1999 Blog
Happy New Year!
Christmas is over and I was able to score some decent presents like a Scott Adams book ("The Joy of Work") and the new Dune series book finished off by Brian Herbert ("Prelude to Dune - House Atreides"). It's time to read these buggers!
Things have been quiet at the Jason web site as I've been busy with Zeta. They have recently announced the merger with Pacific Internet and I have been really busy updating the site to the new look (designed by Matthew: www.golgotha.com.au).
I bought a blow-up Christmas tree today - it's going to last me years!
We went to the Coffs Harbours RSL last night by taxi. The taxi driver was telling us their "fleet" consisted of 17 taxis.
Greg smashed his camera yesterday after forgetting it on the roof of the car (from where it fell off at high speed). This morning I lost my swimmers as they must have been blown off our balcony (damnit!).
This morning there is also a lot of noise cause a chopper is doing work on the building - lifting up new components for what must be the air system and taking down the old bits. Spew tried shooting it with the banana pistol but missed.
Big Banana & The Case of the Missing Clothes
Yesterday we visited the Big Banana and bought a few
trinkets like my stress banana (see picture). We also saw these people make
rock candy which was just incredible. I wish I had a video camera to
have filmed the procedure...
Last night was a big night which ended with: one missing sandal, one missing set of keys, a lot of scratches, and 3 people (myself not included) walking up to the motel lobby nude (bar some branches) to see if they could get in! Luckily all the missing items have been recovered since.
Today we went out to the Dorrigo Rainforest, about one hour from Coffs
Harbour, and had a walk around. After seeing the Blair Witch Project tonight we
thought we might have to give bush walking a miss for a little bit
.
Well, we're up here now and I did bring my laptop! It was an interesting trip where we passed many "big" things such as the big clam, the big rock (Ayres Rock - Layland Brothers World), the big windmill, the big axe, and of course ending up at Coffs Harbour which is known for its big banana. I really need to get some photos of these stupid things, especially the paper mache Ayres Rock.
We left Sydney at around 9:30am and arrived at our place around 4:30pm which means a good 7 hour trip although we did stop a few times and had a long lunch break. Our apartment, up on level 12, is huge and has a great 180 degree view over the harbour. To make things even better - the weather is absolutely perfect!
I'm leaving this morning with Spew, Shane and Greg for holidays up at Coffs Harbour, some 7 hours drive up the coast. David was meant to come but piked on us! We're going up for a full week which means I'll be back on Sunday 12th of December.
Perhaps I can take up my laptop .
Today started out like any other work day (I probably started late) but ended with an electrocution. At approximately 5:15pm I was handling a computer power supply when I created a circuit between my left index finger (unsheathed lead) and right hand (grounded case). They say it would have been less than one minute but it felt forever and ended up with me being taken to the hospital for observation over night. I'm rather glad that nothing serious happened except for a full depth burn on my index finger...
After one long sucker of flight + travel time we're finally back home after our long trip! I hope to include a long description of our (family) trip somewhere on this site in the future which would include short video and images.
We're leaving for our trip to South America today. I have quite a bit of family living in Peru (from my mothers side). We're going to be visiting Peru first, then Argentina, then Chile and back to Australia!
Jeeezzzz, it's been a long time since I've touched my Diary. I guess I'll have to play "catch up" for the moment:
Uni has been going well, it looks like I'll be getting decent marks in all my subjects (decent means credit or higher). I haven't had to put too much time in either! For once I have been attacking assignments in advance (in some cases up to 1 month in advance) which has really paid off. Because I get the assignment out of the way and I stop worring and procrastinating about starting then I get more time to do other things. Other things in this case is talking about paid work - of which I'll get into later on.
I have already finished System Programming entirely because it is only assignment based. Advanced Digital Systems will be completed on this thursday when I do the second quiz. I'm actually at home today because I'm meant to be studing for this quiz. Programming on the Internet has a 50 question multiple choice exam at the end of this month - this will be so easy!
Roger and I (Mind Socket) landed a job with the NSW Minerals Council to re-design their web site. The job is almost done now - Roger still has to setup bulletin boards and we have to provide training.
The trip to South America is almost on me now. It has turned out to be one expensive trip. I have assigned about $7k towards the thing, of this about $4.5k will be used in just Airfare, accomodation and transport! Out of the $2.5k left I intend on spending $1k (with my mum) on a digital camera.
I've had to have all these shots and pills to prepare my body for the viruses and diseases that roam South America. Unfortunately I think some of them were making me feel ill and I had really bad headaches for a couple days...
If I take my laptop to South America then I'll try to keep a log of my journeys. My sister and I would really like to put together an online tour guide of Peru, using video and stills with text... Looks like fun!
I'd better get stuck into my workload now...
It's almost christmas and i've got a few days off (well, until next year)!!!
My girlfriend is coming back soon so i'm happy! I've seen her approx 1month out of the last 4months which is pretty crap.
DP is 19 today. Been there, done that.
Work has been really busy. I have been wanting to get myself organised so that I can perform some team leader stuff for the rest of the staff. However, my first 2 days on the job I spend doing work down at DEGW! We really need someone else to take over cause we have enough work todo directly with Zeta...
Well I have Uni again today - this time Programming on the Internet! What an easy subject, at least i'll be getting one HD ;) I've gotta go now and buy some books, drinks and then get back here to do my Uni (industrial experience) report. I may do another entry for today later on tonight after Uni.
Today was my first day of Uni (well, 4th year Uni). There were so many people there today (all the 1st yearers!). I think I'm going to be doing some really good subjects - it's now just a matter to study hard for once and do well...
On Wednesday Masami had a talk to me and offered a salary increase if I stayed on. At the moment it would be awkward if I left because DP is leaving so we'd only have DF and the new staff to run things. Since I want to continue doing a full load of Uni I didn't accept. However after taking a look at my Uni schedule I noticed that I can still do a full load (18cp or higher) with only 2 days of attendance.
Since I could keep doing full time uni AND work 3 days a week I decided that i'll stay on with work. Since they don't overlap at all + I have my weekends free there shouldn't be the overload that I experienced the last couple semesters with work.
On Monday we have a few more people coming in for training so I think I should get stuck into putting a training structure together.
My training is working out as expected. I find that there is a lot of work to cover and that trying to go through everything in one go is just too difficult. I need to work on my training guide quite a bit. I also have to work at getting the InfoBase started.
Ruwani made me dinner last night and it was really good! She never believes me though - such a negative person
I've already been back from Perth a week and I haven't written up any diary entries! Well I had a good time.
I'm glad to say that I've learnt a whole lot over there and my large report to Nick and the long email to Masami pretty covers everything I could see different with Zeta in comparison to iiNet.
Only 2 more weeks to go at Zeta! Nick has asked that I now start work at 8am -> 4pm which is pretty cool with me. The buses don't take as long at that time + I finish before peak really hits!
This laptop of mine is getting real handy. I'm using at work, at Ruwani's, at home - everywhere! It's bound to be useful when I restart Uni in a few weeks.
All my school friend went down to the Styne on Saturday night. It was good to see everyone again - it's not often we all get together like that. Hopefully it happens again soon!
I want to get more efficient. When I get interested in a particular project things seem to go pretty well, but soon after getting started i'll think of something new etc... Well as a result I tend to start a lot of projects but not finish many in a timely fashion. It is my aim to spend this year improving my own efficiency. By creating my own task based system I can keep track of things and how i'm progressing. I'd prefer to write down my ideas rather than starting on them - when I have time (and finished other projects) then I can start. The first task is to create this task system and note down every single task (big and small) that is going on then work through each one to COMPLETE. The only things I can start out-of-order are paid jobs.
It's my 21st birthday coming up soon!!!!
Woopsy, this entry is jumping all over the place. Probably cause i'm listening to some really good music as I type . That's all today.
Well this week has been pretty hectic. I will get up real early and by the time I get home from work and have dinner i'm so tired I need to go to bed!
As a coincidence I ran into Anthony from Zip World today at iiNet.
These people i'm staying with are pretty nice. A little different though. They are goths (black dressers), into fetish stuff and sci-fi addicts.
I'll be staying at the Lim's place on Saturday night.
Here I am in Perth already. It was my first day on at iiNet which was pretty good. The only thing i'm to be doing during this week (because of the team i'm in) is terminating calls. ie: answering and completing call.
I have to finish this pretty short cause I am extremely tired. It's only 10:30pm here but back in Sydney it is really 1:30am!
Things are busy at work. Now that Bruce (admin) has gone for good. A full time position is now being shared between us 3 tech staff. I've been working back around 1 hr over the last week every day! At least Nick has given me a significant discount on my domain and web hosting service (mindsocket).
I'll be leaving for Perth on Sunday morning. Us guys are thinking about going to a rave on Saturday night so I might be a little exhausted that morning ;) I don't know if we'll get things organised in time though.
I need Internet access from this laptop so i'm thinking of getting a PC Card modem. They are a little expensive though (around $200) and i've just spent so much on the puter already.
Things are progressing (slowly) with my development work. I've finally got the CVS server off godzilla.zeta.org.au running. I've already uploaded some modules and with Rogers co-ordination we can probably get the mindsocket work into CVS tomorrow - then online! I need to complete the Site-Builder scripts and work on the Sync-Tools for my laptop and home computer.
Woops i've been lazy again. Haven't done my diary for a couple weeks!
Some interesting stuff at work today. There was a fire in the 2nd lift well. Our entire floor stunk of smoke and it was really annoying. At around lunch time I was able to see the lift which had actually melted! The whole day they were pumping water from the lift well because of the fire peoplez.
DP is on holidays this week and it's been really busy. So busy that about the only thing I can get around to doing is answer the phone.
I have pretty much made up my mind to purchase the laptop and I guess sooner is better in this case cause the price is not going to change.
I now know that most of my savings will disappear over this year. I intend to purchase the laptop (roughly 4k), go back to Uni full time (roughly 5k over full year for travel and food etc...), go to Peru with the rest of the family (roughly 4k).
Looks like we may have more people for Sublime this friday!
I've been helping Ruwani move in to her new apartment! Although it's quite expensive, it certainly is handy ;) It's in the middle of everything being right in the CBD - Ruwani's new work is on the other side of the same block! Sublime is just up the road, so my friends and I can grab a few drinks then head up, then crash for a few hours sleep in the morning. It's nice and close to my Uni also... Only problem at the moment is lack of computer system (like this one). I'm seriously thinking of purchasing the laptop - but it's nice and expensive at just under $3800!
New years wasn't too good, only a few of us at Antonia's ... At least new year's day (night) was great at Sublime. We stayed to close for the first time! It was so good, everyone is in for it again next week ;)
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