"Accidently" slept in until about 12:30pm today. Woke up and made myself a couple of brews with the coffee machine. After a number of brews, it was time for us to head out to the Bird Barn!

I thought it might be a bit sad to go out there, but it wasn't. Lots of crazy birds to see. Some really huge cockatoo's that could almost hold a conversation with their "Hello" and then "How are you?" antics. We found a bunch of little bird houses and checked with Uncle Paul which colour to get, "Red goes faster" was the reply.

We also did a bit of shopping, getting some little drawers and basket things to organise the house. Then when we got home we did just that, tidying the place up quite a bit!

Then for dinner we had chicken and mushroom pancakes (I mixed the pancake batter!) which...

I've got a bit of work to do for Prophecy now. It's just a reply to an RFP but I've never done one before so it's a nice challenge. I think I'm doing OK, but I won't know until I've submitted it (internally, they're not letting me loose on the general public just yet!)

I think I heard the kettle weeping to itself this afternoon. It hasn't been used at all this week since the coffee machine moved in.

Today I went and helped Sarah's workmate Ricki with his home network. He had high speed internet but only one computer could used it at a time. He'd bought a wireless network thing, so I went over there and plugged it all together so that his and his flatmate's PCs could connect to the 'net at the same time. I got some beer out of it, so everyone was happy at...

We've just got back from dinner with Sarah's dad. We went to Kura, the same place that Sarah, Bill, Mum and I went for my "New Zealand" birthday party. It's a fantastic Japanese resturant and I'm sure I've written about it a few times before. I ordered the usual staple diet of mine, big hunks of cow. Yes, the Japanese people can serve up a cow like you wouldn't believe. Still mooing and in a yummy onion sauce with ginger and spring onions on the side.

On the way back home we had to stop in at Coles (sorry, it's called "New World" here in New Zealand) to buy some more coffee. I've already used up all the coffee I bought on Sunday, though I guess about 3-4 shots of that were used up when I was experimenting the first few times. I'm almost an expert now.
We looked at...

Yesterday was my final day doing the big uber contract thing I've been working on. For reasons there's no point going into, the whole project has been put on hold. Yesterday was only just going in and handing back in the laptop, ID cards etc that I had.

It sucks the work is over, it was really challenging and I enjoyed going to work every day. I learned a lot though in the time I was there, plus hopefully it's only a temporary halt to the project. Maybe in a couple of months time it'll all ramp back up again.

So I'm at home now, not doing a lot. Hopefully something cool will come along shortly though, I know that Prophecy has a few irons in the fire so to speak.

Finally fixed the search on my website! It's been driving me nuts for a few months, turns out the...

We've back from our little trip to Tasmania. We got home about 3am I think, after getting our bags we got a shuttle. It drove us all over Auckland before dropping us off home finally. When we got home Sarah gave me my final present, an espresso machine! A proper 15 bar pump one. It makes the best flat whites, though I'm still not very good at it. I'll be doing a lot more practising though.

The last few days in Tassie were really good. We went down to Rob and Denny's on Thursday night. It's amazing how much their two boys Miley and Toby have grown up since I last saw them. Miley is running around and asking questions, Toby was totally excited when we gave him a little present and ran around the house screaming "Cars Cars Cars!" at the top of his voice. Very cute.

Wednesday afternoon...

Holy crap! I can't believe it but today I turned the big three oh! That's right today I am offically 30 years old!

We had breakfast with Sarah's parents and then took them down to the airport. Hobart airport is so funny, to board their JetStar flight we had to walk up to the International terminal, check their bags in and walk back down to the domestic terminal to board their flight. Sarah nearly got done for trying to bring a little credit card sized knife/scissors thing in, but they let her take it back to the car.

Once we'd seen them off we drove down to Richmond to see the Richmond maze. I've heard about it a few times but I've never been, glad that we did though because it was a lot of fun. We even got a free lolly at the end because we found the "secret"...

Hello, having a great time here in Hobart. Haven't had any internet access apart from GPRS at home so I haven't been bothered writing any updates.

Saturday night was the best night! Everyone came down to the Ball and Chain for dinner. The highlight of the night was the birthday cake. When they put it down in front of me I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a Boags Premium cake! That's right, a cake the shape of a huge Boags bottle. Sarah's just uploading the Photos to her Flickr account on the other computer (we're at an internet cafe) so I'll link to them in a minute.

We had a really good time so far. We got in late on Friday night, Dad came down to the airport to pick us up. Saturday we went to Salamanca Markets with Dad and Sarah's parents, it was a lovely day...