Still here, no, really :)

Almost a year since my last post – how slack can I get? Been flat out with IT Project Management and Ballooning work (plus a few other things) and family. Scored some travel too – we went to Hawaii for a few weeks in December for a wedding. Much fun and it’s definitely resurrected my … Continue reading “Still here, no, really :)”

Almost a year since my last post – how slack can I get?

Been flat out with IT Project Management and Ballooning work (plus a few other things) and family. Scored some travel too – we went to Hawaii for a few weeks in December for a wedding. Much fun and it’s definitely resurrected my travel bug.

Last few weeks have been busy with winding down my PM contract at Destra and running the F1 Racer balloon. The Grand Prix season opens here in Melbourne in a couple of days, so we’ve been very busy trying to fly or tether the F1 Racer every day leading up to the “Big Day.”

After the Grand Prix, I’ll be spending a week working at the Avalon Airshow – hopefully between now and then I’ll get around to finishing off all the photos from the 2005 Airshow – talk about SLACK!!! :)

Keep watching this space :)

Mice out, Mice in

We lost another mouse yesterday – little Frood was about a year old and we found her dead in the nest. Guess she had an embolism or something. Really thought Kissy would be the next to go (she’s about 3 years old) but it was Frood.

We’d picked up Lursa and B’Etor a few months back (whoops – forgot to blog that bit of incredible news) so we had four mice left (Kissy, Hoopy, Lursa & B’etor). With Hoopy losing weight and coughing often, we figure she’s likely to be next, so, off to get a few more mice.

Off to Up Market Pets and into the mouse zone. Kitt picked up a Siamese Manx mouse (siamese like points on the nose & ears, no tail, white, pink eyes – wierd man, just wierd!) that she’s calling Bella. Nykolai got a new white & black mouse with face markings almost like a badger that he’s calling Mini-Me.

Integration is progressing slowly with a number of “interesting” moments between them all. Perhaps it’s all true then, they *are* doing experiements on man…

Yet Another Car Hassle

Oh great, someone else has run into my frickin’ car – I was in working at Destra with the car parked on a side street. When I came out, I found that someone appeared to have backed into the side of my car, putting a massive dent in one panel and a scrape on another. No information left on the car, they just drove away. Did some checking and no one in the area had seen anything. Very annoying, but the car is at least still useable.

The Return of the Terra-Saurus

Nykolai’s home again at last – two months in Argentina visiting family in Buenos Aires and going to school there. He had a great time but was missing us very much (so I’m told). Arrived back today after a long flight in – fortunately some friends of the family were flight attendants on the aircraft from Buenos Aires to Auckland, so they got bumped to business class (lucky buggers). Had to wait a few hours in Auckland ‘cos their QANTAS aircraft was delayed, but they got here eventually.

So good to have him back :)

Winter Fogs

Amazing – it’s been a whole week since we last flew the balloons. Every day this week has been foggy, ranging from haze (about 4k to 5k visibility & 80% to 100% cloud cover around 300′ to 500′) through to the complete pea-soup variety (100 to 200 meter vis and 100% cloud cover at 100′).

We tried on Monday as it looked like the fog wasn’t going to roll in – hah – part way through inflation it rolled in and we had to cancel, packing up everything and heading home. Since then, it’s been like living in a hazy white pingpong ball. Even in the afternoon it’s still been hazy with only about 6k to 8k visibility.

At least now it looks like we’re done with the fog – no fog predicted for tomorrow. Nope – no fog – the high winds and rain are driving it away…

*sigh*

7 days without flying – wonder if I’ll remember what to do when we launch next… :)

Bit of Winter Work

I’ve been wondering how I’ll manage to pay the bills during Winter when we’re not doing as many balloon flights. Well, totally out of the blue I wind up working with Destra Media doing some project management on a few sites they’re developing. I got a call asking if I could help out – hell yes :)

I’ve been there about three weeks now and it’s a lot of fun, even when the pressure’s on. We’ll see how it goes as it’s consulting work so they could decide to end it at any time. Meanwhile, on we go and I’m able to pay my bills, clear some debt and get through winter with a smile :)

New home network storage

So, here I am thinking that it’s time to update my home network’s file server. My antique Pentium 1 box is starting to show it’s age. Sure, it’s OK and is managing when it’s only me accessing it but put a few more people on it and it dies. It’s got a great, old mega-tower case with heaps of space for hard drives, but it’s power supply is running *really* noisy. This plus the slow-down when transferring huge files or supporting multiple clients and, well, sure, it’s time to kill it.

Talk about serendipity, I stumble over FreeNAS, a FreeBSD based network storage system. Awesome system. You download a 30Mb ISO, burn it onto CD, boot from it and (with a few checks of the manual :) set up your server. Once you’ve got the network card selected and IP address specified, you can start managing it via the web based interface.

Wow – talk about easy – want to add new hard drives? Piece of cake. Want some of them in a RAID structure? Hell yeah – sure, it’s software based, but with a Pentium III and 256Mb of RAM, who cares ‘cos damn it’s fast. Plus, it’s a breeze to add support for Windows, Apple, FTP, etc. Litterally just clicking and configuring and it’s done.

So so so happy with this. Definitely a recommended way of converting an older machine into a useful network file server.

General Update

Still here, still ticking along. The work as crew chief with Balloon Sunrise is going well and I’m working my way towards a commercial balloon pilot license. I’m no longer with the AWU but am still doing some tech support for Crumpler.

I had applied to become an Air Traffic Controller and made it right through to the end. After a number of all-day exam sessions, I wound up getting rejected due to not having the right personality match for the position. Basically, they figured I’d not be comfortable being shoved into their mould and would get bored and want to leave. It was a bit of a shame but well worth doing. I’ve logged the experience and am in the process of revamping my Fly Me Friendly section so it’ll show up there eventually.

Nykolai is with his mom in Buenos Aires (Argentina) visiting family for a month. Kinda wierd not having him around.

The car is running well after a recent tune up – still got lots to go on it – new exhaust, new suspension, probably new brakes then fix up the body work. Slowly getting there with it as funds permit.