For those dedicated readers who have so dearly noticed I haven't blogged in practically 2 months (kinda co-incides with this order from Electus/Jaycar... funny that).
Here is a blog.
I have been up to a lot of stuff lately, mainly working and bumming around at home. Since cm's parents are jetsetting around Europe (they are now known as "The Euro Folk") I have been
keeping cm company sometimes at her place. Which means not a lot of time for me to be at home. Sometimes I really miss home. But I am here now. And it's cool. Very cool. Damn winter.
Some of the projects I have been working on lately include: an FM transmitter kit for nick (finally got it together last night - damn surface-mount components are truly evil),
a new centre speaker for the shed (this one with 2 dual-concentric vifa tweeters, a peerless mid and a very sexy 8" woofer for the bass also from peerless - for those who care), potting
some old plants I have back into new fresh soil (they seem to live on forever, which is fine and dandy as far as I'm concerned), a new phone (hardly a project but I bought a SE k750i out of sheer
dislike for the poor T300... well it did me well for a while anyways), and some mega new storage at home.
Phew... mostly nerdy things but eh... I should really stop spending money now! So much for saving up...
As for the storage, I completed my purchases with an external box to put a spare 160GB harddrive in so I can carry it around as a backup. The plan is if there is a fire, grab it and run. I hope
that will hold out. Since it is no longer in my server, I have replaced it with 4 x 320GB hard drives running in raid-1 (for those really interested (probably no-one - whee 2 levels of brackets) that means I get
640GB of usable backed-up storage on tap... which is quite funky). It's hardly full (got about 460GB free at the moment) but I'm sure with mum scanning in more and more photos and me taking more photos, together with
an ever expanding collection of music, I think it won't take too long to fill up. They always say, "this will *never* be full" - but it's never true.
I do believe it is one of the most well-equipped machines dating from 1999. Good old Pentium III.
640k should be enough for anyone.
Work has been a little tough lately for 2 main reasons... one... finding something to do... two... those damn financial reports are NEVER correct!! So to all you
contractors out there, pumping out reports, do it right the first time so I don't have to hunt down some crazy issue inside Oracle's 27,000 views. Urgh.
In other news I will be attending Oracle training next week - for a total cost of $800 per day. And there are 5 days of it. Gah. Better be worth it! And the food better be good!!!
Otherwise I have generally been enjoying things on the weekend - especially parties like my mum's 50th/nana's 90th at Berowra Waters (mmm seafood buffet) (heh also bought speakers that day.. so much so I think Rex is sick of me buying them! tehe!), or
Alyson and Adam's engagement party (Congrats to them!!), or Truc's BF Hoang's birthday... which seemed more like a wedding than anything else. Interesting party though at the Pioneer seafood restaurant,
with the highlight of course being a challenge between totally embarassing Lynda (Perfect Match anyone?) or the food. Mmm yes the food was damn tasty. After 12 courses (our table got an extra 2..) we were all very full.
Also been to a party for Eugenia's birthday (have photos but they aren't up... obviously... heh I wouldn't be THAT kind... a blog and photos in ONE day? pfft never!). Now we went to this
Russian restaurant in Strawberry Hills for dinner, which apart from being very uh interesting (food wasn't that good and it was expensive...) it did have some interesting entertainment. This guy had a
wireless electric violin, while another guy played the keyboard and sang... with some people dancing and generally being all very eurovision... Actually being EXACTLY like eurovision made it
quite entertaining, I thought. The whole "We come from Moscow" or something like that song sounded all too much like "We could from the land down-under" but Russian style, which was also a highlight of the night.
I've also taken some nice photos - just random ones - of things around the yard. If I'm feeling enthusiastic I will have them up by the end of the year. No promises :)
Ah yes. Also had a trip to Brooklyn, which was lots of fun despite using up loads of fuel and the day being particularly hot. Got some nice photos and did eat some nice fish and chips... apparently this place is one of the best places around... pfft I doubt it. It was so expensive for a this slither of fish... I've had better :D
Highlights of the day include reading (and photographing) graffiti that reads "<- Dead Horse Beach" and "Prevent Bush Fires". Nice caring bunch of hippie spraycan artists they must have there at Brooklyn. Or maybe it is just the Hawkesbury River water...
Also been taking photos of my dad's car - which he is trying to sell (since he recently upgraded to yes... yet another Peugeot - 306 GTI6 in bright red). I swear nobody will buy a "Collector's Item" "Just run in" 1989 model at 425,000km... but hey.. I could be wrong. Nothing really wrong with the car - it actually looks
quite good for it's age... very good in fact, but I guess nobody really wants something that has gone that far.
Had Rex over on the weekend which was great.. I did not expect her to come over so soon at all! After her long 2 hour drive with the dog in the car (Still not sure why it takes her song long... but she did well on the way back home. I think she is also wondering why it takes her so long, but the traffic on a Saturday can be pretty bad all day).
Since I have been collecting a few eps of Degrassi (heh... ok fine, 2 series worth of Degrassi Junior High) we decided to watch a bunch of those, as well as the recent Chaser's War on Everything (which rocks totally). I really want to go and see it
being made and take part in the studio audience... or just be in the right place at the right time and see them pull off something in public... - either is good.
Another project is to connect a 9v battery holder to an ipod dock cable for nick (I seem to be soldering a lot for him lately) but despite stripping the wire and getting everything ready, I haven't been game to figure out
which pin is +ve and which is -ve so I can be sure I don't fry his ipod! Sounds risque to me... so I might just stick with the FM transmitter for this week.
Anyways I have missed a serious load of crap to talk about over the past 2 months so I really shouldn't stop like this and just post random garbage because nobody reads it anyways. And random garbage can be fun, sometimes. And now since I am truly rambling, I will paste this into the annoying phpmyadmin box and blame myself for not writing a proper blog posting app page php script thing.
Well okay it never made it into this version.
Just you wait for nx++... ahhh yes. It currently powers "Hawkesbury People and Places" and will soon be powering "Auscoustics"! Huzzah!
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