Sun, 29 Apr 2001
Success // at 23:59
A highly successful day. MarkO and I were dispatched to the far reaches of Brighton to rescue Jo's car, with the aid of a little manipulation, a few choice words, and a judicious application of Brute Force and Ignorance we coaxed it into having two gears, first and third. A nail-biting drive home, but infinitely better than having to tow it.
Feeling that a job well done deserved some reward, we spent the rest of the afternoon riding around in the sunshine, out from Doncaster to Warrandyte, listening to the birds and the river, and the odd shout of abuse from the petrol-heads who aren't fond of cyclists.
Sat, 28 Apr 2001
Damn, sell in distress // at 23:59
I was all set to spend the afternoon sitting around doing nothing, when the last of the morning was interrupted by a phone call from a damsel in distress. Jo's car seems to have sensed that she wants to sell it, so with great skill it has coasted to halt and refuses to change into gear — any gear. As a result, it is sitting in Brighton, she is sitting on the train, and no one is happy.
Fri, 27 Apr 2001
The theme is beer // at 23:59
Finally got to have a social beer with cos, after we've been talking about it for many a month. Yet-Another-Franchise-Bar-Chain, a Belgian one this time, a decent place to be, and very enjoyable beers, but I'm not sure I like the increasing en-Franchisement of the pubs. As Ox said “what with all the Aussie bars in France, and theme bars here, pretty soon you'll have to go to Europe to get a Carlton.”
Thu, 26 Apr 2001
Celtic club for a pint and a song // at 23:59
The power of advertising! After spotting a special offer from the Celtic Club for a pint and a meal for $AU8.50, Jo and I went in for dinner. All that and live music from Stephen O'Prey (ex of Weddings Parties Anything). An intimate occasion, only about ten people in the audience, so we sat and ate and drank and chatted with Stephen during the breaks in his set.
Will I or won't I? // at 12:00
Tossed and turned all last night, a crisis of conscience regarding security vs adventure, comfy flat or bike touring... I think the bike touring has won. Now to actually do it...
Step one, eight weeks leave...accomplished! Damn, that was easy.
Step two, getting to Europe...not so easy on five weeks notice.
Wed, 25 Apr 2001
Lest we forgot // at 23:59
Anzac Day — Lest we forget. And guess what — I forgot my brother's wedding aniversary. Even rang him up to say hello since we hadn't spoken for a couple of months, but didn't realise what day it was!
Mon, 23 Apr 2001
MRTG // at 23:59
- http://www.mrtg.org/
- http://www.its.monash.edu.au/novell/monitor/
- Monash ITS NetWare server monitoring
Random cycling snippets // at 23:59
A bunch of random cycling stuff; after wondering over the weekend what had happened to the Wide Open Road tour of France in July, and making up my mind to mail them today, I received an update from them about their ride — now I have to make up my mind which has the higher priority — going on the tour, or living here in a place that I really enjoy...
Second event, a slightly wine-sozzled phone call from a bunch of people I met on the NSW bike ride, all having a social get-together, and deciding to call me from the restaurant even though they didn't invite me to the dinner.
Rain, more rain // at 23:59
More rain, lots more rain! It must be one of the laws of motorcycling that the time to dry out your shoes is proportional to the time until you next need to wear them. Today they were just down to “damp” by the time I had to put them on and come home again.
Melbourne's motorists did their best this morning to convince me that they have an expected life span measured in months, especially the semi-trailers doing 110km/hr in low visibility and high water along the freeway.
At least I felt something was accomplished at work. Finally had time to put some work into the MRTG monitoring of the NetWare servers. It's not complete (nothing ever is), but it seems to work.
Sun, 22 Apr 2001
Sunday too wet today // at 23:59
Drizzle, rain, and the occasional deluge. For the first time in two years I actually drove up the street to the café for brunch rather than walking. It helped that the other party present had a car with her!
So what else do you do on such a day but laze on the couch and listen to old CDs, reminding you of your youth and making you think more on Henry Rollins' diatribe on “growing up.”
...and to round off the weekend's theme of Nepal and the Himalayas, read some brochures in the morning about mtn. bike rides tours in the area, then went out in the evening to see Himalaya at the Lumiere. Not a lot of story to it, but more incredible mountains to view.
Sat, 21 Apr 2001
Mr Rollins // at 23:59
Henry Rollins — what can I say, he walked on stage at 9:30 and spoke without pause for two and a half hours. The man has the most incredible presence and intensity! Not only that, but the opening topic of conversation was what my girlfriend and I were talking about this morning — when does getting older equate to growing up?
Sitting around dowing nowt // at 18:00
A lazy day at home, sitting around listening to music, sniffling gently to myself with a cold. Too lazy to do much at all.
Now the thunder is rumbling in the background, so there's even less incentive to go out or do much but sit here, listening, sipping, watching...
Maybe I should play with rrdtool, see if I can rework the MRTG
monitoring that I've been doing of the Monash Novell servers?
MLP
www.ezydvd.com.au Noticed it in a magazine, must get around to buying some DVDs, maybe even a DVD player.
Fri, 20 Apr 2001
In need of a holiday // at 23:59
Another week ends, a relief — and it was only three days long! It must be time for a long holiday. ... Which leads to the evening's entertainment, sitting, looking in stunned amazement at the scenery in Evan's photos of his and Kyllie's recent walking trip in Nepal. Every time I see something like this I realise, there are no mountains in Australia!
Getting there was an exercise in itself — to Evan's house, not to Nepal! Forgetting that the football was on, catching the tram past the MCG and getting off to meet a friend at a pub right next to the game. Hordes of fans, footpaths blocked, beers and scarves.
Thu, 19 Apr 2001
Bleh // at 23:59
Hour long divisional staff meetings, red wine, cool autumn evenings. Such is today. Work drags on, nothing much changes.
Wed, 18 Apr 2001
Back a'twerk // at 23:59
Back at work after easter, and all sorts of fun and games have errupted over the Callista work of last week. Seems that the test environment was commissioned as the production environment, and now everyone is wondering why they can't get 400+ staff to update a 400M+ product, all at once, from a 486 NetWare 4.1 server through a 20Mb/s link. Consequently we spent the day juggling directories and trying to balance the load.
Picked up my latest photos at lunch time, forgetting my reciept and sweet-talking them out of the staff. For once I remembered to order a CD and it seems that the extra cost is well worth the effort. I must get around to getting all my other films scanned onto CD professionally. The first few of our daywalks in Magaliesburg look pretty good to me!
Riding home at dusk as it started to rain it was hard to believe it's late autumn, the air was warm, it smelt like thunder, the rain felt like hail. Could have been summer time.
Tue, 17 Apr 2001
Nothing very much // at 23:59
Tuesday, wandering about at home performing essential domestic chores, listening to music and fiddling with my website.
I'd heard on the radio that Joey Ramone had died, so half the morning was spent nostalgically listening to old Ramones songs — 1-2-3-4 followed by 2 1/2 minutes of noise.
The journal idea has been rattling around for some time, so after checking up on a few websites I noticed that cos had rewritten ordinary world to use php. It was all too easy and I'm all too lazy, so I just grabbed his scripts and modified them to work here. I'll rework the scripts so that the look and feel isn't identical. I promise I will.
Sun, 15 Apr 2001
Sat, 14 Apr 2001
Fri, 13 Apr 2001
Sun, 08 Apr 2001
