The beanie prototypes have been made and the rest should be finished next week. Oh scho comfy!

I had a nightmare last night. It made me feel disconcerted and lifeless for a good two hours after waking up. It was hyper-real.

Another design contract was signed by a new client, adding another website overhaul to my work list. The client is great to deal with and has a solid vision of what they want.

Sometimes it can be better to know you have the power to do something than to actually do it.

The air indicates summer is upon us. Last weekend was my cousin Amy's wedding and all went well. Despite the heat it was a good day and one of the more organised weddings of late. The happy bride and groom are now honeymooning on Fraser Island, which is fantastic this time of year (still in whale season too, so it's great for whale watching).

The rest of my rellies are up here on holidays, fishing, shopping and generally lazing around.

More pinball fixing for me (and lots of "testing"; grand champion score now stands at 400077080), plus a lot of madskillz coding and designing, too. In many ways I now like PHP far more than ASP, but ASP's object model seems more sensible. Anyway, things are going well in that department, work is busy and things are moving forward at an ever-increasing pace.

While that's been going on I've also been organising more "products". I put that in double inverted commas because really I'm designing them for myself, but other people might like them too. So far there are two mug designs, in a week there will be two beanie designs (too hot for summer but winter will be back) and probably two tee designs. They're based on interesting designs and slogans, mostly. They'll be available on thehandle.com as soon as I sort out a few more things (it always takes longer than I expect because I have to push it to the end of my To Do list).

Fixing websites that other people have created, when they haven't a clue about programming, is something to avoid. I experienced that today when as I expected I regretted accepting to do it. But it's over now, I got paid, so who cares? There are about 3 or 4 websites on the go simultaneously, not including the ones I'm creating for myself, so my schedule is packed. I enjoy the multitasking elements; I feel like a chef cooking up tasty treats for my customers, having to juggle and time tasks so as not to produce a series of burnt steaks and collapsed soufflés.

Where this careful code-culinary unravels is usually located in someone else's hands, such as a hosting service provider that forgot to set up directory permissions, and so on. That, is life.



Too busy to add anything lately, but tomorrow I'll add something meaningful - promise.

The weather at the moment is unusual. Sunny one moment, lightning and rain the next.

My mouth was rid today of all remaining orthodontic implements! The final pieces to be removed, which had to stay in place for a while after I had my wisdom teeth extracted, were a wire and two little "teeth rings". It feels unusual not having them after so many years. My tongue refuses to stop poking at where they were.

I've done a quick update to The Getaway section in Other Stuff, adding some interesting photos. I'll put a "whole machine" photo online in the next few days. A tip: when working on a pinball machine, a multimeter is your friend!

Sleep, however, is next on my To Do list :)

Until tomorrow...

Couple of little things:

Número uno!

"The Getaway: High Speed II; Restoration Journal" is online in the Other Stuff section. I said I'd probably stick it online and, amazing as it is, I've kept my word! I'll stick some photos on there shortly and add new entries as I get the time to do things to the "red line mania" machine. There are some photos I have of fried connectors and really poor wire work that's so bad it's funny (I actually laughed a few times with some of the things I stumbled across while digging around inside it).

Número dos!

My second product has nearly finished its little production run, hurrah! More info on that whacky idea will be available very soon... keep your eyes on thehandle.com in the next few weeks! :D

The Handle (you can't handle the truth!)



Boy has it been a busy two weeks! The pinball machine arrived the Friday before last, rather than the expected Wednesday (it took a while for the money to transfer between banks it seems), which was infinitely frustrating because I had to go to Brisbane that afternoon! That's timing :)

It was an interesting weekend too; another busy one. This time there was a housewarming-come-wedding. Most of my family was convinced ahead of time that it was really a wedding, of course. One of the sources of entertainment when you have hoards of relatives is the gossip that inevitably arises. It would have been an anti-climax for everyone if it hadn't really been a wedding. But, it was, and quite a good one too! Lots of chatting and great food. Congrats to the bride and groom, of course. My eldest cousin and her fiancé :)

However, there was a downer. Someone had the flu and it quickly spread to everyone else. Now my entire family and most of my relatives are sick with it. It's not mild, either. It's surprising that I've avoided it, but with all of the coughing I suppose it won't be long before my infection will ensue. I'm doing my best to hide!

Meanwhile I've been doing more work and of course playing with my new toy, which needs a lot of things done on it to have it running like new again. Fixing the pinball is half the fun for me, so that's not really a bad thing. It gives me something more manual and electronic to fiddle with and I'm quickly learning about the more modern system of electronic pinballs (although the really new ones are different again, but they have the same principles). Internally it's coated with 11 or so years of cigarette smoke and WD-40, which is a bad combination for a pinball machine. Pulling the playfield out will usually result in it treating your hands with a rime of black scum, for example. In a few places it's also been butchered, but nothing that can't be fixed. It will clean up really well and the playfield is luckily in good condition. I'm going to keep a running journal of what I'm fixing and I'll probably put it online for interest's sake, with photos as it progresses. Despite some of its problems it's fully playable and already I have my brothers eager to beat my record (which stands at 225363080 and 10 loops, huargh :P). Good luck >:)

It's raining lightly and is cool and quiet. There are plenty of tourists around at this time of year, because it's Whale Season. In three more weeks it will be the September holidays and some of my relatives will be in town, which will be fun! I don't say that with any sarcasm, either :) I'm sure in that time the days will become significantly hotter and summer will sneak in. I was just starting to enjoy winter!

Until next time, over and out.