It’s been a pretty good week for me. I haven’t had too much goin on, but just a good time really. Went and had a hit of a few golfballs at the driving range with Tim (who didn’t hit anything, dam Tim :P) and played a bit of “Chocolate Milk Cup” - a few challenges of chipping and putting, which I was whooped in.

Then a little later I went to the opening night of the Arts and Crafts festival wine and cheese night. It was pretty good, cos I caught up with lots of people I hadn’t seen in quite a while. They’d asked that a few blokes could stay over in the hall to act as security for all the gear that was in there. I had quite a bit to drink, and then scoffed some pizza that we got delivered. CEBS had been asked to do a sausage sizzle and dvonshire pikelets for the next morning, which I helped out with, making some delicious pikelets mix. It was awesome.

I was invited to go karting as part of a dude’s birthday party, which I happily accepted. Kingston park raceway is pretty good. Too many stupid little kids on the track though who either couldn’t drive in a straight line, or were slow and were still taking the racing line. Some of them were fun to overtake though, because they were smaller and in the same karts, they had better power to weight ratio, and it was like putting them to shame. That probably sounds really harsh for little kids, but meh. The last session we had, my seat belt didn’t work, so he just said “alright, don’t worry about it, but just drive safe”, and I was in a really quick kart, so I was getting oversteer and sliding action like crazy. There was even a several car pileup.

Last night Liam came over after not seeing or hearing from him in ages. The plan was to go to the driving range again, cos it’s fun, but when we got there, the bastards had closed. We played pool at home instead. Was a good night, and must not leave it so long in between catch-ups with Liam.

Simba is sick, so we took him to the 24hour vet last night. He has a pretty high temp, but can’t tell what it’s from, so we’re just letting him rest and giving him some antibiotics which will hopefully fight off infection if it is an infection. Poor little tiny chap - think of him, won’t you.

The internet is a small place, after all. Anyone who reads the blog even semi-regularly will know how fondly my family and I regard Fumania, their local Chinese food haunt, also affectionately known as “The Foo”. Well, I got an email from a friend of the owner yesterday, who was searching the web for “Fumania Chinese” and I turned up. How about that? Small world, am I right?

Snod and I are getting more and more locked in for our trip to the US next March. We even got fares for $1099, due to the lovely Charlotte at Flightcentre, working hard to match a competitor’s fare. Bestflights had an AirNZ deal, Brisbane to Los Angeles return for $1099, when you spent $350 per person on land options, like hotels and car hire. Charlotte did the same thing with QANTAS, which means we fly direct for $1099 :eek:, and only have to spend $300 per person on land options.

I’m not sure how to approach this compulsory $600 spend. Some options she’s quoted are more expensive through the travel agency than the internet - some are vastly cheaper. The expensive options are the ones close to $600. The cheap ones are much more than $600 worth, and probably a little fancier than we’d normally enjoy. Take Salt Lake City: we normally stay in the Renaissance Suites - very nice, 2 bedroom suites. About US$100 per night. In comparison, the Sheraton Salt Lake has it’s website price as US$189 per night, which through Novell’s corporate package is about US$140, and through Charlotte is US$108 per night. Do we spend our $600 on that, or on car hire for about 6 days, and stay at the suites?

These are the decisions that need to be made shortly. I figure we could see as many as 3 destinations in addition to Salt Lake, we just need to pick which 3. That’s the challenge at the moment.

I dunno why the title is as such, but today just seemed to go forever. Got a good complement though, which I felt like writing about, so here goes:

Yesterday afternoon, I rang work to see if I was supposed to start early this morning. They didn’t know, as they hadn’t heard anything from the factory all day, which they admitted was strange, so they told me to expect a call from Dereck, who is the after-hours guy. Anyway, I didn’t get a call from him that night, but I still went to bed early, just in case. I got a call from him at 5:40 this morning asking “why aren’t you at work?”, so I explained the situation to him.

So today at the factory, I asked them if I would be working the next 2 days, to which they said yes, and she started to bring up the topic of me being late, and she began retelling the conversation she had with Dereck, and both agreed that “it’s not like him to be late”. It made me feel good to know that they’re noticing my punctuality.

That’s really all there is for now… I left my room in a total disgrace this morning, and then realised that the cleaning lady was coming. Fortunately she apparently only did washing and ironing today, so I can clean up my room a little before she comes tomorrow.

So, Rob and Nadia are back in Australia, so that’s great. Welcome back.

I had Ribbett’s for dinner last night - I got the Pork ribs and won a free box of wedges on their spinning wheel. I’ve still got some ribs leftover for lunch tomorrow. Woo hoo!

Actually for some reason last night I was just parched. I drank like a litre and a half of cola, and then water and cordial following. So thirsty, wierd.

I’ve rearranged my lounge room, but it’s still not quite to my liking. Basically the biggest problem is that the piano doesn’t fit. And the foosball table doesn’t fit either, but at least that can be put out of the way when you’re not using it.

Family night tonight … see you at 4:45pm mum?

So, I’ve been working a lot lately. Up before the sparrows begin farting, and in bed before much of the good TV starts. Yay me
This weekend was pretty good. It really started Friday night I suppose, with a CEBS wide-game (a game in a park - wide boundaries, hence the name) which was really quite a cool game. There were 2 roaming leaders - one with a whistle and a bag of scarves, and the other with a torch and a score card. You had to find the man with the whistle, which he only blew every 2 minutes, get a scarf from him, and then get to the man with the torch before getting caught by other players without scarves. If you were caught, then the two of you went into “combat” - one quick hand of paper scissors rock. If you lost that, then you handed over the scarf, and the tenet “can’t get the butcher back” reigned. Quite a bit of tactics involved really, because some unscarved people would hide behind trees and ambush you as you neared the torchman. Good game, lots of running, and we made it up ourselves.

Saturday was an early morning water activities day at Wivenhoe Dam. We had 4 canoes, 2 windsurfers, and a little catamaran. Windsurfing is hard, and I didn’t go very far - mostly just a few feet into the water. Sadly, I left there after only a few hours to prepare for the STAT test I was scheduled to do later that afternoon. Was a relatively easy test I think (multiple choice), and so I finished pretty early. They normally don’t let people out early, but they must’ve thought I was disruptive, and caved in.

Sunday as Dean mentioned was the breakfast at the gold coast. That was good. While we were there, Jake asked if Jess could borrow my guitar, and I would’ve obliged, had someone been home to hand it over to them. So instead, she used someone elses. I got home and went into town and met up with Jake, and we cruised around town, watching a didgeridoo player. He was quite the entertainer. I stayed at Jake’s last night, and had some of our homebrew - it’s pretty good, and quite alcoholic. We were both nicely tipsy after sharing 2 longnecks. Went straight to work from Jake’s this morning, and now I’m tired.

Hurry up and come home family… I’m hungry

Friday was a pretty quiet one - I made this bomb-diggity pasta for dinner, and I’m going to share it here.

Ok, most people know my theory on pasta dishes … to make good pasta dish, you need either great sauce or great pasta. To make a great pasta dish, you need great sauce and great pasta. My meal on Friday had both.

Firstly, the pasta - I didn’t make it myself, but I did buy it myself, so that’s got to count for something. It was cheese and spinach-filled tortellini, for those keeping score.

Then the sauce - here’s what I did. I took a packet of italian sausage, and cooked them in a pan. When done, add one sliced onion and remove the sausage to slice. Return the sausage to the pan. Add mushrooms. Once softened, add tomato paste and a tin of diced tomatos. Add a handful of sliced peppers and olives. Serve over pasta with steamed green beans. :yum:

Saturday was spent entirely inside, on account of the heat. John had invited me around for dinner and Sopranos, so that was nice, even if his house was inconceivably hot. I brought ice cream, which topped of the meal perfectly. I’m a genius. :drool:

Sunday, I was up bright and early to the Gold Coast with M&D for breakfast, compliments of Accor. It was nice, Woo came along too, and we ate till we burst. Headed home via my cousin Richard’s place, where he and his wife had recently had another baby, Sarah. She was cute. Finally got home, after Woo and I, now both in our early to mid 20’s :squint: , both fell asleep in the backseat of the car.

Glara and entourage visited that afternoon, which was nice, until Lara rudely fell asleep with Charlotte on the couch. It was funny actually - Glenn’s first reaction: “Cool, let’s play board games.” We knocked out a Settlers of Catan match, where I did woefully (I think my final score was approaching 3 whole points) and they headed off. Blacky went out to old-man-Blackman’s place for tea, so I ate his left-over pizza. I enjoyed Criminal Intent and went to bed.

Ah, weekends, how glorious.

Oh - and for those keeping up-to-date with the foreign currency business, the company we ended up going with has rejected our first order, unless the customer sends a copy of their driver’s license and other such documents to them to verify the purchase. Things are never EVER easy.

I’ve got a slightly scratchy throat right now, that I’m less than entirely pleased about. Hmm.

It’s a market day tomorrow, but I’m not sure if I’ll go. Also dad’s got this breakfast thing organized for Sunday morning on the Gold Coast, but I don’t know if he’s considered the implications of having Indy on the Gold Coast on the same day.

I’m tired and hungry. :frown:

Anybody knows what the story with Bek is now?

It’s Rob Wilson’s birthday today, so major HB wishes to him. I feel a little tardy in today’s entry doing this: it’s just so yesterday.

Work-wise, things are going well at the moment. Money is coming into us in buckets full, and I’m currently producing a video demo of our new big feature that’s going on our promotional CDs. So that’s exciting, or at least, it’s exciting for the first few days and then breaks down into amazing tedium after that.

As I said to Godfrey in an email yesterday:

Air NZ is $1424 + taxes, makes $1612.03 each.

Breaking news that may make QANTAS more appealing:
1. if the dates are 02/Mar and 25/Mar (instead of 02/Mar and 24/Mar), QANTAS can go Brisbane - Los Angeles DIRECT
2. If we go AirNZ, we get no QANTAS club access for getting tanked prior to flights - disaster?
3. I have a $56 credit with Flight Centre
4. Frequent flyer points.

Charlotte @ Flight Centre quotes $1805.40 (including the credit):
Webjet quotes $1821.03.

Leaving BNE via Auckland, 16hr 45min Total including 2 hour connect in Auckland
Leaving LAX via Auckland, 17hr 15min Total including 2 hour connect in Auckland
Leaving BNE direct, 12hr 50min
Leave LAX direct, 14hr 00min

Question is this: is it worth $193.37 to fly direct and save 4 hours one way and 3hr 15min the other? I’d say that it is, what do you think?

I know, I know, it’s a bummer, but I’m just not well enough to entertain.

I’m better though, don’t get me wrong - even if “better” just means “well enough to go to work”. And it’s Rob Wilson’s birthday tomorrow I believe, so that’s exciting.

In case anyone is curious as to the proposed itinerary for the US Trip next year (maybe they want to come along :naughty: ) then I’ll outline what I’ve got so far:
dep Brisbane Wed 02-Mar and arr LAX Wed 02-Mar
(I find mid-week flights are better, because they’re less full)
Wed 02-Mar -> Sunday morning-ish 06-Mar in California, mostly LA I guess.
Sun 06-Mar -> Thursday morning-ish 10-Mar in Las Vegas-area
Thurs 10-Mar -> Wednesday morning-ish 16th Mar in NYC-area
Wed 16-Mar -> Thursday morning-ish 24th Mar in SLC/Utah
Thurs 24-Mar -> dep LAX arr BNE Saturday 26-Mar

The flight itself across the pond will cost about between $1414 and $1633 + taxes, and about US$350 on internal US flights. Anyone want more information?

At about 2pm on Saturday I started to feel sick. By 5pm, I was wretched. I had a sleep, and by about 8pm I felt a bit beetter.

Sunday I felt sick again. Didn’t really leave my room most of the day, and then fell asleep at about 3pm. Got up for some food at about 11pm, then went back to bed. Woke up this morning, and still felt pretty bad. Went back to sleep. Woke up later this morning and went into work. Lasted for about 2 and a half hours. Here I am at home again. Sick. About to go to bed.

Peace out. I have a Doctor’s appointment at 5pm this afternoon, hopefully he’ll heal me.