OK, I'll make this short with a longer update later today... Today's my brother's birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY :D My ADSL modem arrived and is now installed, just have to wait for the service to be connected. CRDB contract should be fully under way shortly. I received another 20 or so DVDs for review (I have no idea just yet when I'll get the time to review them but I'm hoping to do at least one a week - I'll have to set aside some time). It's rained on and off over the last few days: a welcome change from dry weather and temporarily provided more comfortable temperatures. I'm booked in for my driving licence test, but it's booked up so much that it'll be about another month. I still haven't caught up with my email (sorry to those that have sent some and haven't got a reply, you will get a response!). I need some sleep.

Quite a while since the last update... a lot's been going on, not least of which was Dorne's funeral today... I think I'll make an update later in the night.

Sadly the doctors were right... Unfortunately Dorne passed away yesterday :( What a terrible loss... :(

Again it's been a while since the last update. Wednesday I met with the Cooloola Regional Development Bureau and the Cooloola Shire Council to discuss plans for a new website portal design. The same day I also signed off the details of the CSC site, so it's 100% finished :)

Meanwhile, the week has been filled with the usual healthy mix of lies, deception and all-round stupid behaviour. Some people, it would seem, are just crazy. The things my high-school peers do, quite often, amazes me! All I can say is, you know who you are, you know what you were like when you were going to school in 2000, now look at what you've become. I have no sympathy for those that set out to disrespect and disregard themselves and those around them.

Thursday I went for a driving lesson (which went well) and booked my driving test. Because of the influx of people wanting their licence at the start of the year, it's going to be another month before I can take the test.

Tonight we headed down to Brisbane, but on the way stopped in at Noosa to visit my aunt Dorne. Unfortunately she's extremely ill, having fought cancer for several years now. It's catching up with her :( She's still herself mentally, but physically it's a different matter, and the doctors say that unfortunately there isn't much time left. It's something that we probably all had in the back of our heads but it's another thing to have it confirmed... :( It's a strange and uncomfortable feeling.

On the lighter side of things, it rained quite a bit on the way here. When we arrived the area was in darkness... half of the suburb has no power, perhaps due to a lightning strike or fallen power line. The only visible sign of power is the string of red pulsing lights on the transmission towers atop Mt Coot-tha. The other side of the suburb is fine.

Sitting in front of the glow of my laptop, I think it's time to call it a night.

Sleep tight.

Decryption time: 1 day 17 hours ;) *pats dual Athlon*

Have to get up early today, blerg. I should be getting a call from CRDB to inform me of yesterday's board meeting too. Fingers crossed for good news! :)

Still feeling a little out of it. Blerg. Getting better though.

Found a great feature of the WEGA Sony Trinitron TVs that I didn't know existed called "V Mode" which allows the TV to accept a full 16:9 signal and compress the scan range to the correct 16:9 aspect (so that it uses the full vertical resolution but not at 4:3 size, i.e. you get finer pixel scan detail in 16:9!) - it works incredibly well and looks great. I'm glad to be able to view full 16:9 anamorphic format at full resolution :D~

Time for some sleeep.

Feeling very sick... urgh... I think I'm getting the flu...

Meanwhile, time to let my computer brute force attack a PDF file. Having dual processors is really speeding the process up. Instead of taking nearly two weeks it should only take a day or so.

*collapses in to bed*

This hasn't been updated for quite a while has it? :)

*thinks over the last few days ready to start writing a summary* First off... changed ADSL providers. I got sick of the ridiculous set-backs and pricing changes and restructuring they were doing. Honestly, it was very unprofessional behaviour in my opinion, so I've signed up with a company that seems to be able to deliver and has a vastly superior image of quality. That is, Netspace. The plan should end up slightly better too... 3 GB on peak, 7 GB off peak (but uploads are included, not that I do much of that anyway).

In terms of work I've also completed the backend for the CSC finally, as well as any graphical changes that were requested. The only thing remaining is the initial splash Flash animation, for which they want to see some 'more ideas'. *URGH* heh. That'll all be over soon and I'll be able to get on with my life hopefully. Well, whatever kind of life I actually have here, LOL. It's starting to wither away to nothing, especially in the last month. Sometimes work has to be prioritised above other things.

Because I've been staying awake consistently late at night in recent weeks and because I have a perfect view across the lake to the other streets and houses from here, I've slipped in to a 'silent watcher' mode of keeping a close eye on just what happens around this neighbourhood. None of it's very interesting but on occasion something strange will happen.

Winter has been invading the air in a thin manner since Wednesday and has left that feeling of a "Winter afternoon" persisting. That'll be abolished soon when Summer decides to turn up the heat on us all again. Alas, Winter is still a lengthy 104 days away.

Bad news: my poor Sony headphones have been eaten... yes, you heard me. EATEN. *examines the torn apart foam* Damn those insects! >:/

"where's your head at?"

On Tuesday I'll be going in for a "skin scan". Simple explanation: it involves scanning suspect moles to ensure they're "just moles" and not something more sinister *raises an eyebrow* and believe me there are some that I'm a little worried about.

Valentine's Day? What Valentine's Day?

I have to say I enjoy the Winter Olympics more than the Summer Olympics. Summer Olympics involves too much running and throwing. Ice and snow make for spectacular crashes ;) Where else do you find ballet and people hurtling down ice tunnels in the same venue? 'nuff said.

And me? Everyone else seems to have changed of late, but I think I'm still the way I've always been, however that is.

Have a nice night and "I'll see you, in the morning".

Another long and strange day. Some clients met with me today to discuss a possible contract which looks like a lot of fun and is a nice break from coding. At the same time the ADSL service I signed up for just days ago has already been changed... why did I expect this to happen? LOL. Anyway it's not too bad I guess, just a GB less in off peak times. It could be worse.

My download meter, which I'm calling "Ignition" as a code name is working smoothly so far and the design is looking promising. I've finished the work on the Cooloola Shire Council backend, which is also great news.

I got about 2 hours of actual sleep last night. Kept waking up because of the heat and the crazy wind blowing things around outside. Maybe tonight it will calmer and cooler. Fingers crossed.

Today I started writing my own download monitor/meter. It's working pretty well so far but it needs a lot of work. There are a lot of features I want to get in to it :) Anyway, sleep!

Yesterday I signed up for XiS ADSL, 512 kbit/s downstream, 128 kbit/s upstream. Should be really fun! :D That is of course once it's installed, which is going to take a while. Because they're so busy, there's a 2-3 week processing time. No matter, that's about when my dialup connection ends ;)

It comes with a rather funny looking ADSL modem, that looks like a green stingray (seriously).

I had a really bad dream last night. It's the first time in... well, since I can remember, that I've had a nightmare. I think it must be the heat in that room or something, it's like an oven in there! We had a huge storm last night which was a lot of fun. I took a few pics of the lightning lighting up the clouds as it drifted out over the bay:



My brother, sister in law and nephew are up for the weekend as they gather ideas for their house. I may not have mentioned it before but they'll be moving up here at some point during the next 4 months. Right now though, my stomach is telling me to get some food, so I'm going to have a look around and see what I can find :D

Too many nights past 4 AM lately doing coding. Time to have an early night.



Another long day today. I'm waking up feeling more tired than when I go to sleep... never a good sign. My entire life lately has been of course more ASP coding. I'm going to be very happy when this thing's complete (and maybe going to sleep for a week or so ;)

I was emailed some more changes today (argh) so the backend wasn't finished as I'd hoped it would have been. My aim is to now have it finished by the end of Friday (i.e. today now).

*browses on large corporate website and gets annoyed by another "Alert! You should be making $4000/Week!!! Fill out the simple form to find out how! OK" lame popup advertisement* You would think the least they could do is make it look like my colour scheme, sheesh!

Got some rain last night, but so far none today. *melts* Again today I've been working pretty much non-stop on the CSC backend. It's nearly finished. All areas except three are coded, two of which will be finished tonight. The complete backend should be done tomorrow, which means excepting a few graphical tweaks the site's finished and I'll be getting the last payment :D

Looks like we might be headed for a wild storm ;D *rubs hands together*

Spent the last 48 hours working on the CSC backend. It's starting to all come together in to a very integrated system now, which is good news. The atmosphere is thick and there's lightning flickering down the horizon. I'm hoping for a really huge storm ;)

Meh @ hot weather!

All went well. Early night time!

The drive down was spent in heavy rain with many cars pulling over and stopping at the side of the road. In a lot of places the stream of traffic died to 40 km/h in 110 zones. Evidently there are different types of rain. Right now for example, it's lightly drizzling, which seems to suit the chaotic sound of police sirens quite nicely. But hey, I'm just strange.

The roads are steaming from the heat of the day. The rain's brought some relief from what has been an uncomfortable week of hot weather. During that time though, it seems I've made a new friend *laughs*.

Ordinarily I'd stay awake for a while longer, but now I think it's about time I shut down the laptop and slid quietly away into the rainy night.

One last thing. For those that may be wondering, I'm not as naïve as I imply.

A good day to start the month, a Friday!

I have some catching up to do with this garbage section, so here goes.

On Wednesday I headed down to meet with the Cooloola Regional Development Bureau about the redevelopment of their website. I've put in a quote and they have to meet with some other designers, then they're going to get back to me and tell me if I've been awarded the contract or not. The meeting went pretty well I think but I'm not getting my hopes up just yet (despite the fact I've already started playing with some ideas for the site - something that I always do regardless of if I get the contract or not). While I was there the proposal was to also get the air con examined in our other car, but things got a little complex (as they tend to do with French cars for some reason) and so the car stayed there for some further analysis. We headed back via the Tilt Train and met with my Mum on the train (who was coming back from visiting her sister in Brisbane). Ended up back here around 9ish and caught a taxi home (which seems kind of ridiculous since we had three cars here and no way of getting to them, LOL).

I've been developing some more of the backend on the Cooloola Shire Council website and adding features here and there as I get the chance to implement them. Meanwhile QANTM have emailed me regarding employment opportunities this year and it was suggested that I apply for a position that had just opened in Brisbane as a lecturer for the multimedia/IT classes. Thanks for the mention Steve ;) I've turned down the prospect currently as at this point I already have enough on my plate, even though I would love to be able to move to Brisbane. I guess I'll wait and see how things turn out. Meanwhile I've been informed by them that they may be dropping the lab supervision and tutoring here. Another interesting turn of events, no doubt.

Now for some more news! This weekend I'm going to become a godfather! *whacks on Italian godfather accent and has an attempt at humour* Seriously though, my little nephew is being baptised and I have the honour (and dare I say responsibility) of being one of his godparents (is "godparents" even a word? I guess it is). Being an uncle is one thing, a godfather, well... that just makes me feel even older! :O heh, I'll get over it.