May 2004 Archives

Huzzah! Posting from the Sydney airport, waiting for a flight to Brisbane. Pretty cewl setup here... only $4 (payable in coins) for 20 min of web surfing. Gives me a chance to update the old blog in short order, without using any credit cards, or anything complicated. Unfortunately, the keyboard is essentially a flat metal panel, with a bunch of rubberized keys, spaced way too far apart, and placed too irregularly to be an efficient typing interface... but perhaps they didn't expect it to be used with loads of typing.


Got to try out a few bottles of Norman's (Dad's cousin) scotch collection last night. Of note was the Lagavulin (16 year) from Islay. It was a really nice, smokey scotch, apparently because of the amount of peat smoke which ends up in the resulting distill. Another was the Aberlour, which is made by the Glenlivet distilleries in Speyside. It was too smooth for me... I could have easily finished off the bottle (and probably damaged myself). Norman and R's favourite was the Scappa, another island malt from the Orkney islands.

Got a chance to drive out to Darling Harbour yesterday, then on to Manly beach. Got to see the inside of a decommissioned British sub my dad's cousin helped build. I got him to give me the tour, and he showed me things he did with the sub to get it converted over for use in Australia. Good to have a friend handy who knows more than the tour guide. I asked him if he had put any signature markings on the sub, such as a killroy or something behind a bulkhead, but no. He did, however, screw in the plaque with the sub's name. Afterwards, we headed off to Manly to watch a lone surfer on the beach. He went "down under" a few times on some small waves, then came out. We ate some ice creams and checked out the tourist traps. I refrained from buying some "Koala Droppings". I later refrained from buying a genuine kangaroo-scrotum purse.


Getting used to driving backwards, but still signaling lane changes with my windshield wipers.


Went to try on my suit at the Roger David at Westfield shopping centre, but it was in bad shape. Aside from being an ugly rental suit, with shoulderpads from the '80s, it was (apparently) mis-labeled 44R. I'm actually on the light side of a 44 -- more like a broad-shouldered 42. This jacket should have read something more like 48T, since it hung off me like a sack of potatoes. The pants fit, but they were awful, and the shirt was a crappy square-cut with a broken collar button. So I ditched the jacket and shirt, kept the pants and the tie (burgundy, eeech), and will have to pick up the rest of the suit in Brisbane, since I leave tomorrow morning.


Cutting it pretty close, if you ask me. Now I know why my brother wanted me in the store to get measured (I'll point out, however, that Australian sizes aren't any different than those in NA (confirmed by pulling another suit off the rack at the store). This was just a bad suit.


Today, we went out to Newport, and had lunch at a sea-side pub. The weather was cool and cloudy (15c), but not bad at all for "winter". There were flyers scattered about for the "Snowfest". I point this out because it's being held next week, and there isn't ever any snow around here. They plan on bringing in 30 tons of the stuff and scattering it around...


It's a little after 5pm on Wednesday... going to fly up to Brisbane tomorrow, so I'll have to find an internet cafe, if I want to get any pictures uploaded (been using Norman's computer up until now, and Windows 98 isn't very good for networking systems together).

Got to go and see Sydney and the Opera House yesterday. Pretty interesting building, from an architectural point of view: Apparently the original designer quit just after assembling the outer structure, and he took all his designs with him (apparently, they hadn't considered the concept of intellectual property and ownership at the time). They then hired a bunch of new architects, who then put little buildings inside the original structure, since they had no idea of how the interior was supposed to look. The result was still phenomenal.


Interesting tidbits about Australia:


1. When you arrive they spray the inside of the plane (while you're in it) with insecticide. They don't tell you what it is, but it's supposed to be safe ... and it kills bugs.


2. The average wage is much higher here, and houses, cars, and appliances are much more expensive. And nobody tips anyone in the service industry.


3. All tax is included in the price of goods. So if something's $5, it's likely only $5.


4. Beer is cheaper. And the exchange rate is pretty much 1:1 with Canada.


5. People apparently really do put shrimp on barbies....

Think this computer's clock is about 9 min off...

It's about 9:10am on Monday, Sydney-time.

Good day, eh? Well, after about 20+ hours of flying, with stops in Vancouver and Honolulu, I'm now in Australia. We actually missed a whole day, where Friday turned literally into Sunday (we'll get it back again on the way back, I'm told). Spent some of Sunday walking around in the local shopping mall, getting accustomed to all the new brands and stores. Interestingly enough, things aren't all that much different, except Billabong is really big down here.


Climate-wise, it's still pretty nice, even though it's supposed to be winter in Sydney, and the lows are around 10c, the highs around 21c. And there are palm trees. Also, birds. Lots of them. Big birds ... big, noisey birds. Cockatoos, parrots, and one or two mynah birds, all screeching loudly at 6am.


Ate some Vegemite on toast for breakfast, and going into Sydney to look at some of the famous sites.

Looks like my new internet connection is pretty stable now. Just bought a new schway router with built-in switch, so my old Linksys hardware won't cause any more problems (if that's what was causing the problems in the first place). Also, turns out my internet connection just got cheaper and faster. They upgraded all the lines so that I'm now a 3Mbit connection ADSL. Just need a new DSL modem. Unfortunately, they don't appear to be generally available in Ontario, so I may have to get on eBay....


Ah, well, there's always time to do this when I get back from Oz.... Hope the internet connection stays active while I'm away. I'd like to be able to post while I'm out of town.

Going to be in Australia for a little break. Going to visit my brother there for his wedding (yes, he lives in San Francisco, but what can you do?). This reminds me that I'd better get packed and ready. Ironic, isn't it, that I haven't even finished unpacking from the move to the new house, and I've got to get packed again. To be honest, this isn't the way I wanted to see Australia -- I had always wanted to take a month or two, and fly down sometime during their summer, and just putter around, checking out the little continent.


But I suppose this forces me to get out there, because I probably wouldn't have gotten off my lazy ass long enough to buy a Fodor's guide or anything. In any case, it's all pretty surreal, and I haven't yet grasped the notion of a 23 hour flight or a possible run-in with a Koala or something....


Actually, this reminds me of those old salt-flour relief maps we had to do in Grade 4 or 5 of Australia. They were part of the Social Studies program, in which we learned all about Australia and its wind currents, population, and imports/exports...


Also, I keep thinking of those Bugs Bunny cartoons where he kept meeting the Tasmanian Devil. That Australia always looked somewhat Polynesian, with loads of bamboo and thatched-roof huts... and there were elephants and monkeys and other creatures which didn't seem very native to Oz. Wonder if any of the animators of that show had ever been down under.


Now I feel like a Vegemite sandwich... Har.

Had a good time at the Peltz St. Pyjama Party on Friday. Got some nifty pictures of all my pals dressed up in their jammies...

Yesterday, my car overheated in Toronto. We were on our way downtown (we had just been to IKEA), when the rad blew. There was steam everywhere, and the "coolant" was boiling itself away.


This happened on Queen St., around 3pm on a sunny day, with a parade going on down on King, and complete gridlock around us. Luckily, CAA tows something like 200km for free, so we got a tow back to Waterloo.

Got woken up at 3 in the am, with a page from a customer. This is the same guy who once modified 8 live servers, shut the whole system down, paged me, then went for lunch. So looks like he left debug mode on, and filled up his /var partition with log files. No wonder it broke.

Now I'm in the office, checking all 8 servers for damage. I'm tossing around 2Gb log files, trying to optimize his system, so he can break it again...

My pager's been going off all morning. Most recently, some guy wasn't satisfied with the marketing information he got, so he paged tech support. Yah, that'll get you quick and friendly assistance, pal... I think he got my number mixed up with the 24x7 Emergency Marketing Pager.

Ok, so I've finally thought of a cool new poll. So get at it. Here are the results of the previous poll (you people sicken me).

"Semen as an antidepressent?"

40% - Sure
12% - No way, sicko
12% - I'm a good authority on this
12% - Tastes great, less filling
12% - Ask me about great long distance rates
8% - Maybe
4% - Never tried the stuff
0% - No

Ok, so maybe the system's not as stable as I first thought. System's been up and down a couple of times. I'm thinking it's time to get a new router or something....

Finally got the system back online, albeit temporarily. the main problem was finding all the stuff to put the system back together. I like to pride myself on being able to label moving boxes correctly, but I'm kidding myself. I have no idea where I put anything, which is why there are exactly 14 boxes scattered around my computer room in a half-emptied state.


The move was apparently successful, although it took quite some time to get out from under the pile of furniture, boxes, assorted macabre knick knacks, and artwork. Who knew I had so much art? I should probably hold an "Art Garage Sale", and get these things out of my garage.


The new house looks fantastic, and we've finished painting all the rooms that absolutely needed painting. The last room that got painted was the master bedroom, and it finally looks good. We assembled the bed last night and may move into it as soon as the fumes die down a little.


The next big step will be to get the place in shape for the house warming party.

Closed the new house yesterday. After a bit of a last minute rush with the banks, we were able to get all the money where it needed to get. Spend the better part of last night filling in the cracks and holes so we could get started on the painting today. I feel a little sore, but it should be no match for what I'll feel like tomorrow, since we're moving all the stuff tonight.


Still got the old place for the rest of the month, and it still has cable, so I have this weird idea in my head, that I'll be over there, sitting on a cinderblock, watching television every night for a few hours. I laugh, and pretend that would never happen.


Place is in pretty good shape overall. It has a really nice back yard. When I find out where I packed my camera, I'll take a few pictures.