Dark Thoughts

Yesterday was ANZAC day here in Australia, where we pause to remember those that put their lives on the line to defend this country, and her allies, and to give thanks to those who never returned. It's an emotional day for most Aussies, and it's resurgence in popularity, I think, is a reflection for growing respect in our community for those people who put themselves out for the greater good. Jodie and I attended the dawn service at Blackboy Hill, where the original Western Australian training camp was located. It was moving, and I'm glad we went.

I wish that the good attitudes of the people I saw on the brisk morning was carried over to our office environment today.

This morning started off badly. The garage door wouldn't go up in the garage, here at work. So I parked up, went through the building and opened it manually, by throwing the bypass lever. I let the boss in first, so he could park easily, and followed him, taking up another parking bay, before being asked to move by the receptionist, because apparently she can't drive her car into a parking bay on the far side, and she might have to wait for someone if she wants to leave. This despite the fact that when I drive my Hilux ute in, her friggin Honda is usually parked in the most easily accessible parking bay, and I need to manouvre around the pokey carpark for 20 minutes with my truck, to get it into the same car bay she was so keen to avoid this morning. Yep, the same one that I get stuck in, when I have to leave before most other people, so that I can pick up Jode's from in town.

When she gets the most accessible bay, it's first in, bessed dressed, but when she's not first, it's a "Ooooo, poor me..."

Next up, I spend 10 minutes trying to get the doors working. I deduce it's probably the breaker gone down with all the recent rain. I ask the said receptionist for the key to the upstairs meterbox. She gives me a key marked "meterbox" but it doesn't fit, so I go downstairs and open up that meter box (which the key fits) and quickly confirm my suspicion that this just has a main switch to the upstairs distribution board, where the breaker in question is located. I inform her that the key doesn't fit, and I get a curt response, that "that's the only key there is".

Well sorry for trying to get the friggin doors working again. Politely I tell her - "well, in the upstairs distribution board is the breaker for the garage door, and unless someone finds a key, the garage doors will never go again." Next time, I'll just leave the door closed, and she can stay parked out on the friggin street.

Now to add insult to injury, I'm trying to get a trip to China organized, and to try to co-ordinate my travel to return to Adelaide rather than Perth I ask if she can get me my return flight to Adelaide.

"Can you email that to me" she curtly retorts
"Well, sure. Can you get me an itinerary so that I can tell you which flight I want changed"
"Nope, because you can't have an itinerary until I book the flights"

I mean - what the....

I want to return to Adelaide, not Perth, and you need that in writing?

And you can't tell me the dates that I am travelling?

Fine, I'll spell it out for you in an email...

Dear xxx,

In the upcoming trip to China, can you please book my return flight to Adelaide, rather than Perth. If there aren't any flights available prior to Saturday noon, can you please let me know.

Well, that worked, so my question - why is my written word so much more intelligable than my spoken word? Is your attention span so short, that you can't remember that I want to go back to Adelaide for 5 mins while you ring your travel agent?

Now maybe I'm being unreasonable here, but the thing is, this whole series of events really pissed me off.

I don't think I was unreasonable in my requests, and was trying to help people out. So why does doing this have to be such a hard fought task.

Like I said, a bit of respect for people that go out of their way to help, is a good thing, and something that this particular person seems to stuggle with.

To add to my unpleasantness for the day, my office has been vibrating and rattling all day, as a rock breaker two doors down is demolishing re-inforced concrete. The vibrations are so bad, that I've been struggling to read the screen of my laptop as it wobbles and jiggles all over the place. The window behind me has been constantly rattling and I can feel the whole floor moving. It's disconcerting and annoying, but at least the new building that will be built, should improve the area greatly.

OK - that's my whinge over for today...

... well except for the fact that it took the local Dome Cafe an hour and a half to make me a club sandwich, and I still had to sit and listen to the rockbreaker for the entire time.

Blah...

Wednesday the 26th of April 2006 officially sucks....

Here's hoping for a better one tomorrow.

Here's a photo of Jodie's latest drawing, that I referred to in my blog yesterday.

We're sending it to the framers tonight to get it put behind glass.

Can't wait to see it framed. They always look better framed, though it looks pretty good now, as I'm sure you'll all agree.

It's not that I've forgotten about my blog, but my life has felt like it's spinning out of control a little of late.

Easter weekend was the culmination of months worth of hard work around the house for me and my lovely fiance. Our engagement party on Saturday was a great success, and even though I couldn't manage to relax, I enjoyed the company of so many friends and family. Leading up to this momentous occasion we virtually redid the entire garden, unpacked and cleaned out a plethora of packing boxes and basically worked our fingers to the bone.

When we weren't actually at work (the place where they pay us) we were working on stuff where there is no direct payment.

I haven't actually got anything finished yet. We've painted about 80% of the house, we've finished maybe 30% of the bookwork, we've unpacked 90% of the boxes and finished perhaps 60% of the garden.

In better news, the other house that I've been renovating is all but finished. We should be able to get it tennanted within the next 2 weeks which will ease a huge amount of financial pressure.

Jodie did a new drawing on the weekend, of a horse, and as usual, it's pretty friggin amazing. I started writing a tune, but my heart wasn't really there, for some reason. I got these beats and sounds doing stuff, but I felt as though they aren't driven by a purpose. Maybe I should concentate on the lack of purpose and use that as the purpose for the song. A kind of empty song stretching out for a reason.

I've felt kind of listless of late. Yesterday was a day that I'll affectionately refer to in my memoirs as the caramel coated day.

For the entire day, I felt like I was swimming in a world of caramel. Everything was in a kind of yellowy, sweet slow motion. Everything required an effort to move through, but it was more of a relaxed, go with the flow, sort of feeling, not the sort of icky, sticky, annoying feeling.

I swear Jodie must have throught that someone had spiked my coffee.

Hmmmmm

What else is news.

Zen Paradox have a new album out. It's a clinical piece of glitchy wierdness. I don't know if I like it yet. It's certainly interesting and technically brilliant, but I can't help but feel that it also kind of missed the point, though maybe it's me that's missed the point.

Work is - well - frustrating. Lots of work following up stuff that we've already done, sent and finished. I wish people would actually read the stuff that we send them rather than just filing it. It would save me soooooo much time replying to emails saying "We sent this to you on insert date. It is outlined in intimate detail in drawing insert drawing number.

Oh - here's something new. We have a puppy. Her name is Satin, and she's a Border Collie / Labrador Cross. She's seriously cute, and apart from normal puppy naughtiness is probably the sweetest puppy I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Jodie loves her to bits, and Satin adores us both. Mortisha (the 11 yo Burmese cross) even seems to get along with her fine (unless she finds a cold nose up her butt - in which case she asserts her authority).

Hmmmmm - what else....

Kurzweil seem to have sorted out their corporate woes with an announcement that Samick are now truley out of the picture and to return all of Kurzweil's stock and sales to them.

Yamaha have announced that they will soon have a new driver out that fixes the infamous recording offset bug which I have been plagued by. It's great news and will mean that functionally my studio will be about as perfect as I could wish for. I'm even going to be getting one of my dream toys. A golden boy. An SPL Tube Vitalizer.

Now I just need to write some friggin music that is more than four on the floor mediocrity.

Blah.....

Anyway - It's been good to shout into the black void of internet blogging and hearing no echo's. A weight that I didn't know I was carrying has been lifted.

The world is shiny and new with rainbow hues....

Well maybe not quite, but you get the picture.