Standard logical rule that I believe has always existed: My friend then I drive to and from venue. Her friend then she will drive to and from the venue.

Actual rule that does exist: No matter where we are going I will always drive, if it is my friend I have to drive because it is my friend and she shouldn’t have to drive. If it is her friend then I have to drive because she wants to drink and doesn’t like driving at night.

Warning: Questioning the rule will result in anger, possible silence and statements of me being difficult

The guy sitting next to me asked ’sounds like you have a tough day?’ I responded with ‘nar, just a long one mate, that’s all’

I noticed that he had an interesting ring on his finger, maybe a skull and cross but didn’t get a good look, further long on his forearm there were more linked metal and silver chains. He looked sort of like a bikie without the facial hair, tattoos or attitude. He just seemed like someone who wanted to talk.

So he talked, I learned about his brothers, how all four of them were different, careers, physical appearance, some alive some dead but still a part of him. I learned about his sister in laws how they were different. Eventually we got onto his interest of what attracts people to one another, how nothing is as it seems on the outside. How so true I thought to myself. It was about this point that my stop came up (I was only traveling from one end to another end of Collins street)

I find the city interesting, not only for the places that abound.

They have worked, changing breakfast from anything-that-I-can-eat-in-a-hurry to oats and honey in the morning has kept me full at lunchtime. Cooked chicken and salad/pita for lunch with a protein snake at about 3pm has keep my energy levels up longer than normal.

But my biggest problem is also my most fatal, will and determination is that seems to be holding me back, that when things go crazy for a bit (fight with the partner, tough work day) I let my guard down and let the food in. It is this excat problem which has lead me to this predicment in the first place. It’s this realisation that I’ve ready many times and seen more often that not which has finally dawned on me.

This will be harder than I thought.

I got home late, when I wasn’t supposed to, I had told the fiance with every good intention that I would be home earlier than the 5 hours that I actually got home by taxi. I had driven the car to the station that night because I to believe that I would be home by 9pm.

So when I got up the next morning, obviously nervous about the telling off that I would get, which I got I realised that I also had to go and get my car, what was also lucky was that my fiance hadn’t noticed that my car was missing. So off I went, by bus, under the guise that I was dropping off some dry cleaning. Everything worked perfectly, I returned in my car and no one was the wiser.

That was until the next day or so when one of our neighbours came by, a family friend of the fiance. When it was mentioned that I was seen walking to the bus stop carrying clothes and why I was doing such a thing. My story had to come undone.

That’s the trouble with good neighbors.

School children…hundreds of them, unavoidable, loud, obnoxis, intrusive, space hogs. They are everywhere and they take up so much space, funnily enough the girls tend to be fine, nothing wrong with them as they fit in like any other normal passenger (besides being numerous amounts of them) It’s the boys that are the uncomfortable part, they push, get in the way, are rude, and when you have just woken up and all you want to do is try to relax before a busy day at work is need a buch of boys screaming about something or other. But they all take up copious amounts of room which cout towards trains being late due to numours people but also school bags blocking doors.

I just realised how old that last paragraph made me sound, I shall say no more to what I’ve already stated.

So how do I get around the problem, I catch a earlier train, like most things there is always a solution.

• Sell a print or digital of one of my photographs
• Do more photography, I enjoy it and find it relaxing, so why not
• Loose 10kg, get to size 34 pants, 15% body fat
• Start a small home business (photography or computer fix/repair)
• Get a job that I want
• Find and buy into a managed fun that has regular savings
• Find and buy shares into company
• Build the network that I’ve been thinking about
• Read 2 books per month
• Write more (journal and blog)
• Practice meditation
• See my friends more regularly
• Join the 365 project – take a photo per day
• Take a photo of myself everyday
• Build a stronger relationship with my fiance
• Continue to understand and believe in myself more
• Dig into my family history and record it – family tree with stories
• Learn a second language or two
• Ride to work or at least half way or to the station
• Learn to cook…better
• Develop a ‘early riser’ routine

I don’t know if I will get to them all or any of them. I’ve got it out there at least, out of my mind.

While my job may not be a teachers job in the way that I look after or teach people things, I like to think that I face my own stress as well. When seriously compared (or she is a better story teller) my things don’t matter. It’s amazing how your problems can seem the worst in the world and then when someone else puts them in perspective with their story. Stories of kids going crazy in the classroom, parents dealing with the mentally disabled children and the general teacher gossip that goes around.

I wondering what it would be like teaching children, everyone things that they would be good, I’m sure that I would be alright but who knows. Not me, I’m actually quite scared of children…well teaching them…parenting them. I like the bit where you can take them have fun with them and give them back. There is none of that with teaching, you have to be tough and kind as well.

I wonder what she would be like in my job, the daily stress of last minute requests, the strategy meetings, the juggling multiple projects, the pressure of the projects the constant meetings.

It’s amzing the amount of misgiving that people from different professions have about each other is amazing, I admit that I was one of those that would tease teachers from afar, but now having the experice of living with one makes me realise how much they actually go though. To be fair listening the primary/junior secondary school kids on the train maked me want to tape their mouths shut and staple their bags to them. I couldn’t possibly deal with because of a profession – I have a hard enough time dealing with the animals that I work with.

It’s with this same perspective that I look at all other people with a jobs – waiters, cooks, lawyers, train drivers, police, trades people – they all deal with the stress of their own type.

It’s amazing how dedicated some people can be and it became evident that I can be that dedicated, the couple of weeks that I have been doing this I realised the amount that people are prepared to give up for little gain.

I had been convinced to do this due the the great exposure and experience that I would get, I hated it at first. The mundane work, long hours and the exposure and experience that I wasn’t getting.

I stuck with it, the dinner at work, 15 hour days, 60 hour weeks. I don’t know if  made an impression or not but I”m leaving now because I couldn’t handle the work and I wanted to go back where it was easy.

Go back where it was easy, that part I don’t like, the part where I might have given up because it all got too hard. I don’t know how this will effect me in the future but I hope that I made the right decision.

I get home about at 6.30 pm (on average), anytime between now and 7.45 pm is dinner (cooking and eating). I clean up after dinner which will normally take me to about 8.00 pm, and then I’ll clean up and get ready for the next day (shower/shave/clothes). It’s now 8.30 pm, here is where the problem starts, I have to be in bed at 9.30, I don’t think that I’ll make it to bed by 9.30 because I’ve got things that I like to do at night.

• See friends
• General surfing the Internet
• Say out after work

I’ve started to have a very uneasy stomach, with it causing lots of discomfort, I’ve also had a lot of chest pain on the left side. I’m not certain if this is because I’m also unfit.

There are days that I don’t even want to come home because I don’t want to deal with the uncomfortable conversations that I know I have to have. 

I guess this is one those grown up things that I have to learn how to do.

I have also noticed an interesting trend, as we continually follow the same old addage of house party after house party, our numbers are dwindling, less and less of our friends are joining us to do what we do, they seem to be heading off to bigger and better events. I wonder if I can get myself along to one of these as well.

As with the the new year approaching also comes the through of new year resolutions, I will be writing out mine is a new post soonish.

By the way it is good to see the Sydney is going green with this years fireworks display.

That’s exactly what I have been doing, while there were many chances to get on and blog about something and there was always something that I wanted to write about, I decided against it either because it was too depressing, indecisive or I didn’t count it interesting enough.

Well I like to think that my time of rest is over and now I would like to do something more productive…and probably some more boring lamenting about my life…but not to worry I will try to keep it as up beat as possible.

My results don’t come out for another week and as usual I’m not particularly looking forward to them not because I think that I might have failed a subject (well there is that) it’s the whole process of going through and telling everyone my results and them congratulating my like I am 15. Granted I have failed subjects and this legacy seems to have lived on not only sometimes in my results but also mentally in others.

As I have previously mentioned I have two big purchases to make – not counting Christmas presents for everyone else, if so then it’s like 5 big ones – and consequently enough there is no one out there that I have meet who supports me on this one. So I’m finding it hard to get the motivation and drive to get behind two things that I believe are important to me. I will probably talk about these later when I can better sort out what I want.

But for now I have a lot of reading (of other blogs) that I wish to catch up on.

Check back later.

It has probably been about 6 months in all honesty and it was great, although it did get a little bit crowded after a little while depending on the company isn’t a bad thing generally.

Had a few beers, caught up with people and talked my head off for hours, from books to travel stories – probably still a little bit drunk while writing this.

I have missed the going out side of my personality, the one that loves a drink with friends and laughing the whole night.
I will have to try that which is holding me back so that I can enjoy a few more nights out and live.

I have one more exam to go and this one is going to be a ripper, about 80% of the class aren’t even sure if they will pass and frankly I don’t think that the lecturer thinks that we will. I have ab it of a busy Saturday planned so I hope to get in a bit of work in before that happens.

On another note I am seriously considering buying a Canon 400D to see if I can take this photography any further…if anyone has any advice please let me know. Although I am thinking that I should hold off till I can actually take better photos.

Took these photos driving today, have you ever seen rain clouds and you can see the rain falling as you are driving knowing that you are going to run into the rain. One moment you on a dry road and then all of a sudden…wet, like there is a virtual line drawn that seperates web and day. Hopefully you will know what I mean when you see the pics.

I think that this is fantastic that they have won some awards not because I’m some hip hop junkie (I am of sorts) but because it is great for the diversity of Australian music, I’m a bit sore that my favourite band Something For Kate hardly ever win often enough.

No doubt that there were some great wins tonight as well including Wolfmother! and Bernard Fanning.

What did you enjoy about the ARIA’s tonight?

Not done

2. Be debt-free. Compounding interest is like a sorority girl on Ecstasy. She’ll go both ways, but you get a hell of a lot more out of it when she’s going your way.

Check

3. Try the sport that you ridicule most. Golfers and skateboarders wouldn’t be so friggin’ smug if they knew how difficult the other guy’s favorite activity really is.

Check
Used to hate golf, thought it was lazy and boring, then I gave it a shot it isn’t as easy as it looks.

4. Finish something early.

I’m not sure that I’m capable of this

5. Let someone else brag about that cool thing you did.

Not anything that I’m proud of, so I will leave that as a no.

6. How ’bout a mercy flush?

Yep done that one…yuck

7. Disagree with the person you fear most.

Not yet, on the cards though

8. Read a novel with more than 300 pages, written before 1950, set somewhere other than the United States.

I thought that I could check this one but a quick look at the bookshelf and rattling of the brain has proven otherwise. I thought that Hamlet, John Donne or Aldous Huxley would make the cut but I’m not sure about the page count.

9. Eat brussels sprouts. To make it easier, pretend a gun is pointed at your temple and you have a choice: Take them orally or another way.

Check

10. You think you’re tough? Say exactly what’s on your mind when you’re at your most vulnerable. We’ll see how tough you are.

Still to do

11. Say “Cool tat” the next time you see intricate tribal art on the small of a woman’s back. She knows what you’re really saying, but verbal subtleties like this can mean the difference between receiving an amused smile and waking up in the ICU wearing a diaper packed with ice.

Not yet, don’t think that the opportunity will arise.

12. Embrace the male carpe diem death cliché. You will die, friend, and dozens of bungee-jumping, skydiving, scuba diving, rock-climbing, boxing, surfing, and motocross outfits are depending on your “holy crap” realization of mortality to make a living. Why wait? Fix your roof when it’s sunny.

Not yet

13. Go alone. Tell no one. Strive to notice the subtleties:

Toss the ticket stub on the way out; you were never there. We guarantee you’ll remember this longer than if you got permission or went with mates.

Check and it’s kinda true

This one is a little American so I changed it a bit.

14. Go a week without quoting anyone. When you consider movies, late-night monologues, sportscasters, bosses, wives, kids, founding fathers, regular fathers, Shake-speare, philosophers, and Homer Simpson, this suddenly becomes a lot harder than you thought, huh?

Tried but couldn’t do it

15. Pursue a woman not because she’s so hot but because she’s so cool.

Check…it doesn’t always work out the way it’s supposed to.

16. Buy a stock based on research you did all by yourself, from scratch. Restaurant crowds won’t fall silent when you speak, but nailing a six-bagger on your own beats Maria Bartiromo’s sloppy seconds any trading day.

Working on this one

17. Ask questions first. Save your bullets for later.

check

Taken from Mens Health

8 out of 17, just under half. So I guess that I’ve got a few things that I can work on.
I know this seems a bit guy centric but I’m sure that you could change bits and pieces to suit the ladies side of things.
If you decide to do this as well, send me the link I would be interested to see it.

Library – I am a big fan of reading, and have recently started to expand my library from just Sci-Fi books to other stuff. I had made this this area to keep track of what I read and my thoughts on the books and well to share it all. I will be updating this soon as I have time – to new version and more books.

Calendar – For those of you who have and use Gmail, you will notice the calendar, it is using my google calendar, I put this up because I already had it tracking events that I wanted to attend or be notified about. Since I like to post about things that I go to I thought that it would be nice to share them here as well.

E-mail Subscription – This was a passing thought one bored night a while back, since I would have liked the idea on a few blogs that I read I thought that someone might like it on mine so I gave it a shot, at the time I didn’t have enough time to figure out how to put it in the sidebar instead of a page and I didn’t want to make a separate page for it so I left it in my ‘about’ page.

I will soon be trying to change the design of the site mainly because I never seem to be happy with it, the one major thing that I do want to get done is to make the design liquid. By that I mean that the dimensions of the blog will change automatically according to the screen size of the visitor. I have had a play in the past but again, not enough time to make a good go of it.

Thanks for your time

But much love and much thanks to those of you who have been visiting.

Is about the self proclaimed third gender in India, the documentary follows three such hijras: Asha, Rambha and Laxmi. What I did like about the film is the fact that the photographer/narrator Anita Khemka was able to engage with the three individuals on a more personal level through language and familarity to bring out conversations and topics that I don’t believe would have been possible otherwise.

Most documentaries that I tend to see take sides or put out a point of view, but this one didn’t and I’m rather grateful for that fact because not only was the film interestingly informative about a topic I never knew existed but also sad at the same time. After about 30 minutes I could sort of empathise with the three people (they don’t refer to themselves as men or women) in a way and their strange predicament in society. I enjoyed how the movie was factual in the way that it showed both sides of the coin, their place on the social ladder and what they do to keep themselves there. During the movie I started to make comparisons towards homosexuals and trans gender society but as the movie progressed and I realised that the link couldn’t be reliably established mainly because of the way that they thought of themselves and dressed, also the history in their own country (and surrounding counties), culture and religion added more depth to their state of being, I suppose.

All in all I really enjoyed seeing this, I almost didn’t go because I thought about it and it was something that was unfamiliar to me and I wasn’t sure if a trip into the city would be worth it on what turned out to be a very busy Saturday…but it was.

Have any of you done the jury duty gig?
How was it?

After a lack luster Saturday night I decided to do a few extra things on Sunday that I was used to doing, I did some washing and completely cleaned my car out, now these might not seem extraordinary to you but to me they are, the car only gets washed every six months and my washing only gets done every fortnight, which is fine but means that every time each of these exercies are done there is a considerable amount of effort that is needed so to curb this problem I’m going to try to do a little bit more often – something that I want to try to apply to my studies.

Even though I had started the day off well I seem to have fallen off the ride so to speak, I have slowed down and as you are obiously reading gotten a little distracted.

Ummm…be right back.

Well now the computer room as been completely rearranged, I don’t quite need the complex network setup that I used to because I don’t host this blog at home anymore.
The room will now be used for more practical tasks such as printing, while still having a few computers in there, it will mainly involve experiments with clustering, linux distro’s, and just general tinkering. I have also made some space for the soon to be built 1TB file server, my personal storage is quickly running out of space, and I also want an area for the whole family to send back ups of important data, also my brother and I seem to have duplicate music files, so in the end it just makes sense.

More news as it happens later.

I’m not certain how many readers I have for this blog, I don’t think that it’s too many as yet, as I haven’t really been posting all that much and I’m not as involved in the blog sphere as I want to be.

The site probably won’t be accessible for a couple of days and will probably have intermittent accessibility for a little while, the server that it is running on also needs to be rebuild, at the moment it’s running FreeBSD 5.4 and I know that I could update it that way but I have a bit more HDD space in the box its self that could be utilised a little better so I’m going have to wipe that whole system clean and install everything.

How long it takes to get everything back up and running will depend on how well I have done my back ups which I will be preforming and checking over the next couple of days.

Currently my network topology pretty much looks like:

Internet -> Modem/Router -> Switch -> LAN and Servers

But I would like to change it to this:

Internet -> Modem/Router -> Proxy/DNS -> Switch -> LAN and Servers

Now this is all well and good but I’m going to have a few routing issues particularly with the mail and web server that is running which I think I will have to resolve with some dodgy NAT’s – this will most likely cause the intermittent access.

Over and out.

I have now finished 3 out of the 4 exams which explained the lack of attention that I have been paying to this blog, I have my last one on the 27th which is a fair while to to wait, so I can’t really work so I have decided to take a few days off to do a few essentials, such as clean the room and do some shopping for a few things.

I decided that I’m not too keen on the look of this theme so I’m going to have a go and creating a new one myself which should be a whole lot of fun in it’s self.

So I jumped on the Internet as soon as possible to notice that it was a buzz about apple’s new developments, and rightly so.
As for most things mac I headed over to Paul’s site

As always Apple love to make spash and they keep doing it time and time again. This time with BootCamp

And as is mentioned on OSx86

Windows aren’t known as a hardware vendor as such so this shoudn’t really effect their sales of the windows operation system and related software. If anything it should increase because people will need to buy legal copies of office, windows etc…

From high end to mum and dad the implications are far and wide which to me really means more choice, which we know results in better options because of more competition which is only a good thing.

I have been kind of involved in the project for some years but never really got practically involved, hopefully until now.

I have started buying gear for the setup, but then I got up on the roof and hit a bit of a wall, it looks like I am completely surrounded by trees which going to be a problem because i need Line of Sight to the other person that I am trying to connect to.

I have so far found it a little hard to get good info on the way that I want to do things, so I will try to document what I will be doing so that hopefully I will be able to help someone.

Anyway so far there are only photos from Europe

But there is also Avignon, Nice, Barcelona, Sorento, Valencia and England

I had kept a little travel journel on my journey just to record what I did and didn’t like and planned to post them here, but never got the chance so I might end up back typing them out and just back dating them.

More photos later.

I know that I haven’t updated the site in a while, the server died while I was away and I couldn’t do anything about it.

There should be a few updates coming along shortly with a few things about what I did on my time away.

In other news, good have released yet another product!

http://pages.google.com

Let you create you own webpages dynamically and then it publishes them, but you need a google account first.

So if you have a gmail or gtalk account you are good to go.

I am not too sure, but now it make sense why google are registerd to sell domains

It is a shame that the weather isn’t great though.

I haven’t got too much time today, and I am unable to upload any pictures, so when i get a more time for both of these I will do more.

Until then…