Roll the f*ck on Christmas, that's what I say. There is so much shit flying around at work at the moment. I suppose it's the same everywhere, everyone wants to get everything done before people wind down for the Holidays. The fact that I have already wound down and don't actually give-a-shit anymore hasn't really hit anyone yet though. Oh well, they'll figure it out.




I brought myself a new lounge suite the other day. Yaaaaahhh!!! It's not anything special, but it's 1 couch and 2 chairs. All nice wood and stuff, and the whole lot was cheap ($300) for a pretty nice little setup. One day when I get keen I'll sand them back and repolish/paint the wooden bits so I have a nice respectable couch. Until then I have the old one, which everyone agrees is hell comfortable.


I'm going to put it out on the deck though...

I brought the webcam home last night. There's no point having it out at Penrose because I can't get it to work like it used to. Anyway, this morning I was stuffing around with it and took a couple of pictures. Enjoy. They all have comments to explain.

Only a few days to go until I fly into Tassie! Woohoo I can't wait to get there. Qantas has already rung me up about 6 times to redo the times and everything, it's not going to be a Qantas plane, it's Air Canada or something. I keep saying to them "Is it a plane? Does it have wings? Then I don't care!" I suppose that's being rude, but there is customer service, then there is customer annoyance. Anyway.



Did I mention the flat has a Christmas tree now? Me and Bia went and brought the smallest little one we could on Sunday. Now all it needs is some lights and some decorations. I don't really know why we bothered, I'll get to look at it for another 6 days before it's time to throw the thing out. Oh well, it's all in the Christmas Spirit, or something.



The Auckland...

Well lots of interesting things have been happening in the last few days, I'm really not quite sure where to start. I suppose I should start with Friday when Bianca flew in from Brazil to New Zealand. Who the hell is Bianca I hear you ask? She's a medical student from Brazil, over here for 2 months to do an internship at Middlemore Hospital. How the hell do I know Bianca I also hear you ask. Well that would be telling, wouldn't it? She started talking to me about 8 months ago on ICQ and we have been good online friends since then. When she came over here she needed a place to stay so I now have a flatmate for the next two months! And a Dr too, so if myarm suddenly falls off it will handy to have a Dr to sew it back on. Or something. Hoping...

...TelstraClear. Oh, what a name to rally around.

We had a presentation today about the future of the company etc etc. It was wonderful. We were all the told the name that we all knew already.

Checkout our fantastic and exciting website. Even my website is more exciting, and that's saying something.

Anyway, now you know what we're called. Yaaah.

Yes, I know what our new company name is going to be. No, I can't tell you, it's all a secret still. Oh yes and by the way, it was made offical, the commerce commission approved the deal so it's done.

I'm finally allowed to announce that my good friends Robin and Denny are expecting a baby sometime next year! I'm sure Denny will be happy to comment below and tell everyone all about it. Cause really, I know squat about babies. I mean, I love them and all, as long as I can give them back to whoever they belong to. So big congrats to them, I wish them all the best for the future.




And really that's about the only exciting news that I can be bothered writing about. I've been working way to much the last few days, too many late nights and early starts. All this...

Yes I've been very slack and haven't written anything for a few days. My apologies, I'll try to get off my butt and keep this more up to date. Like anyone really gives a shit anyway.

Friday night the stress started, we have problems with some cables (I think I already wrote about this somewhere) and we need to shutdown our links across those cables and move them onto other links. There was a lot of running around and arm flapping, but we got it sorted out on Saturday after a bit of testing and configuring. I was going to use the word "playing" but management doesn't like it when we say we "played with" the network.

Saturday was the Auckland NTG (Networks and Technology Group) Christmas Party. And what a great party it was too. The first keg we got had a big hole in it, and started to...

Last night was the NZ-Nog Christmas party, sponsered by the company everyone (well, us nerds) loves to hate, Cisco. It was held up at the Cisco offices right opposite where I used to live in town. We all chucked our business cards into a dish for a couple of prizes, and my name was drawn out to win the Cisco IP Phone. It's like a normal phone, but it works on the Internet. I'm gonna plug it in tomorrow and have a play with it.

It was a good time anyway, it was good to meet a lot of the people who I only deal with online etc.


Oh yea, nznog is the New Zealand Network Operators Group. Basically anyone in networking in New Zealand was there, about 20-30 people turned up.


By the time I left I was "as tired as a newt" after many bevvies sponsered by Cisco...

Yes! After many months of debate, many months of hoping and many months of worry, finally we have made it. Yes, Tasmania be proud. Stand up and cheer. We have done it.

Yes, we have made.... Pylon of the Month.

Did I mention I love working through until 5am? It's so fun. And because I've got a 15 minute wait until my cab comes I'm taking that time to write this really quick rant. It's really not about much, buy hey. It gives me something to do rather than fall asleep in my chair.


The whole upgrade-all-the-network went really smoothly for once... I'm amazed. Computers are never like that, they always do something really stupid that you just don't expect. But not tonight. It took us a fair bit longer than we expected (I'd hoped to get out of here about 3am) but at least we got it done in the scheduled time.

I didn't bother to go out to the SPCA today, I rang up and said I couldn't make it. It was pissing with rain (of course) and I don't really feel like driving my dodgy car in...