this be classified as hard. IT support is just like normal janitorial work, albeit of a technical nature. Something goes wrong and they clean it up ready to use again. Programmers just code what designs they are given. Software engineers have to take an problem, and convert it into a solution. This was never easy for even normal engineers, but for SEs its just even worse. This is due to the ignorance of people who think that adding a bit of functionality is easy. Sure its easy to tack on a feature, but software is like metal work... You really need to MOULD everything to make sure things don't start falling off.
So No.1 - software is finicky. Its actually worse then people in someway.
People don't do what you tell them to do. Software does EXACTLY what you tell it to do, not what you WANT it to do. So if it stuffs up, its actually YOUR fault.
No.2. The technology field accelerates far faster than any other field. Medicine has only evolved so far in thousands of years, but the IT field has gone in leaps and bounds in only a few decades. To avoid becoming redundant as a SE, you need to be always on top of your game and this means knowing all the latest techs and practises.
No.3. You are Quality's bitch. Since more and more important tasks are handled by computers, what you do will affect thousands, maybe millions of people. So everything has to be as close to perfect as you can make it. Otherwise you will feel the burn from those same thousands of people who'll strap you onto a burning pyre.
No.4. You are boring. Well you're not really, but society is cruel. Doctors are sexy (especially Addison Shepherd from Grey's Anatomy...hubba hubba), lawyers are sexy (even if they are pure scum), but when was the last time a software engineer interesting from a media perspective. I know a SE who says hes a grape grower (or anything other than an SE) when someone asks what he does.
Anyway theres more I could say, but I'll reserve that for another day.
Firstly lets go with a definition of 'hardest' to put this into context. By hardest, I mean to include the stress, the hours, the bang for buck factor and the respect factor.
Your typical software engineer often does not get the level of respect they deserve. Often they are thought of as mere 'IT workers' or 'programmers'. If this was true, they no way would this be classified as hard. IT support is just like normal janitorial work, albeit of a technical nature. Something goes wrong and they clean it up ready to use again. Programmers just code what designs they are given. Software engineers have to take an problem, and convert it into a solution. This was never easy for even normal engineers, but for SEs its just even worse. This is due to the ignorance of people who think that adding a bit of functionality is easy. Sure its easy to tack on a feature, but software is like metal work... You really need to MOULD everything to make sure things don't start falling off.
So No.1 - software is finicky. Its actually worse then people in someway.
People don't do what you tell them to do. Software does EXACTLY what you tell it to do, not what you WANT it to do. So if it stuffs up, its actually YOUR fault.
No.2. The technology field accelerates far faster than any other field. Medicine has only evolved so far in thousands of years, but the IT field has gone in leaps and bounds in only a few decades. To avoid becoming redundant as a SE, you need to be always on top of your game and this means knowing all the latest techs and practises.
No.3. You are Quality's bitch. Since more and more important tasks are handled by computers, what you do will affect thousands, maybe millions of people. So everything has to be as close to perfect as you can make it. Otherwise you will feel the burn from those same thousands of people who'll strap you onto a burning pyre.
No.4. You are boring. Well you're not really, but society is cruel. Doctors are sexy (especially Addison Shepherd from Grey's Anatomy...hubba hubba), lawyers are sexy (even if they are pure scum), but when was the last time a software engineer interesting from a media perspective. I know a SE who says hes a grape grower (or anything other than an SE) when someone asks what he does.
Anyway theres more I could say, but I'll reserve that for another day.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
To rent or not to rent...
Today's blog will star someone from my own work! To be precise they aren't actually starring, but they will be mentioned. So like Schindler's List, this blog is more based on a true story. It may not involve Jewish propaganda, but someone will get gassed at the end.
So we've got an annex behind our home which we built brand new. And did absolutely nothing with! I have no idea what my parents were thinking when they decided to build it, but its been sitting idle for little over a year. Sure its been handy for LANs and when visitors come, but otherwise its a completely idle resource. Theoretically I could move into it and have all this living space to myself, but realistically, WHY? At home all the living space I require is my bed and the 2 meter radius around my computer. Sure its annoying to have the folks come in and out, but I actually enjoy the company now and then.
Shock horror! A twenty-something enjoying their parents company...whatever will they think of next.
Anyway, a mate from work is moving out of home and I suggested this back place for him. Its a bit under the covers, but basically its about $4,000 more for me (hello Mazda3) and about $6,000 cheaper for him in rents. Also we get to car pool and share costs there. The legal is a bit shaky, but in general I shouldn't see a problem. The real issue is the fact I work with the guy!
There is definitely such a thing as too much friend time.
I remember my trip to Europe... 1 month in close proximity to my best friend drove me to consider murder. Actually it only took about 5 days before that. Well in retrospect I think everyone has been driven to consider murdering Jeff at some point regardless, but I digress from the topic at hand.
I think as humans we all need a balance, and that balance cannot be achieved if you don't have get some personal space. Denis Leary said it best when put his long lasting marriage down to "love, honour, respect and keeping the FUCK away from each other as much as possible... just come out, eat, talk, fuck and go back into separate bedrooms if possible".
The same applies here, except obviously not the marriage part, cos that would be scary and to be frank a little gay to even discuss. I'll keep you gentle reader informed as events unfold but for now, as promised, this shall end in someone getting gassed.
// farts
// exits in coughing fit.
So we've got an annex behind our home which we built brand new. And did absolutely nothing with! I have no idea what my parents were thinking when they decided to build it, but its been sitting idle for little over a year. Sure its been handy for LANs and when visitors come, but otherwise its a completely idle resource. Theoretically I could move into it and have all this living space to myself, but realistically, WHY? At home all the living space I require is my bed and the 2 meter radius around my computer. Sure its annoying to have the folks come in and out, but I actually enjoy the company now and then.
Shock horror! A twenty-something enjoying their parents company...whatever will they think of next.
Anyway, a mate from work is moving out of home and I suggested this back place for him. Its a bit under the covers, but basically its about $4,000 more for me (hello Mazda3) and about $6,000 cheaper for him in rents. Also we get to car pool and share costs there. The legal is a bit shaky, but in general I shouldn't see a problem. The real issue is the fact I work with the guy!
There is definitely such a thing as too much friend time.
I remember my trip to Europe... 1 month in close proximity to my best friend drove me to consider murder. Actually it only took about 5 days before that. Well in retrospect I think everyone has been driven to consider murdering Jeff at some point regardless, but I digress from the topic at hand.
I think as humans we all need a balance, and that balance cannot be achieved if you don't have get some personal space. Denis Leary said it best when put his long lasting marriage down to "love, honour, respect and keeping the FUCK away from each other as much as possible... just come out, eat, talk, fuck and go back into separate bedrooms if possible".
The same applies here, except obviously not the marriage part, cos that would be scary and to be frank a little gay to even discuss. I'll keep you gentle reader informed as events unfold but for now, as promised, this shall end in someone getting gassed.
// farts
// exits in coughing fit.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
I need to take a Wii
This is definitely behind the times, but for all those people who like me have been living under a rock, check out the new Nintendo Wii. Its so cool that it redefines cool! If you know me, you'd know that I hate normal controllers, as I'm just completely unco at them. However this thing appears to be far more easier to use and understand.
And you can use it as a sword and beat people with it! (At least in the game). This is what I was thinking. And theres a little add on which you connect to the controller and it turns it into basically a numchuck... awesome!
But seriously, what bright apple in marketing thought of using a name like Wii for the console. Like I know Revolution doesn't have a snappy 3 letter acronym like the PS3 or 360, but surely you can do better than that. Maybe the GC2 :D
And you can use it as a sword and beat people with it! (At least in the game). This is what I was thinking. And theres a little add on which you connect to the controller and it turns it into basically a numchuck... awesome!
But seriously, what bright apple in marketing thought of using a name like Wii for the console. Like I know Revolution doesn't have a snappy 3 letter acronym like the PS3 or 360, but surely you can do better than that. Maybe the GC2 :D
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Excel or How crunch the numbers to suit your needs
I've been playing a lot with Excel lately. And by a lot I mean, it seems suck about 2 hours of my day every day for 3 days. And its nothing really constructive or impressive. I'm number crunching how I'm going to survive the next year or two given my questionable cash flow problems.
I do this via what I like to call a monthly cost schedule. On the vertical, I place the months-years. The first column after that is the events (for example build house, get renter, get salary increase. The next few are opening bank balance, salary, rental, tax, repayments and expenses. Finishes with net income and the closing cash balance. Sounds reasonable right? Seems to cover what I need to know...right?
The problem is I don't necessarily know whats correct or not, and whats reasonable and whats not. The great thing is Excel can tell me exactly what I want to believe based on the information I give it. The house will be built EXACTLY in six months like they say. Sure lets bring the rental and tax relief forward a few months. The car will cause 150$ in tax relief, sure lets cut tax by that much. I love it! I WANT to believe I can afford this, and this plan won't leave me scraping for the remaining out of a can of spam spam spammity spam spam
SHUTUP!
Diversion aside, the reality is this seriously a pile of crock. The reality of things is never that straight forward. When one is living on the bread-line as it maybe, its a dangerous game. I could be always solvent and on several grand by Oct 08, or be on -13,000$ by Oct 08, all depending on what happens. The latter isn't really that impossible to envisage. All you need is shitty tax relief and a bad renter and you've got an situation where there isn't really an easy way out.
However... using sensitivity analysis which I ALSO did in Excel, I should be perfectly right due to the relative spread of probabilities. After all, excel doesn't lie...
I do this via what I like to call a monthly cost schedule. On the vertical, I place the months-years. The first column after that is the events (for example build house, get renter, get salary increase. The next few are opening bank balance, salary, rental, tax, repayments and expenses. Finishes with net income and the closing cash balance. Sounds reasonable right? Seems to cover what I need to know...right?
The problem is I don't necessarily know whats correct or not, and whats reasonable and whats not. The great thing is Excel can tell me exactly what I want to believe based on the information I give it. The house will be built EXACTLY in six months like they say. Sure lets bring the rental and tax relief forward a few months. The car will cause 150$ in tax relief, sure lets cut tax by that much. I love it! I WANT to believe I can afford this, and this plan won't leave me scraping for the remaining out of a can of spam spam spammity spam spam
SHUTUP!
Diversion aside, the reality is this seriously a pile of crock. The reality of things is never that straight forward. When one is living on the bread-line as it maybe, its a dangerous game. I could be always solvent and on several grand by Oct 08, or be on -13,000$ by Oct 08, all depending on what happens. The latter isn't really that impossible to envisage. All you need is shitty tax relief and a bad renter and you've got an situation where there isn't really an easy way out.
However... using sensitivity analysis which I ALSO did in Excel, I should be perfectly right due to the relative spread of probabilities. After all, excel doesn't lie...
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
The beginning of another beginning...
"The blog was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of the InterWeb. But it was a beginning"
You can tell a lot about anything from just first impressions. Judging by the cheap Robert Jordan WoT rip off there, you can tell this site will start well, then start to pad out to thousands of pages of tripe where you will want to kill everyone on this site. All in the sake of profit!
In theory this site is designed specificially for the purpose of pushing me to reflect on my progress on a personal and a technical level. And as with all blogs, it will be filled with enough rants and angst to fit several episodes of Daria . But come gentle reader as we hopefully start what will be a beautiful lasting relationship, or at the least a passioniate crazed romp in the backseat of the Internet.
You can tell a lot about anything from just first impressions. Judging by the cheap Robert Jordan WoT rip off there, you can tell this site will start well, then start to pad out to thousands of pages of tripe where you will want to kill everyone on this site. All in the sake of profit!
In theory this site is designed specificially for the purpose of pushing me to reflect on my progress on a personal and a technical level. And as with all blogs, it will be filled with enough rants and angst to fit several episodes of Daria . But come gentle reader as we hopefully start what will be a beautiful lasting relationship, or at the least a passioniate crazed romp in the backseat of the Internet.
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