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…