McBlog

A Dell technician arrived today to replace the motherboard on my Inspiron *again* – this time the problem was what appeared to be a loose network port. While I was in Sydney, the port was having all sorts of problems working correctly. It’d drop a connection if I wriggled the cable around, eventually getting it back and working until the computer or cable was moved. I tried different wall sockets, cables, ports on the hubs, etc. All the same, so I reported the issue to Dell and they arranged for a tech to come out and replace the board.

Of course, on the day the guy was coming out, the connection was working perfectly here in the Melbourne office. Go figure.

Back from Sydney and, at the office, they have a spare 6310 phone for me. While the phone that died was a 6310i, I’m very happy to get anything that works and is more advanced than the old 5110. It’s amazing how quickly the “cool new” 5110 became “that old brick” – two years can be a very long time in the world of mobile phones :)

Went to a recital by the “Bel a Capella” choir – a friend of ours is an alto in the group and they were doing a set of christmas carols in the chapel of St Scholastica’s convent in Glebe. All I knew was that we were going to a choir recital (which was cultural to the max for me, indeed). To discover it was christmas carols in a chapel – well – lets be honest, I’d not really have chosen to come on down and listen if I’d stumbled over it in a “What’s on” listing :)

Fortunately, the collection of pieces provided a good balance between the cheesy western “modern” stuff and some really great numbers with complex harmonics and tonal work. It turned out to be a fun event, even if the wooden pews meant one’s bum was numb within a few minutes…

Of course, the best part of the whole thing was when we scooted off to the Toxteth pub (aka The Toxic) for a few rounds and munchies after it was all done. Our friends, a number of the other choir members and Russell, their director, were there. At this point, all semblance of “formal” culture were thrown out and the real culture began :)

The real culture lasted until the point that the group at the Toxic broke up, leaving Kitt and I in search of a taxi to our next event. Fortunately, the culture remained with us as we hung out with still more friends at the Woolloomooloo Bay Pub. Much laughter and general catching up over booze and pub-food was had. A great end to the trip, topped only by the taxi driver trying to kill us a couple of times on the way home (when told of this via frantic SMS, my friend Cassie responded with “Welcome back to Sydney” :)

I’m up in Sydney at the moment working on a project in the AWU’s National office for a few days. Staying with my girlfriend and catching up with friends. Not much time for socialising due to the project so my apologies to any that I didn’t run into on this trip.

The last few days/nights have been Asian’d to the max – we had Japanese at Tsukasa on Thursday night, then Thai for lunch at “Eating World” (one end of China Town and half a block from the office) on Friday. Friday night we caught up with friends for dinner at a Chinese place on Pitt St before heading in to see the movie “Hero” (sort of a successor to Crouching Tiger – it’s a brilliant film and well worth seeing).

Saturday lunch was Chinese take-away while working at the office (told you I was busy :) so it was a rather enjoyable change to sit in a pub in Erskineville drinking beer and having pizza for dinner on Saturday night :)

So, I total the old HD, then my laptop starts having problems, culminating in a complete hard disk failure (format, load O/S, load apps, load backed up data). As if all that weren’t enough, my cellphone decides it’s above the rest of the world and refuses to talk to the network. I can connect for 2 to 5 minutes, then it’s had enough and does the cellular equivalent of “Talk to the Hand”…

*sigh*

Fortunately I have an old Nokia 5110 floating around for emergencies like this. It’s still got cellular network monitoring software on it (NetMon) so it’s kinda wierd to use on a day to day basis :)

I’ve just been told that a friend died yesterday. I’d met Sarah at a couple of parties and we’d hung out here and there. It was early days but I was getting to know her and her boyfriend Rob – fun people, lots of smiles and energy.

Rob had picked her up from work and they were driving home. A motor cyclist slammed into the car and Sarah took the full force of the blow. She didn’t survive. Rob’s in hospital and is expected to be out soon.

The last time I saw Sarah was at a friend’s on Sunday arvo, hanging out after a party the night before. Sitting on the floor, silhouetted against the daylight outside, smiling and laughing with everyone.

Life’s full of unexpected things – remember that and make the most of every day you have.

My DELL laptop is having problems once again (seems to be the hard disk and/or motherboard this time). Can’t these guys produce a machine that just freakin well works and lasts for more than a year or two???

I’ve written it up over in the Soap Box area as Don’t Buy Dell Equipment

Spoke to Nykolai’s teacher this morning and she told me that he’s doing extremely well with his work. At the start of the year, he was practically on level 0 with his reading and only getting about 6 out of 100 with his spelling. Now he’s on level 20 and is getting 79 out of 100. This is a most dramatic turn around and we’re all very happy about it.

Of course, the down side to this is that I’d promised to get him into go-karts if he did really well at school this year. Guess it’s time to go find a place that teaches kids how to drive :)

Confirmed with Greg at Holdies today that I would not be progressing the repairs on the HD (he wasn’t surprised). Now to try and save some money to get another car…

Just found out that it’s going to cost about $4,500 to repair the old HD (new rails, panels, gear, respray, labour, etc). That’ll take the total investment to about $7.5k (not including rego) for a $3k car which, when all’s been done, is still a pain in the butt to drive on wet roads.