Dark Thoughts

Well, I've finally managed to find a few minutes while being here in Turkey.

Everything going full steam ahead, and there are sooooo many tasks to do. The small army of Australians on site here, is keeping the slightly larger army of Turks working at full tilt. One of the directors has bet another of the directors some money that this thing will be running by September 28, and we're the ones that have to try to make it happen. Personally I think he's lost his bet, because there's still a few things that we're waiting on before we will be ready to go, but we won't be far off that start time.

I had a chat via Yahoo with Jodie today. She was really angry with me because I hadn't been in contact with her for a while. This was very frustrating for me, because I'd been trying to ring her for days and never being able to get through. My email is playing up such that I can't send reply's or new emails, which is a frustrating issue in itself not conducive to civil conversation. I think it's really hard for her at the moment. On her part there's an awful lot of risk in relocating to be close to me, and the schedule of work and tasks that she's set herself is pretty brutal. I wish that somehow I could put her mind at ease, but changing other peoples opinions and feelings is impossible. I can change my attitude, but I accepted a long time ago is that you can't change other people, only how you view them.

I'm really looking forward to being closer to her, and these periods of being away from her are difficult. Turkey's not too bad because I have some friends here that I've known for a while, but it would be better if Jodie was here also. Mongolia though seemed quite desolate being there alone. Perhaps it was because the stay was so short and I had no communication whatsoever with the outside world. At least I'll have a work colleague with me on the next trip there, and hopefully I'll have mobile coverage there next time.

Anyway we kind of got a few things off our chests this morning, which I think is good. I'm going to try to ring her again tonight once this madhouse here at work settles down for a Sunday evening, and keep my fingers crossed that nothing goes "Kaput". I've just received my task list for next week. It's pretty extensive, but do-able I think. Lot's of big jobs that I knew were coming up, that I've been making preparations for, so it shouldn't be too hard to get them finished, as long as all the equipment keeps running, and the parts that we've ordered actually arrive.

I really miss hearing her voice, even through the delays and bad lines and stuff. I still know that it's her on the other end of the line, and for those moments we are connected through the thread of fibre and microwaves that encases this world. It's like our hearts stretch out across the oceans in a thread to be together.

Well it's my last full day in Mongolia today. I've had a great time here. All of the people I've talked to speak enough english to communicate with via a combination of charades, fractured words and pictures. All of those childhood games like pictionary have paid off big time. I really like the people of Mongolia. Very helpful and trusting. It's like a big family kind of, though in a different way to the way that they are in China.

I had a meeting with my main contact here in Mongolia, and it went well. We covered a lot of things, and I think that my trip here was perfectly timed. There is just enough work for them left to do to keep them busy in the intervening period between this visit and the next. We also managed to get them pointed in the right direction with a few minor issues, such that they will be ready to go when we arrive here next month.

I got an email from my beloved Jodie this morning, which was really good. She seems to be really busy in Derby at the moment. She caught up with her younger brother earlier this week which she seemed really happy about. She's got sooooo much to do before the big move to Perth. I wish I could be there to help her out, but somehow I think that her fiercely independent spirit would not have any of it. It would be interesting to see if her independent spirit is stronger than my persistent one. I'm not sure if I'd like to test it though. I think we'd be like a couple of the people from the Monty Python world champion staring competition doing completely pointless things just coz we're both stubborn.

I'm really missing not being able to talk to her. I've been in mobile phone isolation from her for nearly a week now which is the longest we've gone with out hearing each other's voices since we first spoke to each other way back in April. These last 6 months have just flown by. It seems like only yesterday when I was so tentively sending emails to her. Picking my words with care so as to not seem desperate, but at the same time wanting to express how I felt about her. Dating and meeting people is like walking a tightrope. There are more wrong places to step than right places :)...

Anyway that tightrope is one that I actually managed to navigate with Jodie, and I'm very glad for it. Hopefully it will be the last time, but only time will tell I guess. I've got my fingers crossed though.

Well I've got an hour to kill now, waiting for the Erdernet guys to have their strategic meeting. They'll take me out to lunch and then I'll head back to Ulan Bataan. I've got my bags pretty much packed, except for my towel which is currently drying on the window sill. Most of it dried OK, except for where a bit was folded over. I'm pretty stunned by just how dry it is here in Mongolia. It's cold (probably 8-10C) at the moment, but things dry so quickly.

The hotel rooms seem stiflingly hot if you don't open the windows, so here I am sitting, in a T-Shirt, with the window open to the Mongolian weather. It's wierd. The sun is hot when the windows are closed, and the rooms heat up so quickly, with only the air being cold. I'm not sure why it's so dry here though. Perhaps it's the altitude that lowers the boiling point of the water, or perhaps it's the coldness reducing the dew point of the air such that it is very dry, though where all the water goes is a mystery. Up into the air and blown all over the country side probably.

The air is thin up here as well. We are 1500m above sea level so climbing a few flights of stairs leaves me a little short of breath. I wonder how people used to this air feel when they are down at sea level. Probably full of energy and very fit.

Mongolian meals are a little different to what we are used to in Australia. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, with 2 hours being devoted to it by workers. In Australia, the evening meal is definately the dominant meal, but not here. It's probably healthier, the way that they do it here. The food here is generally pretty good. A bit of variety, but mainly chicken and lamb. They use a lot of salt in their cooking which leaves all of the meats tasting somewhat similar, and I can understand why experienced Mongolian travellers advised me to bring a variety of sauces. I think that it's probably significantly better than it once was here, as the Russian influence is being slowly diluted by the Mongolian's own self identity and influences from other cultures.

I could quite comfortably live here if I knew a bit of the language.

I've just realized that I have to charge my iPod for the 4 hour trip back to Ulan Bataan, because I've used up quite a bit of the battery by using it as a HDD on my computer. The iPod's don't last too long when used in that mode, without external power. Perhaps the HDD spins quicker when attached to a computer or something, because I can easily get 7 or 8 hours out of them with music on Aeroplanes. It's one of those great mysteries of life...

I defragmented my HDD on my computer last night. It worked quite well, with only 4 files remaining framented. One of them is a pretty big file though, and still has 4000 fragments spread over the drive. I've certainly noticed a considerable boost to speed this morning. Applications start so much quicker, and there is heaps less HDD activity in general. This poor little Dell has probably been screaming out for a defrag for months now.

It's also my Dad's birthday today (and my cousin's too), so Happy Birthday to you both. I'm not able to call my father due to no mobile signal, no english instructions on the hotel phone, and no payphones in sight. I probably won't be able to get an email off to him either until tomorrow. I'm sure he'll understand, but this entry is proof that I was indeed thinking of him on this day, his 59th birthday.

Well my towel is dry and my cases are packed. Just got to put the iPod and Laptop back into their respective bags, and I'm out of here. Oh... once my contacts arrive, that is. I've got to check out as well, which is cool, but I'm not looking forward to lugging my two cases down all of those stairs. I've just put the kettle on for a cup of tea, which will be nice.

Actually that's something else that I've noticed over here. No milk. No-where. People don't use it in tea or coffee, it's always black. I had a tea substitute drink the other day (Called Tea-King I think) that was actually very tasty (and not like tea at all) which had a milk substitute in it. It's wierd because there are heaps of cows and goats around. I thought that milk would be a staple of this place. I know that they have fermented mares milk as a local alcoholic beverage, but not cow of goats milk. Wierd, wierd wierd.

Maybe the lack of fridges turned them off it in earlier days, or maybe it just brings back too many memories of that mares milk stuff, I'm not sure....

In one of my earlier blog entries I talked about the teas of different regions, and coffees. Well Mongolia, it's black Lipton's tea and Nescafe coffee. There doesn't seem to be a regional way to make tea, though they apparently do get chinese teas here as well. Sugar is available, but no milk, so white tea and coffee lovers, make sure you bring your own. Preferably those little Aeroplane containers of UHT milk.

Actually, just on those Aeroplane ones, have you ever noticed that you really need 2 of them to make a half decent white coffee/tea. And if you are a latte person, like me, then even that barely makes it a nice coffee. The coffee on Aeroplanes is seriously bitter. Business Class on Singapore lets you choose from three types of ground coffee, but even those are bitter. It's like they've been left cooking for just way too long, allowing the coffee to oxidize and form bitter tannins and acidic oxides. Fresh coffee is so good, but old coffee is so bad.

That's why you should keep your beans in the freezer as whole beens BTW. Less surface area, and lower temperature slows down the oxidation of the flavours in coffee. Decaf will last longer than it's caffeinated cousin because alot of the flavours and complex organics have been removed along with the caffeine in the extraction phase of the coffee processing. Not much longer, but a bit.

Tea is similar, but the flavours are bound more tightly, and in more complex organic molecules. That is why you should use boiling hot water on the tea bag, and let it soak for quite a while. Cooling of tea makes it bitter because some of the complex molecules are quite insoluble and will change in the tea as it is squeezed out due to the concentration gradient. Chemical changes of these molecules again causes bitterness as the tanins again oxidize. Make sure the cup is hot (a swish with boiling water immediately before refilling with boiling water and adding the teabag generally does the job). Adding milk reduces the bitterness, because milk is a natural weak base, that neutralizes some of the acids produced by oxidation, and it also provides a natural buffering effect that stops further oxidation.

Wierd the sort of stuff that you pick up doing a chemistry degree. If all this food stuff is of interest then I suggest that you have a read of a book called What Einstein Told His Cook by Robert Wolke. It's a fantastic read chock full of lots of interesting scientific facts about food. It challenges and actually tests and investigates alot of myths about food (such as not washing mushrooms because they absorb the water and go slimy). I know the answer to this, but if you want to also, then I challenge you to read this book. It's easy to read, and even has some cool recipes in it.

My cup of Liptons here is going down a treat, despite no milk and no sugar. I did a light brew in boiling water for about 30 seconds, and am sipping it while it's hot. Not too bitter, and quite warming.

Only 10 minutes to go. I guess I should pack up my stuff now, finish my tea, and wait for the guys to get here to take me to lunch.

Till next time....

Later that day...

Well, I'm back. I'm now back in Ulaanbaatar at the Peace Bridge Hotel. This one is officially 3 stars, though, so was the first hotel that I stayed in when I got to Mongolia, so I don't know what gives. This place is infinitely more stylish. It even has a mini-bar, though there's no snacks. Probably a good thing. I've just had dinner, which consisted of some Tomato Soup and a Beef Fillet Steak with Mushrooms. Pretty yummy, and at a price of about $6 US (including 2 cans of coke) who can complain?

This hotel gets a 4/5 from me, with a room rate of $90 US a night (for the semiluxe suite) including breakfast. The bath is enormous in this place. I think I might have to have a bit of a soak in a few minutes, after the long journey in the car. I bought a bottle of Mongolian Vodka for my colleague in Turkey who did a 2 year stint in Mongolia. I'm sure he'll appreciate it >:), though I'm sure I'm going to be on the receiving end of at least a few shots of this stuff. Glad I only bought the small bottle. The vodka was only $5500 Mongolian. I can't put the characters into the computer to express the currency properly and I struggle to pronounce it, but it works out to about $5 US. Not bad.

Stuff is soooooo cheap here in Mongolia. If you want a shopping adventure, and want to do some serious backpacking, then get your self an invite, and make your way over here.

Anyway, it's starting to get late, and I've still got to reorganize my bags for the trip tomorrow and be up early for breakfast and the trip to the airport.

Hopefully I'll be able to get all of this up on the web soon. I've only had very brief chances to get onto the web since I've been in Mongolia. A few emails here and there, and that is all.

Well, that's all for tonight.

Goodnight.

OK, I didn't get much of a chance to type stuff this morning, but I'm in the hotel room at the moment, so have a little more time. I'm going to queue up some random thoughts in wbloggar and upload the blog entries next time I get onto the web.

I got to shoot off a couple of emails this morning when I was in the office, and tried to organize to get some samples back to Australia. Quite easy when you are actually on site. I also sent off a quick email to Jodie to let her know that I was alright. Unfortunately my mobile doesn't work here in Mongolia. I'm not sure why. Perhaps Optus hasn't made a co-operation agreement with either of the two mobile phone providers here, I'm not sure, but I'll have to follow it up for next time.

One of my colleagues at work asked me for a quick run down of the food and accomodations here in Turkey. I'm not sure what sort of accomodations she's used to, but she's been on minesites before, so should find the accomodation here OK. The rooms are pretty spartan, but they are warm and accomodating. The food is a little bland, but so far the variety has been OK. I'm not so keen on the fish, but oily fish in general tend to turn me off. Way too fishy for my taste, but no different really to small fish I've had at different places in the world.

There's definately a chinese influence here with the food, particulalry the vegetables, but so to is there a strong western influence. The meat dishes are reminiscent of Turkey of all places, though I guess that's not too unusual given the strong ancestral links between the Turks and the Mongols. I had kiwi-fruit at lunch today, and it was probably the nicest kiwi-fruit I've ever had. Very, very juicy. Apparently all of the fruits come from China, but the fruits here seem so much better than those that I had in China.

The new digital camera is going well. Here's my quick review of a Sony DSC V1 by a new user.

Great picture quality in all light conditions. The infra-red mode is great, as is the laser used for focussing in dark light. The built in flash works well, though the position of the flash is a little inconvenient, being right where I want to put my finger, on the left. What's more, if it clicks (the release mechanism when the camera decides it needs the flash) and you remove your finger, it stays down, requiring another shot. Not too much of a drama, but slightly annoying. The controls on the back are a little cramped, but are generally well positioned. I guess the crampedness is the result of having sooooo many functions in such a small camera.

Minor annoyances, the digital zoom only works post-photo, so you can't zoom in optically to 4X and then keep zooming with the digital zoom before you take the picture. Not a major drama, but it would make operation a little smoother if the camera would do this automatically. Also, it's a pity that you can't stream video/pictures directly over USB. The provided software supports this, but the camera retracts the lens as soon as you plug in the USB. This would be a great feature to enable real-time video chat using the camera while on the road. The inbuilt microphone/speaker combo would also work perfectly for this application.

You will definately need to read the manual on this great little camera to work out all the stuff that you can do with it. Even moving files, deleting, rotating and photo effects certainly aren't the easiest things to find. They are OK once you get used to what mode you need to be in, and which button to push. It would be simpler if ALL functions were available by pressing the menu button, with the dedicated buttons offering shortcuts to their applicable functions, but this isn't the case.

The camera allows you to rotate the images in the camera, but unfortunately the image only gets rotated for the display, not in the file system, so something like Photoshop is required to do the rotation for you. Again, not a major drama, but a little annoying.

Something else that I find annoying is that the battery won't charge while the power is on. Usually it's good to have the camera attached and let the battery charge while you are working on things, but not with this camera. It takes 2 1/2 hours to charge the batteries from being flat, so I just leave it going overnight. The camera stops charging the batteries when they are full, which is great, but I'd still like to have the thing turned on and talking to the computer while charging, rather than just running from DC. It's also annoying that you can't take photo's without first stopping the device and unplugging the USB.

Overall, it's a great little camera, with some powers that I'm not ready to unleash (such as all the manual apeture and shutter settings), but it's also a great point and click camera. The photo quality is fantastic in all light conditions and there are plenty of add ons available for it. The supplied 32 MB memory stick is a tad on the small side, but it makes a great backup to keep in your camera bag should you go photo crazy and fill one of the larger sticks. I've got a 128 MB stick which is ample (76 photo's at the highest resolution) if you have a laptop or stick reader handy.

My recommendations if buying this camera is to grab a bigger memory stick, and a spare battery. The battery life is about 90 mins from fully charged, and in power save mode, it will start turning off the LCD when the power gets low. This happened to me after around 50 shots (and a bit of playing around). A spare batter and the spare 32MB cartridge should get you through those emergency situations when that once in a lifetime scene comes about. Also grab yourself a camera bag. The guy at the photo shop recommended a Tamrac digital series case. The camera fits perfectly and there's enough room for a spare stick or 3, a spare battery and the USB cable in the bag, as well as a mini tripod. You could probably fit the power supply transformer in there as well, but probably not the power cable itself. It's a great portable bag for me and well worth the purchase. There's probably other bags that will do the job, but a bag is absolutely essential.

My scores

Quality of Results 5/5
Ease of Use 4/5 (5/5 for point and click, 3/5 for messing with the menuing system)
User Interface 3/5
Portability 4/5
Features per cubic centimeter 5/5
Bang for the Buck 5/5
User Manual 4/5
Supplied Software 3/5 (I prefer just to copy stuff using explorer and then photoshop it)
Accessories supplied 2/5 (no protective camera bag (even a soft cloth one) is pretty unforgivable, and the 32 MB stick is a little stingy). You do however get a hand strap, charger, USB cable, AV cable and the manual.
Would I buy it again knowing what I now know? Yep, absolutely, though there is a new model out in November, so if you can hold out till then, it might be worth checking out the new one.

OK End of Review.

I'm going to have a nap while listening to Faithless.

Well, I made it here.

Not much time to blog, as I'm waiting for a car to come and take us to the laboratory to examine some samples.

Mongolia is a pretty cool place, and in keeping with my new role as world hotel reviewer (well, it sounds like a cool title) here's my reviews of hotels in Mongolia.

Firstly Ulan Bataan...

I stayed in a nice cozy little hotel. Cost me $70 US for the night, including breakfast. Service was good, and breakfast was pretty cool. Eggs on Toast and a cup of tea. Nice way to get the day underway. Top value for money. (I'll post the name of the hotel when I get back to my room and grab the receipt.)

Small minibar where I grabbed some water, and pretty nice two room suite. 4/5 for value for money. 4/5 for comfort and 2/5 for style.

Second hotel is in Erdernet City. It is owned by Erdernet Mining Company (as far as I can tell). $45 US per night plus about $5 US for breakfast. Pork sausages, eggs and bread, as well as yoghurt, coffee (instant) and some yummy spicy tomato sauce. The service was outstanding. It took about 2 minutes to be seated and eating. Can't beat the price. The room itself is a little run down. Looks like something left over from the Russian Federation, but it's solid enough. The shower is the highest shower I've ever been in (not just because of the altitude, but also because of the 1m step required to get into it). Hot water immediately, but the shower head annoyingly won't stay in the centre (one of those removable types on a hose).

The rest of the room is great. A seperate meals area and bedroom with 2 beds. No internet, can't work the phone out (no English Instructions) and no minibar. No soap, shampoo or towels. Very spartan, but liveable.

4/5 for Value for money, 3/5 for comfort and 2/5 for style. If this had a minibar and soap, it would have scored higher, but for $45 per night I can't complain.

Well, Wednesday last week, I get an email telling me to get my butt on a plane to Turkey via Mongolia. Half a week of frantically trying to get the travel agent to get stuff organized. Nine flights it's going to take, and nearly half of those were waitlisted!

Well, at least my route is now guaranteed, so I will eventually get there, assuming that all of my contacts on the ground come through.

Anyway, I've made it as far as Singapore. Nice airport, though that's all that I've seen of the country. It's not the only place where that rings true, but Singapore airport (and especially the business class lounge) is really rather luxurious.

Yesterday was the pinnacle of a seriously hectic week. I had work, a lunch, pay for and collect my new digital camera (A Sony Cybershot DSC V1 in case anyone cares) pick up tablets for my cat, collect my DP4+ (which sadly couldn't be fixed - but I haven't given up), find a phone for Jodie, and then get her to the airport. After that I did some final packing and found my way to the airport.

It was so great to hang out with Jodie again, even though it was only for a few days. It seems that even just a few days of contact can sustain me for weeks and weeks on end in a content state. Contentedness is one of those funny states where a kind of numbness sets in. Things happen around you, but without too much effect on you.

It's like I get pushed to a certain state (a positive one that is) when Jodie is around, and get left at that level when she leaves, only to be recharged by our next encounter. I'm always left feeling happy after our brief interludes.

I sometimes feel a little guilty when I'm with her because I don't outwardly show a bundle of excitement and I feel I should. I instead feel comfort at having her around. A reassurance and a gentle inner glow of happiness.

Anyway, Jodie's in the process of making plans for moving to Perth in the next few months which is pretty full on. More so for here I suspect, because it's a big move to make. I'm actually very happy about it, but I guess a little nervous also. It's been a long time since I've been so close to someone, and the distance to date has provided somewhat of a buffer to my emotions. Having someone so close, so close will be an exhilarating ride I think. I'm really looking forward to it. One more little twist in my roller-coaster theory of life.

That's not really a hard theory - just that life is a rollercoaster. Ride it hard :)

Anyway, flight time is approaching so I'll just summarize all of the other bits and pieces that have been happening.

Hockey - we're on top of the table going into the finals. The last match was much more enjoyable with the ref's allowing a more flowing game. Much more fun.

Investing - bought the wrong shares in my choice of two. Didn't lose money, but the other shares doubled in price.

Got my trust set up, though the company name (for the corporate trustee is wrong). It's gonna cost me $330 to fix - Grrrrrr!

Still waiting on a final price for a Kurzweil KSP8. I'm getting this partially to replace the DP4+, but also because of the quality, and ability to use it as a recording device.

A few changes still required on ONYX, but basically ready to go once I get the docs back. Brujo wants to do a remix project on it, which we may release as an expansion pack at some stage. Still early days, but it's an exciting project all round. People seem to like the sound demo's that I've done, but they really only just touch the surface of what's possible with the set.

Got second in the Toastmasters Club International Speech Contest, and the Evaluation Contest. Pretty stoked because I was having a very flat night. Didn't deserve to win, and couldn't represent the club anyway due to travel.

Anyway, I could easily have typed for another hour or so, but sadly have to go.

I'll try to post more often now that life is building for another maddening decent through the triple loops that is the rollercoaster of life :)

Till then, enjoy life. It's the only real thing to do...

Looking back at my blog, it's been ages since I've posted, but it seems like such a short time frame since I felt I updated it.

I lost one blog entry by inadvertantly closing w.blogger without saving, but ya get that.

In that post I reviewed Burswood's Atrium restraunt as a breakfast venue and decided that $30 for bacon and eggs on toast was a little on the high side, though it was a buffet and there was lots of stuff avaialable, but still $30.

I ranted and raved about other stuff as well, but ya get that.

Anyway, onto more recent developments.

It's my birthday next week, and while the threat of travel has precluded me making plans for my bouncy castle party, but it will happen. Probably towards the end of this year, but we'll see. Anyway, Jodie's coming down for my birthday, which is really cool, though I kinda feel a little guilty because it's an expense that she probably doesn't need at the moment.

I don't think I'd have been able to convince her on an economic rationalist front anyway, and besides, I really do want to see her again, so perhaps a small streak of selfishness crept in there somewhere. Anyway, it's too late now, because she's booked the ticket, so I'll have to be content in the knowledge that I was concerned with her spending so much money just to come down and hangout for a weekend.

I've also helped in the recording of a friends band and got to play with a couple of Urei compressors for the first time. Nice units for vocals and guitars, though not ideal for drums. They are seriously easy to use, and very easy to get pleasing results with. I can understand why people rave about them.

One thing to note, for anyone that wants to use them, you need a proper balanced signal input for them to work. An unbalanced signal wired to an XLR with the ground attached to the cold pin won't work. The unit expects a phase inverted signal at the cold pin. We ended up pressing a Mackie 1202 VLZ into service as a glorified DI Box, and this had the added benefit that we had gain pots on the Mackie's pre-amps which proved incredibly useful for overloading the Urei's inputs and pushing the unit to the warm distortion that valve compressors are so famous for.

The biggest downside to the Urei is that there is no Attack knob, instead the attack and release seem to be controlled internally automatically depending upon the ratio switch and the threshold control, as well as the input level. Probably some sort of level feedback system also controls the attack and release parameters, though intuitively I couldn't quite work out exactly how it all worked.

Nevertheless, it was heaps of fun, if not draining. We stuck well over a hundred tracks through the compressors, two at a time, each of them about 8:30 in length.

I've also finally got my property trust set up now, though there's a small error in the name of the corporate trustee that is seriously going to shit me unless I get it fixed. The name should have been Obsidian, but I think someone's finger slipped and it ended up as Obsidsian. That's hard enough to say, let alone remember when I've got to write it on a piece of paper for the purposes of purchasing land.

Anyway, I'm in the process of finding out where the error occured, and rectifying it. Worst case it's going to cost the trust $330 to get fixed.

I'll be starting to look for properties again this weekend and I want to buy one in the next few weeks. Time to talk to my mortgage broker and get cracking on the newspaper listings. It'll be fun, and my housemate wants me to take him through the whole process, so I guess I'll have a bit of company.

While on the subject of talking about houses, I was talking ot Jodie last night and she mentioned an interest in buying a house. It seriously brought a big smile to my face. She doesn't feel ready to embark on the whole mortgage thing quite yet, but I think it's good that she's considering investing, even if she hasn't yet formulated an investment strategy yet.

As I've discovered it's the length of time that you own the assets that's important, not so much when you buy them, or for what reason. She's still young, so there's plenty of time.

I'm trying to be supportive of her decisions, because really, she's the one that's got to make them, but it's hard to quell my enthusiasm for developing investments while young.

Before I talked to Jodie last night I had a game of hockey. It was probably one of the least enjoyable games I've ever played. Not because we lost 5-2, but because the other team were absolute animals. They were rough, and played the style of game where they try to drill player's with the ball in order to get free hits. It's very unsporting, and not at all in the spirit of the game. To make it worse, the unpiring was dismal, with one of the umpires so completely brow-beaten by the team of animals, that he just reversed decision after decision upon protest of the opposition.

Very unprofessional, and decision reversals such as blowing a short corner, in which we, as defenders, stopped, the ball then going into goals, and then calling it a goal are just plain wrong. The umpiring was so bad that it affected the playability of the game and the final result. Umpires should NEVER do this. They are there to keep the game flowing and under control, not to manipulate the game.

I don't think one of the umpires likes me very much, because his decisions constantly baffle me so much, that I'm always asking what his decision was for (which I'm entitled to do, and I do it politely). I think that he doesn't take it well though, and this causes him to be more critical on me the next time.

The organizers want us to play another season, but I don't know if I want to if they keep the same umpires.

Anyway the office is shutting up, and I don't want to be locked in for the weekend, so I'm going to sign off.

Have a fantastic weekend. I know I will, even though there's lots of boring stuff like doing my books planned.