Saturday, November 8, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
A bit of a lazy morning today. Jason had some vegetable trading to do at the market, giving me time to catch up on the world and and let the world catch up on me. We're off to Mt. Coot-tha later on to get an overlook on Brisbane.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Today was my day to roam around Brisbane, or BrisVegas as it is sometimes called. J dropped my off at the train around 10 and left me to my own devices. The train is pretty fantastic - $5.10 for a day pass on the weekend. Half an hour later I was downtown. I didn't really have a set plan, so I walked one direction until coming across the Museum of Brisbane (MoB). 
There were lots of young-uns around for a Dora the Explorer xmas thing, but I sidestepped all of that for a Ekka exhibition. Kinda like the PNE but bigger and with a longer history. Pictures of bygone livestock exhibitions, knitting & carving prizes, stories, and candy. One section had a number of historical candy bags, including one overtly racist "nigger boy licorice" bag. The Ekka in general seemed similar to the PNE so it didn't really hold my interest for long.
Also in the MoB is a historic elevator up the clock tower for a view of Brisbane. It used to be the tallest building in Brisbane, but once skyscrapers came to be it was quickly dwarfed. As such, the view was not spectacular - basically looking across at other buildings.
Walking around the downtown area, I stumbled across a lineup for R Sushi (a takeaway sushi place). I figure if the locals like it, it must be cheap or good. As luck would have it, it was both! The salmon & avocado roll and sesami tuna roll were both super tasty. I also stumbled across a music band playing in the Queen St. mall. They were kind of like Stars, but more mellow, so I listen to them for a half hour. They drew quite a crowd. Amidst all of this, Batman drove through the mall in his Batmobile with Santa in the passenger seat. Yeah, I didn't understand either.
South (I think) of Queen St. Mall is the botanical gardens, so I decided to walk around a bit. More luck for me - I stumbled upon a volunteer starting a tour around the gardens, so I got to listen to the history (was a jail site for female convicts) and get a description of all the trees. Lots of fig trees. Apparently the gardens is prone to the occasional flood, and another big one is overdue.
Onwards across the walking bridge, I came across South Bank Parklands, which is a great place to sit and hang out. There are swimming areas, cafes, shops, museums, etc. I munched on a tasty ice cream in the muggy heat and perused the vendors selling their wares. I very nearly bought a panorama photo of Lake McKenzie (just north of here) because it brought back fantastic memories of our last trip here 10 years ago. Perfect sand. Clear clean water. Most amazing lake ever.
At the other end of South Bank is the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). The exhibit there on architecture was really interesting - lots of houses and apartments redesigned to take advantage of the surrounding environment with minimal impact. Also at GoMA was a bunch of visual art stuff that kept me occupied for a couple hours including an awesome "Worry doll" series that I must follow up on. It occupied me so much so, in fact, that I didn't have much time to enjoy my coffee before catching the train back to Ferny Grove. Just as I hopped on the train, the rains started, and got progressively heavier as the night wore on. J&V said it was nothing compared to some of the heavy rains they get though.
There were lots of young-uns around for a Dora the Explorer xmas thing, but I sidestepped all of that for a Ekka exhibition. Kinda like the PNE but bigger and with a longer history. Pictures of bygone livestock exhibitions, knitting & carving prizes, stories, and candy. One section had a number of historical candy bags, including one overtly racist "nigger boy licorice" bag. The Ekka in general seemed similar to the PNE so it didn't really hold my interest for long.Also in the MoB is a historic elevator up the clock tower for a view of Brisbane. It used to be the tallest building in Brisbane, but once skyscrapers came to be it was quickly dwarfed. As such, the view was not spectacular - basically looking across at other buildings.
Walking around the downtown area, I stumbled across a lineup for R Sushi (a takeaway sushi place). I figure if the locals like it, it must be cheap or good. As luck would have it, it was both! The salmon & avocado roll and sesami tuna roll were both super tasty. I also stumbled across a music band playing in the Queen St. mall. They were kind of like Stars, but more mellow, so I listen to them for a half hour. They drew quite a crowd. Amidst all of this, Batman drove through the mall in his Batmobile with Santa in the passenger seat. Yeah, I didn't understand either.
South (I think) of Queen St. Mall is the botanical gardens, so I decided to walk around a bit. More luck for me - I stumbled upon a volunteer starting a tour around the gardens, so I got to listen to the history (was a jail site for female convicts) and get a description of all the trees. Lots of fig trees. Apparently the gardens is prone to the occasional flood, and another big one is overdue.
Onwards across the walking bridge, I came across South Bank Parklands, which is a great place to sit and hang out. There are swimming areas, cafes, shops, museums, etc. I munched on a tasty ice cream in the muggy heat and perused the vendors selling their wares. I very nearly bought a panorama photo of Lake McKenzie (just north of here) because it brought back fantastic memories of our last trip here 10 years ago. Perfect sand. Clear clean water. Most amazing lake ever.
At the other end of South Bank is the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). The exhibit there on architecture was really interesting - lots of houses and apartments redesigned to take advantage of the surrounding environment with minimal impact. Also at GoMA was a bunch of visual art stuff that kept me occupied for a couple hours including an awesome "Worry doll" series that I must follow up on. It occupied me so much so, in fact, that I didn't have much time to enjoy my coffee before catching the train back to Ferny Grove. Just as I hopped on the train, the rains started, and got progressively heavier as the night wore on. J&V said it was nothing compared to some of the heavy rains they get though.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Finally, one of the big work pushes is done and Telstra Investor Day is complete. We were working on doing a live 21 Mbps demo during the show, and things were going along swimingly. Until the demo, where we were hit with a technical glitch and only got 11 Mbps. Everyone that was working closely on the project was disappointed, but the execs all saw it working in rehearsal so they shrugged it off. Still, it was pretty annoying to do 50 trial runs in a row with no problems only to have the demo screw up.
Now that the demo is done, I can actually spend a few days in low gear. Yay! Mandy's homeward bound to represent at Emily & Victor's wedding (sorry I'm missing it guys!) and I'm flying up to Brisbane to visit my cousin and their new baby.
One of those odd occurrances happened at the airport though. No, nothing to do with rubber gloves. I bumped into someone who works at Sierra in the same office as me! She was on my Sydney->Brisbane flight, on their way up to Cairns. If I hadn't switched my seats beforehand at check-in, I would have been sitting right across from them! Very bizarre. I ended up getting a bottle of wine out of the deal too - she 'had' to move to the exit row because someone there didn't want the responsibility. So they gave her the exit row AND a bottle of wine for her trouble. What a fantastic deal that was. However, she had no more room in her carry-on for her next leg up to Cairns, so I was the lucky recipient.
Jason, Vanessa, and baby Felicity are on a lazy plot of land only a half hour from Brisbane by train, but it feels like a world away. So peaceful. Jason is very big into organic gardening and I got to see all the yummy things that he has on the grow. Lettuce, silverbeet, carrots, squash, pumpkin, strawberries, lemons, bananas, snow peas, etc. I must say it is pretty fantastic to have garden-fresh salad every night with dinner.
They're also into energy conservation (as is much of Australia), so they have massive rainwater tanks as their water supply. He's also very good with grey-water reuse on the garden. Very little water goes down the drain, and the food scraps go to the compost. At the moment they're living in a big shed, very much a work in progress. Sometime over the next couple days, I'll be helping him lift up some joists for the loft area they are building.
Now that the demo is done, I can actually spend a few days in low gear. Yay! Mandy's homeward bound to represent at Emily & Victor's wedding (sorry I'm missing it guys!) and I'm flying up to Brisbane to visit my cousin and their new baby.
One of those odd occurrances happened at the airport though. No, nothing to do with rubber gloves. I bumped into someone who works at Sierra in the same office as me! She was on my Sydney->Brisbane flight, on their way up to Cairns. If I hadn't switched my seats beforehand at check-in, I would have been sitting right across from them! Very bizarre. I ended up getting a bottle of wine out of the deal too - she 'had' to move to the exit row because someone there didn't want the responsibility. So they gave her the exit row AND a bottle of wine for her trouble. What a fantastic deal that was. However, she had no more room in her carry-on for her next leg up to Cairns, so I was the lucky recipient.
Jason, Vanessa, and baby Felicity are on a lazy plot of land only a half hour from Brisbane by train, but it feels like a world away. So peaceful. Jason is very big into organic gardening and I got to see all the yummy things that he has on the grow. Lettuce, silverbeet, carrots, squash, pumpkin, strawberries, lemons, bananas, snow peas, etc. I must say it is pretty fantastic to have garden-fresh salad every night with dinner.
They're also into energy conservation (as is much of Australia), so they have massive rainwater tanks as their water supply. He's also very good with grey-water reuse on the garden. Very little water goes down the drain, and the food scraps go to the compost. At the moment they're living in a big shed, very much a work in progress. Sometime over the next couple days, I'll be helping him lift up some joists for the loft area they are building.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
I am slowly killing my eardrums
I'm stuck in a telephone exchange with racks upon racks of telecom gear. The white noise in the room is intense.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Fresh Turf
Mmm, Fall League started off with games on the new fields at Oak & 37th. What a treat to play on non-undulating, non-chewed-up, non-rock-hard grass. We lost both, but that's to be expected with our team being placed in Div 1. We need better handling, better cutting, and better defense to play in the top div.
I also qualified for a $200k poker tourney on pokerstars tomorrow. Wish me lucks.
I also qualified for a $200k poker tourney on pokerstars tomorrow. Wish me lucks.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Shakespanime
Someone needs to create anime versions of shakespeare plays. In Japanese. With olde English subtitles. That would so rock.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Ultra line ride
It's been a while since I experienced the fun that is business travel. But it was just a quick direct flight down to San Diego, so I was toying with the idea of cutting it close and arriving around an hour before the flight.
Good call on going early.
I walked into the terminal and it was packed with people waiting for the check-in counter. Screw that. I slipped past the line to the auto-check-in kiosk (I love traveling with no checked luggage), printed off my boarding pass, and headed to the duty-free store, beyond which was customs.
And I was met by a horde of people.
The customs lineup filled the customs room, snaked through the duty free, and ALL the way down the hall behind the check-in counters. Holy crap, I'd never seen it that bad. Surprisingly, it did not take an eternity to get through, and we all made our flight.
Good call on going early.
I walked into the terminal and it was packed with people waiting for the check-in counter. Screw that. I slipped past the line to the auto-check-in kiosk (I love traveling with no checked luggage), printed off my boarding pass, and headed to the duty-free store, beyond which was customs.
And I was met by a horde of people.
The customs lineup filled the customs room, snaked through the duty free, and ALL the way down the hall behind the check-in counters. Holy crap, I'd never seen it that bad. Surprisingly, it did not take an eternity to get through, and we all made our flight.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Prairie Dance Club
We hit the Media Club on Wednesday to check out our friend Carl's band, Prairie Dance Club. Alt-Country. A bit like Wilco, but as Mandy puts it "more melodic, less jarring". They had a great stage presence, especially considering it was their second live show.
Potlatch
Last weekend, I was down in Redmond for Potlatch. It is always impressive driving up to a massive expanse of grass fields, where 100+ teams get together to throw around round pieces of plastic. Like last year, it was epic. Like last year, the level of play was high. Unlike last year, we won some games (two out of eight).
Have a look at the pics!
Have a look at the pics!
Class of 93
Damn, I'm so far behind in bloggin'.
Three weeks ago, my entire graduation class had a reunion of sorts down at Canada Place. We all got together to go see U2 3D. All four of us.
It's pretty cool to say you still talk to your whole grad class regularly.
Three weeks ago, my entire graduation class had a reunion of sorts down at Canada Place. We all got together to go see U2 3D. All four of us.
It's pretty cool to say you still talk to your whole grad class regularly.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Ding! ding!
It's car-free day, and what better way to celebrate than by Mandy finally picking up her bike. She's been waiting forever.
Gooooooooooooool
I've been watching the Euro 2008 as much as possible. But damn, it is tough to isolate 3 hours of time every single day to watch. I think I'm three days behind now (I'm recording them). Looking good are the Dutch, Portugal, and Spain - all entertaining teams to watch.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Pièce de cheesistance
I don't really have a post to go along with the title. It just popped into my head and I had to use it or lose it.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Thinking of Zoolander
While in Seattle, I saw a kid who must have been 12 wearing a "Frankie says relax" t-shirt. Geez - I wasn't even 12 when that song came out.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Bike to work week
'tis bike to work week this upcoming week. I'm panniered up, and ready to go. Hope I don't get lost!
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Fuck You Apple
When I install a program, it should not place an icon in my quickstart, an icon on my desktop, and update the registry to run a program on startup, all without asking me.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Ride away
I finally got out on my new bike today. I was kinda waiting for Mandy to get hers, but it's apparently on back-order. Grr. So I sussed out my potential bike route to work (or at least, the first half of it).
Verdict: getting there should be fine. There's a bit of uphill at the start but it's smooth sailing to the bridge after that. Getting home will be a slog though, finished with a fun downhill at the end. It's incredible how much difference a slight incline can make. Dammit, my legs are gonna be angarx at me tomorrow.
Verdict: getting there should be fine. There's a bit of uphill at the start but it's smooth sailing to the bridge after that. Getting home will be a slog though, finished with a fun downhill at the end. It's incredible how much difference a slight incline can make. Dammit, my legs are gonna be angarx at me tomorrow.
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