NYE Eve

Tis nearly midnight on New Years Eve Eve.... It has been tradition that
we have a function at our place, but numbers will be down this year due
to various reasons... so it will be a pretty quiet one. Which is not a
bad thing to be honest.

Planning on serving the kids dinner first (snags on rolls and sauce) and
then we adults will tuck into prawns for starters followed by a BBQ of
chicken, snags, prolly some steaks and whatever i can get together.

Fireworks for kids will be on at 9:00pm on tele and then hopefully bed
so the consistent drinking will pick up the pace.

We have played it easy this year with everyone BYO grog but we have
plenty in the fridge anyway.

Also, in general, holidays to date have been quiet.... trips to the
beach etc will start next week!

Weeeee! Internode is ON!

Switched to Internode today with minimal of fuss. Seems as though my
old Telstra modem can handle the upgrade but I need to get an ethernet
card / ethernet cable connection... I think (??) I only connect by USB.
I may be wrong, but if it is true, then Internode will have problems
giving me advice as I am using "unsupported hardware". But that is for
another day as I am now on a 1500MBps plan with 10Gb of download
available all for the same price as my old 512K 500MB Telstra plan...

Have already signed up to LimeWire Basic and downloaded a bunch of
songs. Old Cure stuff... some Smiths, a Radiohead / Pixies combo
bootleg from a radio show done somewhere. Very cool indeed. (I seem
like such a n00b again)

I also this week bought a new monitor this week because my ViewSonic CRT
is getting a buzzing sound and is on the way out. Bought it online and
paid for 2 day postage (which was standard) but have only realised today
(because it didnt come today) that anything bought after 23 Dec will not
be posted until at least 9 January!! Yee Gods!! My new toy is another
2 weeks away! :-(

For the record, I stuck with Viewsonic and bought a VX724
monitor... I just hope my old CRT doesnt give up the ghost in the next 2
weeks. I am turning it off when I am not using it - I dont know if that
makes it more likely or not to fail...

Christmas Wrap in 30 Seconds :)

Christmas Day has been run and won with the girls doing very well from Santa and the family. Christmas Eve was spent at our friends Julie & Con place with their neighbours and another couple - mutual friends Monique & Sean. Christmas Day was lunch at Niki's brothers place with a big roast pork, turkey and baked veges (plus prawns!). We were home by 4pm and spent a relaxing evening in front of the tele with leftovers.

Boxing Day was "kids play day" and we spent a few hours down at the Nepean River but otherwise it was a lazy day in front of the cricket... Tomorrow we drive to Maitland to visit Niki's elderly god mother and lunch at the Maitland Bowling Club. 

Merry Christmas to All

Been a hectic week both working and socialising which has kept my train (and hence my posting) time to a minimum.  However, now as I sit at my desk for the last day of work for 2005, I do think that this Blog has been a fairly constant thing to do over the past 7 months or so.  I have surprised myself how I have managed a posting most days and some of the gimmicks and tricks I have picked up along the way.  Interesting how keeping what is essentially an online diary of my thoughts and events has changed the way I look at things.  I have enjoyed doing Lime Kettles immensely and look forward to it continuing in the new year.

Also, I want to thank both my regular and irregular contributors to this site.  Your comments and feedback both on the site and via email have made it worth while (means someone was reading!) and also would like to thank my family and friends for your views on my rantings and such.

The new year will be a quiet period for me as I aim to spend as much time relaxing as possible and taking the kids out and about Sydney but I will post fairly regularly here…. hopefully less ranting to match my calm state of mind :-)

To all of you loyal readers, I wish you a Merry Christmas, hope you enjoy whatever you set out to do over the break and that you have a safe NYE.

Cheers,
Clay

I am definately driving in tomorrow...

Am writing this on the train home (Wednesday night)… I was thinking of driving in tomorrow because I have an early start… I definitely will now – the guy in front of me has just thrown up all over himself… he isn’t sick, he’s drunk.  Xmas Cheer on the trains is always an occupational hazard…. 45 more minutes of vomit smell!  Isn’t life grand.

Internode

Well I have just signed up online to Internode and am now crossing my fingers that it all works smoothly churning away from Bigpond.  I was a bit confused with the purchase of hardware (modem) and rang their customer service people to ask do I “need” to buy a new modem or will my existing Telstra one suffice.  She replied “it should but we can’t guarantee it”.  mmm.

Better all bloody work!

Parties and Motorways

Well we’re into the home stretch now… Last week of the year which means a mixture of flat chat work to get things done and socialising.  Today is a classic case, meetings in the morning to try to get certain things finalised before the break and then a lunch that will mean not coming back to the office until late in the day.  On top of this, my boss’ boss has invited a number of people in the company and their spouses to his house for Xmas Drinks.  That’s nice because it means Niki gets to come in herself and have a bit of a Xmas do.  This time of year is always hard with so many functions on that you tend to be more away from home than any other time of the year – so its pretty generous of the Big Boss to have so many staff and partners over.

So today will be a tough day – lunch at Aqua at Milsons Point and then drinks at Mosman… lah dee dah!!

Also, changing tact, a big thumbs up from me for the new M7.  I drove into work yesterday and I left the city via the Eastern Distributor (which heads South??) and around the airport to the M5 through to the M7 which goes north before hitting the M4 at Walgrove Road.  I left the office carpark a bit before 6:30 and got home a bit after 7:30.  70 mins home in peak hour is amazing.  Normally it would be 90mins easy and that’s a good run.  The traffic was a bit stop start in the M5 tunnel, but pretty much flowed between 80-100km/h along the M5 and I sat on 120km/h on the M7.

Perhaps it was light traffic due to this time of year, but I didn’t stop at a set of lights between William Street in the city and the Glenbrook Bowling Club!  The downside of it though is that the tolls would be close to $7 one way - $3.30 for the M5 and whatever the M7 would charge… which I think is also around $3.50.

 

Hey! Here's an idea...

To cure the troubles at Cronulla, why don’t we segregate people based on their religion and activity and keep everyone separated.  We can keep all the Muslims at one end of the beach and all the Anglo-Saxon locals at the other end.  The Muslims can employ their own people to patrol their section of the beach, whilst the Life Savers can patrol the “Aussie” end.

Believe it or not, this is actually an idea that was flagged at a meeting hosted by Liberal MP Bruce Baird… Hey Bruce, its called “segregation” and South Africa were isolated from the rest of the world for it for about 20 years.

Isn’t it amazing that the Liberals are actually putting these ideas into the mix… and are then reported in our national news paper…

Tick another one in the “Liberals are Xenophobic Racists” column.

Kids Photography

Kate & Brooke took the digital camera unsupervised for 20mins tonight and took about 30 photos on their own... Most were pictures of our hanging Xmas Cards (like 20 of them!!) but these are the best of the rest.

Interesting when you know that the photographer is 6yrs old with a 4yr old accomplice...

Maybe I should get them to do more and call the results "art"?? 

Xmas Comes A Week Early

Due to my mum & dad flying to the Gold Coast for Xmas this year, we decided to get together a week early for the rest of the family to celebrate.



Seemed odd having a Christmas lunch with all the trimmings but it was good to see my Uncle Scott, my Pop and my cousin Hayley and her boyfriend Ray. My family has never been one to get together enmasse regularly but we seem to pick up with the same bad jokes and laughs which is good.



There was way too much food, a lot of beer and wine was drunk, presents were handed out and the kids got excited and after everyone had left bar Mum & Dad; Dad and I fell asleep in front of the cricket... pretty much a traditional Aussie Xmas!



I have also opened up the Xmas Ham early and it now sits in the fridge in the wet tea towel / pillow case and I have now commenced my annual pilgrimige (sp?) to eat the whole ham. Ham sandwiches, ham on toast, ham on its own... mmmmm!

Cricket Reaches Xmas Break

The first of the seasons one day games and the last before Xmas Break was played on Saturday, with us running a pretty 2nd against current back markers Parramatta Leagues. We had a close game against these guys in Round 1 of the season and this time the game was again very close, but this time we were on the wrong side of the lady luck.



End result was a 11 run loss that went right down to the last few overs. We had bowled out Parramatta for 165 in their 40th (of 42) overs and we were pretty ordinary in the field in the first session with Parramatta 5/104 after only the first 21 overs. Pete Nahlous though bowled 8 overs in the second half of the innings and finished with 3/28 off 8. Excellent for a leg spinner in the back end of a low grade cricket match...



Chasing, yours truly and Wayne Agius got off to a flying start of 0/32 off only 4 overs with both of us not interested in singles. But I was out for 12 (3 boundaries) in the 5th over and then we lost another 4 wickets before we had reached 50 odd. Horrendous collapse.



Then Noyz and Pete combined again and got the side down to a managable 40 to win in the final 10 overs before Noyz knicked one to the keeper. Joe Puglisi came in and scratched a half dozen whilst supporting Pete before he went and Terry Hoban at #10 was bowled with 14 runs from 18 balls required.



Enoch Harris at #11 had to block out the 6th ball of the 40th over to allow Pete to retain the strike and instead went for glory which turned to a miss hit drive to mid-off and we were all out 11 short of the total.



The game though was played in good spirits and even though Parramatta are running last they have lost a number of close ones and are apparently the defending premiers in this grade!



Cricket takes a hiatus until January 7...

The Golden Era of Civil Libertarianism.

Can someone tell me why do the police require special legislation to enforce the law and prevent mob violence?  Since when do they require the government to step in and extend the boundaries of what they can and cant do?

I always thought that should the situation present itself, the police could do anything they wanted to ensure that offenders were caught and arrested.  If you’re drink driving, they’ll pull you over.  If you’re throwing punches in a pub, you’ll get thrown into a paddy wagon.  If you’re part of an angry mob, you’ll cop the batons and mounted police.  If you pull out a gun, you’ll get shot.

So what is it that they are now asking for??

Seems as though everyone is worried about the treatment of the “criminals” and not too much worried about putting a stop to anti-social behaviour.

And I blame Civil Libertarians!

Its Civil Libertarians that cause things like this to happen!

I have never been so proud!!

I know I havent posted in a few of days, but it has been so busy! Last night was Kate & Brookes dance concert and I have never been so proud. Both of the girls took trophies home for "Most Promising" in their respective age groups. But what went on behind the scenes at the concert made it all the so much more special. Little Brooke woke up at 3am yesterday morning throwing up followed by "the trots". Niki then started throwing up as I was getting ready for work and therefore I decided to stay and help out.

Niki then took Kate down at midday (still sick) and I hung about with Brooke before taking her down in the late afternoon for her rehearsal. Niki's mum & I kept the girls occupied whilst Niki did hair, make up etc between throwing up every once and a while.

But it was all worth it in the end, and I can't believe the girls both got trophies. We had prepped them to not get one, but they did very very well.

On the downside, I now have the same bug and am writing this from home... but I gotta now........ 

Liberal Stooges Support Violence

Take a look at this article (credit to Enoch for passing me it).

Brucie Baird justifying the riots at Cronulla because of Bali.  Liberal politician linking local racism to global war on terror and the Muslims in general.

When will people realise that the Liberal Party actually condones this sort of thing?  Where was Howard today?  Where was Debnam?  Instead we had Morris Iemma on Sunrise this morning taking flack because the NSW Police Force hadn’t done enough to prevent this occurring by banning Lebanese from the beach!!  WTF!!  You can’t have racial no go areas!  That is abhorrent.  Iemma shouldn’t be the one taking flack for this, the people of “The Shire” deserve the shit sandwich that’s coming to them.  Do they think that they have “cured their ills” by their stupid behaviour?

Well done Hobbits.  Just proving what the gene pool is capable of.

 

Birthday Wrap :-)

OK, I could go on more about the Cronulla riots, but that will spoil my mood for the moment…

Instead, I want to go over my birthday weekend… just ‘coz I can!

Friday night had dinner at home with Niki and the girls with a chilli stir fry and rice followed by Chocolate Sauce Pudding for desert.  Had a walk around the neighbourhood at the Christmas lights and the girls didn’t get to bed until very late as a result.  Apart from my Blood Bowl pitch I got a few weeks back as my main present, I got a CD from each of the girls – the new Pete Murray album and Bernard Fanning’s solo album.  Both are quite good.

Saturday was my actual birthday and had a quiet day as the girls had dancing.  I saw my friends Baa & Linda’s new baby Chloe who was born last Thursday and caught up with them.  Went to the shops and perused the book stores and the Tin Soldier Gaming store (some people were playing Blood Bowl in there and I may join their league next season) before picking up Brooke who had finished her dance rehearsal.

We spent a quiet afternoon together as she was tired and watched a Barbie DVD whilst I tooled around on the computer.

Saturday night was dinner with Mum and Dad who gave me a $200 voucher at Games Workshop and a Tips & Hints book for Do It Yourself handy man stuff… I do like to do the odd job, but I am in no means a “handy man” and the bigger jobs put me off.  For example, my pergola at home needs replacing and my only solution in my mind is to spend a lot of money getting it done by a builder.  This book though does go through how you can do it yourself… at clearly a far cheaper cost.  We’ll see how it goes ;-).

We had dinner with Mum & Dad at Milsons at Milsons Point and it was very nice.  Drank a bit too much wine (not that that worries me!) and the food was very good.  Entrée for me was Tuna and Blue Swimmer Crab cannelloni and main was a Rib Eye Steak and Béarnaise sauce.  Desert was a chocolate torte thing with espresso ice cream… very rich and very good!

Sunday was Dress Rehearsal day and I was free to my own devices for the main part of the day, so I gave my half (quarter?) painted Dwarf team a run at my mate Tommy’s.  A bit of a dry run before the January CanCon.  The team did OK, the game (vs High Elves) was a 1-1 draw, but I should have done better in the back end of the first half.  I went with a standard lineup (2 Slayers, 2 Blitzers, 2 Runners) and a 7 Fan Factor.  It’s a balancing act as to whether Fan Factor is important over a 7 game tournament… I think it will be, but it means I wont be able to afford Grim Ironjaw who is the Dwarf Star Player.  I will tinker with this line up some more...

After Tommy’s, I went to my sister in laws Lynn for another birthday dinner of chicken and salads and I got a birthday cake which the girls helped me blow out.  They put a 21 candle on it and said that I can read it as 21 and turn the cake around and read it as 12, add it together and it makes 33!  Very funny… hah hah… The girls though were very tired after rehearsals and they also had a swim in the pool so come 8:30, they were knackered.  And so was I…

 

Dance Rehearsals! Three days to go!!

The girls had full dress rehearsals all weekend in prep for their big concert on Wednesday... the picture is a collage of some of the shots Niki took...


Niki has done so much with the girls and their dancing... we didnt know there was so much involved when the girls signed up, but they love it and thats the important thing.


Poor Niki has barely slept the last few days because of all the prep work and worrying about hair, makeup, costumes etc etc - she's very frazzled.

The show is on Wednesday night and from what little bits I have seen, the girls will be excellent! 

Mob violence envelops Cronulla - National - smh.com.au

You are grubs!



"He could not comment on a report that a girl of Middle Eastern appearance had been pushed over and was kicked repeatedly as she lay on the ground."



Absolute disgrace... It is "un-Australian" to act like that... I don't care that a life saver was bashed... no need to take vigilante action based on race. Bigots the lot of you.


Mob violence envelops Cronulla - National - smh.com.au

"I don't know anything about marijuana"...

For sure, for sure...



And people thought I was nuts for thinking she was guilty!

Happy Birthday To Me!

Happy birthday to Me! 33 today (thats 30 + GST)... just thought i'd
share that with y'all!
:-P

Penrith On The Coast

This article is so wrong... front page of the Saturday Herald... "promoting" the fact that "Aussies" (i.e inferring that non-Anglo Saxons are not Aussies) need to take back "their" beach.



The fact that they write this in a condescending manner, with all the "tsk tsking" they can muster, quote a few local lebanese decendants and then call the whole thing "boys being boys" is absurd.



Where was the visit to Lakemba to interview the someone on the other side?



No wonder "The Shire" is called "Penrith On The Coast"... Grow up Hobbits, its called Australia and EVERYONE has a right to the beach...



PS - do you think this would get as much air time if it was Irish Catholics on the beach??

It's started...

Free speech is over… Sedition Laws and the power of the internet have collided… Read this article from today’s SMH and be prepared to be astounded.  Prime example of how Howard is killing off this country and converting it to a police state.

I’d love to be the first case of someone saying I am inciting Terrorism…

Howard, you’re a tool.  You have put this country into the deepest of shit and it will take us years to get the world to a place of peace and harmony.  I blame you personally for throwing your pissant 450 troops and a bucketload of vile rhetoric about how important it is to stay in Iraq and exert our ideals over the people of the Middle East all for the sake of fucking Oil.  Instead, I know I am not alone in thinking that Bush and Blair AND Howard should face War Crime Charges.

Just because we have the biggest armies, doesn’t mean we have the right to exert our views on the countries of others.

Saddam was a horrible dictator, but he is undergoing trial and will be punished… why are we still there??

Please direct all sedition law breach subpoenas to the email link on your right.

When Office Drinks Go Bad...

Nursing a hangover and lethargy this morning after not getting in until 1:30am this morning… Let’s just say that an external work function got out of hand and when our hosts determined that we should get into the Xmas Spirit and that “spirit” included Mr Johnnie Walker and Mr Smirnoff it all went down hill from there…

The 12:18 train from Central is an interesting one given that it was just me at one end of the carriage and a girl at the other (front) end.  A guy, clearly pissed, gets on the train at Parramatta and roughly demands to know if the girl is “getting off at Penrith”.  She nods and he says very rudely “Good, Wake me when we get there.” He then promptly slumps across the aisle from her and goes to sleep.

The girl gets off the train at Blacktown (i.e before Penrith) and he sleeps on.

He was still sleeping when I got off the train at Glenbrook (past Penrith) and I can’t stop thinking about him waking up at Lithgow or somewhere at 3am… lol.  Sucker.

Today shall be a very quiet day spent at my desk… given that half my team were at the function with me last night, I am sure that my “quiet day” will be enthusiastically supported…. Gotta love Xmas wind down… :-)

I didn't win, but...

I did get a lot of good ideas from the Top 11 (wtf??) finalists of the SmartyBlogs Blog Of The Year Competition.  I will be honest and will say that I will look at certain aspects of some of these blogs and pretty much rip off some ideas, but I guess that’s what its all about isn’t it – sharing of ideas and tools/techniques…

For the record though, I am bemused by the winner… weird site, weird topic… and perhaps not the best “aesthetically pleasing” site amongst those Top 11. But who am I to judge! LOL!

Things to do and do and do!

I’m sorry, but I am consistently thinking about my holidays to be worried about anything else at the moment… This weekend being my birthday weekend then a short fortnight at work before Xmas holidays means that I have not really given a rats arse about anything else.  Morris Iemma struggling to justify the PPP system (that’s Public-Private Partnerships to you lay folk) and the debacle that is the Cross City Tunnel hasn’t registered in my brain as something worth comment.  The funeral of Van Ngyuen… didn’t read much about it.  The trial of Saddam Hussein and his berating of the judge and the fact that the head of his defence team is actually an American (how ironic is that!) hasn’t caused me to vent on this blog either.

Instead its looking forward to my own time off and it basically starts this weekend!!  Birthday celebrations wont be excessive but will be extremely enjoyable!  Quiet night at home Friday, relaxing day looking after Brooke on Saturday whilst Kate and Niki slog it out at the dance rehearsals (Brooke will be finished by 10am).  Saturday night dinner with mum & dad in the city (Milsons at Milsons Point apparently – no little about it, nor do I care.  Its just a night out to relax!). Sunday at the Adventure Palace with my good friend Tommy Dean where I will give the HyperPitch a whirl… Sunday night with Niki’s family around the pool – may even take the swimmers myself for an evening dip.  Its all good!

Then not a lot (but enough) to do at work to wrap up the year which does include my end of year Performance Review.  Bonuses etc hinge on this, but at the half year I was looking very good and I certainly haven’t gone backwards, so that will be more a hassle than a worry.  Work Xmas functions a plenty with the major party being a 1920’s theme… I am on the lookout for a Fedora hat, some braces for my shirt and a matching bow tie… preferably white.  If you can help, let me know.

Then that’s it!  Holiday time!!  3 weeks of doing what we feel like!

Some of the geeky things though that I want to do in the break are:

·          Paint the remaining Dwarves for CanCon in January.

·          Switch ISP to iinet and get Broadband2 and a much larger plan than my current poxy Bigpond one.

·          Get D&D back up and running… my regular group hasn’t met for 6mths and I think I may want to start up a D&D group.  I have people like Tommy and FLo who played in my most recent group… plus some of the guys who have played with me for years from school days may want to play… plus anyone else who is keen.  So I will be looking for 4-5 players who want to meet once a month… let me know if you’re interested.

On top of that, I will be busy around the house… odd jobs that just need doing.  Plus of course “Day Trips” with the kids to the beach, the mountains, the city etc etc.  Don’t want to get caught in the tourist type things, but rather just hanging out and perhaps exploring Sydney a bit more.  Perhaps even a day fishing on a BBQ boat on the Hawkesbury!

 

eTags... and how will i get to work?

Had a quick chat to my mate Glenn this morning who was at the time signing up for the new M7 eTag thingy and decided on the spur of the moment (as I am prone to do) to do the same…

So I am now waiting on some big box thing to stick on my windscreen! W00t!! Feels like Xmas!!  I am now part of Big Brother’s grand plan.  I got my e-Tag via ROAM which gives me $50 credit for the new M7 and access to all the other freeways (which aren’t free anymore).

Now comes the challenge of how do I get to work in the City and back again to the Mountains… do I go down the M4 and through the rabbit warren of Concord / Leichhardt to the City West Link through to the Glebe Island (and perhaps the Cross City Tunnel), or do I go via the M4 – M7 – M2 route and in over the Harbour Bridge OR do I go M4 – M7 – M5 – Eastern Distributor route and come into my work nearly directly on the east side of the City?

Should be interesting (and of course expensive!!).

 

Four Cars Too Few

Well, the day starts well… The normal 8 car train has decided to go on a diet and shed half its length.  4 cars.  What does State Rail think when they slot a 4 car train on the tracks?  Do they call this a service?

Well we haven’t got there yet, but I reckon there will be pandemonium at Emu Plains when this train is supposed to pick up the bulk of its passengers.

**LAPSTONE – already people are standing**

I was though going to talk about other things today and not State Rail… but my view of the world has been clouded by the red haze of anger at my shitty commute…

Happy thoughts… Happy thoughts… not long until Xmas.

Erection Drawing?

(erection drawing)
Originally uploaded by ratfish.

Possibly the worst example of "Engrish" ever...

Apparently a toy birds instruction manual...

Already thinking of the weekend

On the late train this morning… sat up late last night watching the NFL on Fox whilst waiting for a Blood Bowl opponent to show (who never did)… end result, over slept and here I am scrambling for the late train.

Not much on at the moment at work after all the meetings and so forth and am really trying to catch up on things around the office and turnaround the stuff that I was committed to after our week long strategy meeting.  All of this is in the background that its my birthday this weekend and I am really looking forward to it…

There will be a quiet night at home with Niki & the girls Friday and Niki has said she will cook something nice for dinner and we will probably watch a movie on Box Office.  The Saturday night is dinner with Mum & Dad and Sunday I will try and get some games of Blood Bowl in on my new HyperPitch.  I think I will head over to the Western Suburbs Gaming Society for that.  Sunday night, Niki’s family has suggested a dinner at Niki’s sister Lynne’s place where the girls can get some swimming in.

All being said, its only Tuesday and I have a fair bit to get through before then. :-(

Xmas Picnic! Bad Santa!!

Today we had a Xmas Picnic with what is developing into a very large crowd! At least 20 adults, plus kids for a long relaxing day at Parramatta Park. That's Pete in the Santa suit, and you can find all the photo's of the day here. 

Work Harbour Cruise

On Friday night, I went on a harbour cruise with the visiting American's for work. This pic is the none to shabby "Bacchus" and was our vessel for the evening. There was 4 crew on board - a skipper, an off-sider, a bar girl and a chef! All the bases were covered :)

Of course, for those of you in Sydney on Friday night, you would be aware that we had massive storms... as a consequence, we spent most of the evening below decks - which was where the food and wine and beer were, but still when you start making references to the movie "The Perfect Storm" you know you're in for a rough night!

This was the last shot I took before the rain eventually came... the water though was very calm and we headed west under the bridge and apparently we stopped into Lane Cove during the worst of the storm... I didn't realise as I was too busy with the seafood! LOL! 

Office Views...

This is the view from my office at work... I reckon I have perhaps one of the best views in all of Sydney. Those who know who I work for will know what building this is, but for those who don't, this shot is to the west... If I turn east, I can see over the eastern suburbs and onto the Heads... not too shabby :) 

The end of a long week...

Well, Friday is here!  This week has been extremely busy on the work front as we have had out to Sydney from Los Angeles my colleagues and also our brokers for a series of strategy meetings for next year.  After starting on Monday, we have been locked into all day sessions discussing plans, roles, and responsibilities for both my companies US operations and what we call “Rest of World” – which is Australia, NZ and UK.  Add on that things that have global operational impacts and then you get a very busy set of agenda’s.  We’ve also had a series of people dial in from Los Angeles, New York, Auckland and London and to orchestrate these meetings across the timezones has meant for some early starts and late finishes.  Add on to that the obligatory entertainment and hosting aspect of having to take out our international visitors (two of which have never been to Sydney) then it all becomes very draining.

Monday, Wednesday and Thursday have all been midnight – 1am home times after all the dinners and tonight it culminates in a harbour cruise and dinner on some flash boat.  I have brought the digital camera to take some shots for Niki and the girls and also for the visiting Americans.  After all the nights out, I am exhausted and am so much looking forward to the weekend.  I’m sure I will put some pics up on here over the weekend.  The only doubtful thing is the weather with showers and thunderstorms predicted!

The weekend though promises no respite, but in a good way.  There isn’t any cricket for me as we have the bye this week and next so I am able to do something different with the girls tomorrow.  However they have dancing rehearsals for their Christmas concert and I will be going down to help out with that.  It doesn’t finish until 3pm but little Brooke’s class (the babies) finishes at 10am, so I may take her and do something whilst Niki stays with Kate… but we’ll play it by ear.

Sunday, we’re going with the Old Boys crowd for a Xmas Picnic.  Pete is going to play the role of Santa - which is ironic as he is the skinniest bloke around and the rest of us are all “well equipped” to play the burly role of Santa.  Also, we’ll have the obligatory tennis ball cricket match, a bit of soccer (Wogs vs Aussies!) and a few beers and laughs.  Should be good :-)

Firefox 1.5 Released

The new version of Firefox has been released as version 1.5.  (Click here to download)

I have only installed it on my work computer and have realised that many of my extensions and all my themes are incompatible.  If you’re a heavy modder of Firefox, I would suggest waiting until the open source community updates all their extensions etc.

In regards to the Firefox itself, I don’t see any great benefit other than my tabbed preferences extension is basically built into the main application.  Apparently it is supposed to run quicker etc, but given that I have so many extensions now disabled, I lose a bit of speed just from frustration…

At this stage, good to see progress has been made, but I would stick to v1.0.7 for a bit yet…

Funny Story!

LOL!  Just heard this this morning when I got in…

The resident Office Lesbian here at work this morning was calling into the Wholesale Plumbing Supplies not far from the office as she is renovating the bathroom in her unit.  She approaches the counter and asks the guy for a set of taps and after selecting the appropriate design, she says she would like a matching one for the tap inside the vanity unit that turns the water off completely.  The sales guy looks at her puzzled and is having trouble understanding what she wants or why she wants it to match…

Our young “lady” in question starts to get a bit heated out of frustration and the conversation becomes a bit strained – strained enough that the manager comes out from the back of the shop to help out.  He listens and says “You need a Stop Cock”

Pause.

“WHAT!!” Bellows our heroine.

Surprised at her aggression he repeats “You need a stop cock”

She goes ballistic and says “Well fuck you!  Call me a dyke, a lesbian or even a man hater, but that’s disgusting”

Finally the manager clicks as to what he has said and blushes and says, “That’s what they’re called… and grabs off the shelf a piece of plumbing with the word “Stop Cock” on the label”

Hysterical laughter ensued…