McBlog

Put Nykolai and Rocio (his mom) on the plane to Argentina this morning. Been up since 3am to pick them up from her place, get them out to the airport and then head into the office early, work all day and get a pile of things sorted out before going down to the club to get through meetings and preparation for the next Platinum Exclusive dance party.

Still got to get the Platinum members area up and running as well as prepare some export/import routines for the WOK -> Movable Type conversions over at c2o. All this plus work for the union and the actual party itself on Friday night. I must be mad :)

One of Melbourne’s “classic” days today – alternating between rain and dry in the morning with some moments of bright sun and heat then back into the cold wind and grey skies. Perfect time to spend waiting in the offices of lawyers and government departments…

Yes, Nykolai’s all ready to travel. I managed to get his passport sorted out last week and today we did the “permission to travel” form – had to go and get it notorised then go into a government department to get it stamped and authenticated for use when he and his mom travel to Argentina.

I’ve got installations of the Movable Type system down to a fine art – very simple now. Of course, that means it’s time for something else to take over and that looks like it will be the need for a way to export data from our WOK sites so MT can import it. Not sure how well MT’s importer will handle bringing in photos.

Add to that how we’ve been using the GoreCoreNet (intranet at the office) to develop sites then deploy them into “real world” test/release. Unfortunately, JC’s doing a lot of copying and pasting to move templates from the intranet out to the testing/working sites. I need to find some way of removing that.

Have finally managed to get mrtg installed but am still figuring it out (and SNMP :) so I can track the right things. I want to have it running and gathering data so I can see where we need to work to get the best results, etc. Once that’s in, I can start doing the Clam AntiVirus and Spam Assassin upgrades.

Managed to get our WSIS Portal domain defined and the initial space ready to go (with MT loaded, of course). Now Andrew and Justina are doing the layout and loading content. Next issue is to find out how well we can share data with the rest of APC who are using the Action Apps system for their CMS.

NOTE: The WSIS site is under construction and not available for public access at this point.

Ran out of time to do the proposal for training in Sydney – guess it wasn’t to be. Oh well, lots of other things to do yet :)

Went to the last of the “music in the park” sessions that have brought so much fun to our Sunday arvos. It was a beautiful day – a perfect end to the summer sessions – blue skies, some clouds, very warm and lots of sun. I got there part way through Andrew Garton’s set and stayed for a while. Andrew was followed by Steve Law then the music settled into a series of DJ’s as darkness fell around us (whoops, there goes daylight savings – gotta adjust to less light).

Felt good to be in a park again – playing frisbee, playing soccer and catching up with friends. Nykolai was with me and he had a blast too. Definitely sad to see these sessions ending, not that I got to as many of them as I wanted…

Rolling our CMS platforms over to the Movable Type engine (aka MT). I’m in the middle of producing an exporter to take data out of our custom CMS tool (the WOK) and format it so MT’s importer can load it all up. Hardest bit is matching the different structures and methods for doing basically the same thing…

Also trying to get mrtg loaded so I can monitor where our bandwidth is going, plus upgrade to the latest Clam AntiVirus and Spam Assassin.

Add to the above our involvement in a local WSIS monitoring and information portal, plus trying to prepare a sponsorship proposal for a trip to Sydney for some training – no rest for the wicked.

And it was going to be a nice, relaxing month… :)

OK – it’s official – Yes, I’m SLACK!!!

What more can I say than it’s been one hell of a ride since Christmas. Hmmmm – where to begin…

First of all, my company Tao Ceti has been placed into liquidation by the tax office ‘cos they thought it was trading while insolvent. Go figure – there I was earning just enough to survive, cover current costs and start paying back a few debts, all while trying to get some new work in to rebuild from the past couple of problems but because I couldn’t give them their money immediately, bang, it was “shut you down boyo!”

At least the folks at Pitcher Partners have been very helpful in getting all the paperwork sorted out, contacting organisations the company owed, etc. Realistically, it was just me doing all the work so there wasn’t much to be wound up. Now to see what comes out when all the dust settles and the paperwork is officially completed.

The work at DHS fell through – warning – never get caught in politics when working for a friend at a government department. Second time it’s happened to me. Never again.

Fortunately, I’m still able to work with the AWU as “geek” (check out the details for more juice) plus I’ve been able to keep up the effort necessary for Toy Satellite’s projects – again, check out the details for more juice :)

As if all that wasn’t enough, I’ve been kept pretty busy lately working as part of the Platinum Exclusive team, putting on events and trying to grow a sustainable entity in the adult erotic lifestyle world. Amazing what you can wind up doing when you start DJ’ing in that scene :)

There is some escape time for me though – I’m still running a bunch of kids through a fantasy world setting that I’ve been creating. Role playing is great for stimulating creative thinking, problem solving and so on. Of course, as Game Master I’ve got a lot on my shoulders as I’ve chosen to create a whole world from scratch and have been building the modules the players explore myself. Still, it sure beats a fortnightly poker game or just sitting around watching TV :)

Finally, I’ve been running around a bit getting Nykolai’s passport and “permission to travel” forms ready – he and his mom are going to Argentina for a month on Wednesday next week (31st March). It’s all coming together but not without some time spent in waiting rooms.

So there you go – it’s certainly been a roller coaster ride since Christmas and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping. Personally, that’s a good thing – I’d get bored if it was all the same. Mind you, I certainly wouldn’t mind another relaxing Sunday like the one I managed to have a couple of weeks ago – it was one of the best days I’ve had in ages. Can’t wait to do it again :)

At last, a new mix is out – “Ten Pin Divas” has been released and people are starting to check it out. It was recorded live during one of my sets at Strike Bar on Chapel St. I’m not 100% happy with it as it’s a bit commercial and the sound quality in the middle gets a bit dodgy as I think I had “mega-bass” turned on while recording on the minidisc player. Whoops. Still, people seem to be liking it, so that’s a plus.

This mix now joins my previous two releases (“Poolside Divas” and “Santa’s Little Divas” – done back in 2002/2003) to continue the Divas series. I’m still working on those other mixes and expect to get them out in a similar fashion (eg: prepare them and then record them live at Strike :)