TeamWalrus

Yesterday I woke up. My back was sore. I was tired and unable to wake up. Felt like I was still half asleep until about halfway through the day. I took some chocolate scroll cake to work with me and ate it when I had my cup of tea in the morning.

Today I woke up. I actually woke up from my pre-alarm which rarely happens. Feeling good and awake. I bought a lamington on the way to work and ate it when I had my morning cup of tea.

Today was a much better day.

I went to the gym tonight. I’ve slowed down my routines so I’m taking a 60 second break between reps. And feeling much better after I finish at the gym. Not sickly like I’ve done too much. I was on my last set of weights, a bit heavier than normal, and considered doing another couple of sets. But in the last couple of lifts I got a shooting pain down my arm. So decided that was enough for today. Looking forward to going back tomorrow. My left wrist has also been feeling better the last few days. No more shooting pain when I take off a t-shirt. Just a minor sprain from a week ago I reckon.

When I got home from work I decided to cook myself a nice steak for dinner and have a relaxing bourbon to go with it. The beverage was so nice I had another. And then another. And then there wasn’t much left in the bottle so decided to finish it off. Last night was the monthly social at a studio I take classes at, but I was in no condition to drive. The train would be too slow so I caught a taxi there. A great night of dancing. It was too hot. Even though the studio is airconditioned I had to stop dancing at 11.30pm because I was over heating. I walked to the public transport area where the train station, bus stops and taxi rank is. Waited 20 minutes for a taxi but none came. So walked over to the train station and got a ticket. A train was only another 7 minutes away so didn’t have to wait long. A good night. Not much else planned for the weekend. Maybe a trip to the movies and the gym.

Well not quite. Last year when Google released their Goggle product I commented that it would be neat to have an application that you can use to take a photo of someone and it would be able to pull back their facebook, blog, etc details. Well someone is doing exactly that. An application for the Android Mobile platform called Recognizr is being developed.

It looks really neat. Here’s a youtube showing a taste.

How does the saying go; no man is an island? I think I’m an island. I went to farewell gathering for someone who was leaving Sydney. She commented that she’d been in Sydney for 3 years and had made 4 friends in that time. One of the reasons she was leaving was because of how hard it is to make connections in this city. And this from a young, attractive, smart and fun to be around person. Doesn’t leave much hope for grumpy introverts like me. Its not uncommon for me to not talk to entire soul over the weekends. I’ve been told by people who have lived here their whole life that its not an easy place to connect to people. Or if I do then its usually on the phone to people 2000km away. Is it just Sydney or is it a symptom of all big cities? Its a shame because on the surface people are nice and friendly. Just a pity its hard to go any further.

Last Thursday was the first of the ‘last Thursday of the month’ social dance. That’s not its official name of course, but it’s the name I’ve decided to call it by. A new venue this year. The socials will be at the Castle Hill Tavern. By chance I had actually been there once before for dinner so knew where it was. I decided to go early and get dinner there. Had the most delicious steak with Diane sauce. Mmmmmmm that sauce was yumbo. I think I shall make it my monthly adventure to go early and have dinner there before enjoying an evening of salsa dancing.

The Spanish class did not go so well this week. I’ve printed out the phrases on large A4 pages and stuck them on the walls in the lounge so I see them all the time. I’ve been repeating them a lot over the last week but it hasn’t had much effect. I think just repetition is not enough for it to sink in for me. At class I was basically useless. I couldn’t remember the most simple of phrases. I’ve decided I’m not going to continue the classes. Maybe I’ll try again in the future, but I doubt it. I think I”ll just keep learning bit and pieces on my own time.

It’s interesting how different people think differently about the same situation. In a conversation last night, the subject of being in scary situations came up. But not scary as in dangerous type situations, but simply when you scare yourself. The example was riding a pushbike through a forest by yourself and you hear creaking noises around you. One guy said that he just forcing his mind to the point that it was just the trees rubbing against each other and there was nothing else out there. My approach was different in that I accepted that there was probably a giant monster that was going to kill, and probably eat me, in the woods. But I accepted that the monster was there and there was nothing I could do about it so I just continue to ride my bike along the path. So far, this approach seems to appease the monsters and I haven’t been eaten.

I was at a small fancy dress party last night. There was a Sith Lord (from Star Wars), a cow, two Cleopatra’s, a pirate and other good and interesting costumes. One of the party goers was talking about how they were doing their PHD and if they had been given the chance again they would never have done it.

It made me think off all the times people say that you should never do something. And I don’t mean things like put your finger in an electric sharpener. No I mean things like not getting married, or not having kids. I think if there was someone who actually listened and didn’t do all the things that people say that you shouldn’t do, they would have a rather dull life.

I had this weird dream recently.

I was in a cake shop. In Japan. There was a small piece of chocolate cake. It looks like a mix between mud cake and black forest cake. It looked delicious. So I said to the guy in the shop that I’d like to buy it. He informed me (in perfect English) that the cake cost $500. What! He explained that the cake was 100 years old and was made for the Emperor. Bugger as I only had $5. He asked if I still wanted it. Confused I explained that I only had $5, and not the $500. He said; thats ok you just get to eat $5 worth of the cake. Sure ok. So he passes me a fork and says to go ahead. Hmmm. But I told him that it doesn’t seem fair for him, and what if I eat too much. He said he trusted me. But I really felt like this was a bad deal for the shop.

And thats where the dream ended. Anyone else dreaming about 100 year old chocolate cake for the Emperor… or it is just me.

A little while ago I posted about how my friend Murph and I do a yearly calendar swap. Murph just sent me a photo of a few of the things I sent him.
They included; a jersey, a shirt, the calendar (of course), an oven mitt, a scarf, a canvas bag, an umbrella, a toy emu, a stubbie slapper (cooler), and a coin bag. All of them had Australian logos on them.

Just a little bit of Australia is now in Boston.

I made a quick trip to Townsville this weekend. Caught the 9am flight north. While in Townsville I went for a trip to Crystal Creek for a swim. With the recent rains there was plenty of water although it was slightly chilly. But nice after a short hike to the creek. In the evening I went to a local social dance where I spent the evening dancing until everyone was drenched in sweat. Not pretty. But everyone was hot so it was all in good company. At noon today it was time to head home so caught a flight south again. A direct flight each way made the trip as quick as it could be. Definitely better than when you have to change flights in Brisbane.

The road that runs outside my work building is a six lane highway that is always busy with traffic. And a lot of that traffic is big semi trucks. I often see people cross the road where they aren’t any pedestrian lights and I think they are taking their life in their hands. Especially when there are two sets of pedestrian lights not far away.

However sometimes pedestrian lights are not enough. Today I’ve been unable to cross the road properly because trucks haven’t stopped in the right location.

This morning while walking to work I waited for the lights to change. Just before they did a truck stopped in front of me. Blocking not only the pedestrians but a lane of traffic as well.
Yellow = traffic direction
Green = where I wanted to walk
Red = Bad truck blocking my way

And just now I went for a walk to get some lunch and another truck blocked the path again.

I wish there was a policeman handy to fine them.

It was a long hot day today. Not that the temperature outside was super hot, just that the airconditioning in our section of the building wasn’t working. And with the wonderful modern designed buildings you can’t open windows. So it was damn hot. I went over to the office of the people who look after maintenance in the building and informed them that it was hot. Damn hot. We even have a little digital temperature gadget so we know what temperature it is. When I told them that they replied with ‘the airconditioning mechanics say those devices aren’t very accurate’. I replied along the lines of their was an office full off people who really didn’t care what the temperature reading was, just that they were hot. They said the tech guy would get onto it. Nothing happened all day. Hopefully it gets going tomorrow.

I had to leave work yesterday briefly for an errand. I was driving along a suburban street and nearby must have been a school because there were school kids everywhere (its was about 3.30pm). At a zebra crossing I stopped to let a young lad walk across the road. He had one of those straw type hats that they make them wear in private schools. He actually tipped his hat to me in thanks for stopping. I wonder if they teach them that. Anyway I was impressed. Yes I’m easily impressed. Good day to you sir.

I had my first beginner Spanish class tonight. Talk about anxiety levels getting pushed to the maximum. Nothing like having to say ‘what is your name’ in a foreign language in front of a class to make your mind go blank and turn you into a blathering idiot. Well… not that bad. It was actually really good. The lady teacher speaks Spanish as her first language and she has been teaching English and Spanish for many years. She taught in a way that it didn’t matter about the technical concepts but rather the context of the language. For homework I have to be able to spell my name out loud in Spanish. I have trouble with that in English!

Saturday morning I work up with a headache and a sharp pain behind my right eye. I was also very sensitive to bright light and couldn’t go outside without sunglasses. Even with sunglasses it hurt a bit. I didn’t get much sleep the night before and just thought it was a headache from that. By Saturday night my right eye had gone bloodshot. By the end of Sunday my right eye was completely red.

So this morning off to the doctor. He thinks its serious and I should go to the hospital NOW, or see a specialist. I say I’m not keen to wait 5 hours in a hospital waiting room so he calls a specialist and gets me an immediate appointment. I go see the specialist, who confuses and freaks me out saying I need cataract surgery. Turns out he means I MIGHT need cataract surgery IN 30 YEARS! Can we just worry about the current problem and leave the ones 30 years in the future to another day? He runs his tests. Turns out I have something called ‘UVEITIS’. My understanding is your body produces white blood cells to fight off bad things, well in this case they start attacking your own eye. Oh joy. They don’t know why it happens but it’s usually after you have a cold/flu (which I haven’t had). Treatment is steroid drops every two hours.

The tests from this morning had me looking light a cat with my pupils dilated so I couldn’t see anything until now. My pupils still aren’t back to normal yet, but the redness is definitely fading so the drops must be working. I’ve got another appointment with the specialist on Thursday for a checkup to see how its going.

Last night was the regular monthly social at a dance studio I go to. While it was a very busy night with lots of new people there, they were mainly beginner/non-dancers so it was fairly slow to get going. I think having more people there put more strain on the airconditioners because it was very hot. I think everyone was rather drenched by the end of the evening.

Its been raining all day today. I was asked to go into work to look at some code. I didn’t have anything specific planned, and seeing as it was a wet day, I went to work for about 5 hours this afternoon. I suspect I’ll be called to go in again tomorrow. I probably will since I don’t have anything else on. Although I would like to go see a something at the cinemas sometime over the weekend.

God damned scum hacked my website.  I picked up on it today with visitors to my site being redirected to other advertising junk sites.  Had to take the site apart for an hour or two and rebuild it from scratch.  There are a few tweaks I need to add back in to the code but I’ll get to it in the next few days.

A pox on their house I say!  A pox!

It starting raining this evening. I had a thought when walking home in the spitting rain. I have more umbrellas than I need. I’m often out, sometimes in the CBD, when it starts raining and I don’t have an umbrella with me. So I buy one. Nothing special. Quite the opposite actually. Usually a cheap $5 model that turns inside out if there is a moderate wind blowing. My plan is thus. I shall put a label on one of these umbrellas with my email address on it. Then the next time I am out and its raining I’ll keep an eye out for someone who doesn’t have an umbrella. You often seen people out who don’t have one. Perhaps they just don’t think it looks like rain when they go to work in the morning. So I’ll give my umbrella to one of these people, even if it means I get a bit wet. And then I shall see if I happen to get an email message from them. That’s my plan.

I had another trip to the dentist today. The final trip to my local guy, however I still have to see a specialist in the future to get a root canal done. For an hours work it cost $640. Ouch. At least the teeth-e-pegs are now now up to spec. All good for biting people and opening cans and such.

Today is the first day of the second month. So how’s your year going so far? Reaching those goals? You’ve used up one twelfth of the year already.
I’ve had a slow start, but within my control. I start both a Spanish language class and a new dance class next week. Looking forward to both. Still going to the gym. Although the last week has been very slack and I only went once. I blame Linda’s visit for that.

I tried waking up to a new alarm this morning. Here’s the theory; the normal alarm goes off at 7am. However a pre-alarm goes off at 6.30am (and goes for 7 minutes). Now the pre-alarm is very quiet and gentle. So much so that if you are in a deep sleep you’ll sleep through it. However if you are sleeping lightly you will wake up feeling much refreshed and ready to take on the world. How did it go? Well I woke up at 6.30am and 46 seconds. Turned off the alarm as I was feeling anything BUT ready to take on the world. The normal alarm went off at 7am so I turned that one off too. At 7.20am I dragged myself out of bed. I’ll try again tomorrow.

What an exhausting few days. Friday and Saturday nights I went to Olympic Park for the night time shows at the annual Sydney Salsa Congress. Parking was so damn lucky and a spot was found right in front of the athletics venue on both nights. The waiting was just painful. Arrived about 7.20pm each night. They didn’t open the doors until the venue until after 8pm. However the wait was worth it was the line up to get in was HUGE and lining up early was the only way to assure getting decent seats. The shows themselves were pretty good, Saturday definitely better than Sunday. I think I enjoyed the shows the year before more, but its hard to remember given that they are a year apart. They didn’t have any bands for the after parties this year. And that actually wasn’t so bad. The band last year was horrible, so having DJs was worth a try. The only complaint I would have is that they mixed the songs so that they blended each to each other. So it was hard to tell when one song stopped, and the next one began. Made for some damn long dances. Well that was Congress for me for another year. By only going to the two nights it meant it only cost me $100, so I saved over $1000 from last year (accommodation being a killer).