Dark Thoughts

Typo3 nbo_podcast Modifications for External Servers

2010-10-18T16:01:00.004+08:00

OK, here's another Typo3 modification.

The nbo_podcast extension is a great extension for creating your own podcast, except for one tinsy little issue. It insists on adding the site URL to the start of all uid's (ie file names).

This is OK if you are hosting ALL of your mp3's or mpg's on your server, but sometimes, you have a file size limit, just like I did.

I wanted to host small files on my typo3 server and my large files on another server, but the extension wouldn't let me.

Here's the fix if you want to do this.

In your typo3 backend, go to the extension manager.
Click on the Typo 3 Podcast link (should be under Front End Plugins)
In the dropdown box at the top, select Edit Files
Click on "Edit File" next to mod1/index.php

About half way down in the section that starts with

// Check MySQL ressource

Look for the line that says this

$sourceFile = $this->prepare_url(t3lib_div::getIndpEnv('TYPO3_SITE_URL').($not4 ? $episode['file']['vDEF'] : $episode['file']['vDEF']['xml-value']));

Change it to this

$sourceFile = $this->prepare_url(($not4 ? $episode['file']['vDEF'] : $episode['file']['vDEF']['xml-value']));

Save the file and now the plug in will accept external url's without automatically appending your site URL to them.

There is a small downside to this. You will need to manually enter your site URL for any files hosted on your typo3 server, within the File List, after you use the browser to select them, though this is a pretty minor inconvenience.

Global Gathering - Perth 2008

2008-11-25T11:10:00.001+09:00

Well, I made my way down to the Perth Esplanade on Sunday for Global Gathering. Caught up with some old mates who I hadn't seen for years, and saw some big name DJ's and Bands.

Here's my quick and brutal review of those acts that I saw.

First up Hook n Sling. Unfortunately I only saw the end of their set, but I really enjoyed what I saw. Crowd was pumping and the music was pretty awesome. These guys seemed to be enjoying playing in Perth. 4 thumbs up.

Next up was Kid Kenobi. Started well, but started to sound pretty repetitive about 10 minutes in. Not what I'd call an epic set. 1 thumb up.

Next up was the end of Dirty South, who seemed to have the crowd rocking pretty well. Not really my cup of tea, in terms of the style of music, but they DJ'd well, and kept the crowd pleased. Three thumbs up.

Felix Da House Cat was up next, and he's really a stellar DJ. Pity he didn't listen to the advice of the sound guy who told him to turn his mixer down a bit to get rid of the nasty distortion haunting the audience, so we had this brilliant DJ set let down by overloading his DJ mixer. Couldn't really deal with the distortion for too long, so had a break to get some food. Four thumbs up for great DJing. Four thumbs down for being a jerk and distorting his set.

Caught the start of the ATB set, and he played a monster set. I came back a few times later in the day, and he seemed to just get better and better. There was a very passionate and lively crowd in front of the God's Kitchen stage, and ATB didn't disappoint. Would love to have been able to catch more of his set, but I was here to see The Orb, so I missed a lot of the action. Four thumbs up from what I heard.

Next up was The Orb. OMFG these guys are great. Dr Alex Patterson and the boys from the Orb really seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere, and seemed genuinely happy to be performing. I've never had the opportunity to see them before, and the hilight for me was definately Little Fluffy Clouds. The whole set was live and done on the fly, so big respect to The Orb. The front man, didn't have that much to do, but he interacted with the crowd and kept the punters at the front happy. Five thumbs up, and wishing that they could have played for longer. Definitely the highlight of the day.

After the Orb, I was really looking forward to seeing Sasha. I really like his production and recorded DJ set's but I gotta say. His set was a serious disappointment. He didn't seem to want to be there, and left the stage (or was hiding behind the speakers having a smoke) at one point, just letting the CD's do their thing. Very uninspiring set overall. 1 thumb down.

Took a bit of a wander around feeling pretty uninspired by all tents, and ended up over at the main stage where Mark Ronson was playing. Very different vibe, but this man is a born entertainer. Bought a smile to my face and played some fine music. Four thumbs up.

Went over and caught some more of ATB. That man is a robot. Still going strong.

Changed over to Above and Beyond, who I've never really heard before, but it was a mighty fine set, what I heard of it. Nice uplifting trance, a throbbing dance floor. Four thumbs up here as well.

Now for the main act, Kraftwerk. I've never seen these guys live, but am a big fan of their music. They are an entirely different thing live. The sounds that these guys generate are simply amazing. Big, clear, and they really push the sound system to the limits. I took a wander over to the Gorillaz for 10 minutes during Kraftwerk's set, and in comparison it sounded like someone had turned down the volume and stuffed cotton wool in my ears. Five thumbs up for Kraftwerk. I've spent a lot of time making music and sounds and damn their sounds are amazing. Wish I could afford the quality of pre-amps that these guys obviously use. The wall of sound and dynamic range on a sound system of this quality is something to behold.

Gorillaz was pretty darn packed, but had an awesome video show. Didn't stay long enough to be able to really comment on it, but they had a big crowd so that has to say something.

Overall, it was a great day. Very well organized and great venue set up. Big thumbs up to all the workers and guys cleaning up the grounds, bar staff and security guys. Everyone was pretty friendly. Visible but not in your face.

Best TYPO3 site EVER!

2008-10-15T11:06:00.001+08:00

OMFG, how long has this site been around...?

http://www.typo3wizard.com/en/main.html

If you administer a typo3 site, get over there. Soooooo many code snippets. I'm going to go looking for solutions to all those niggly little problems.

A Troubled World

2008-10-09T11:33:00.001+08:00

I had a toastmasters meeting last night and one of the speakers gave a speech about our troubled world.

Financial markets, housing markets, social upheaval, violence on the streets; it certainly looks like interesting times ahead.

Personally, for me, the world just seems to be spinning around me. Work is like a tornado at the moment with work on the current job moving at a blistering pace, and no-one really having a grasp on the entire things.

At home, life is in a constant state of flux, with house renovations progressing, and my lovely wife having spent a long time away from home working in remote WA.

Musically the amount of music we're currently pumping out of the studio is frightening. I think we've finished more tracks in the last 6 months than I'd done in the 6 years before it.

I'm not sure if the world is so much troubled as "sticky". Sure there are some areas of trouble, but by and large they are areas of sticky trouble. Trouble starts and stuff starts sticking to it, making a bigger chunk of trouble.

Work is sticky, because more and more information is sticking to the chunk that we previously had, and music is definitely sticky with thick wet synthy sounds swimming out of the speakers.

I have to conclude from all of this that the real problem with the world is too much stickiness. Half sucked lollypops may seem innocent enough (just like cheap home loans did), but when it becomes an obsession, we're all in for a sticky end.

Dog Agility

2008-08-29T14:15:00.001+08:00

I've recently started taking my dog down to agility at our local dog training club. She's a pretty good dog when it comes to obedience training, but agility is something different all together.

Satin (that's my dog) absolutely loves agility. I'm sure it's the highlight of her week. She's not quite as well behaved at agility as she is at obedience, but maybe that has something to do with all the fertilizer they have just spread over the oval.

Anyway, what's making agility much harder for her than it needs to be is me. Satin is great at going over jumps, through tunnels, over the walkway and A frame, but it's me that's forever in exactly the wrong spot, which slows her down and frustrates her.

I'm quickly realizing that agility is more about training humans than it is about dogs. It's as much a sport for the trainer as is is the dog, and I certainly come away from every session with a healthy sweat.

Some of the other trainers spent some time last night showing me how to do the serpentine and the threadle. The threadle is really really tricky, especially for the trainer. Once you work out where to stand and when to change stances, and point, and dance, and try not to trip over your own feet, the dog just does what she's meant to.

Here's the threadle...

And here's the serpentine...

It all looks so simple when you see it in a picture, but it's really really tricky.

Anyway, we got to where we wanted to in the end, so I'm all happy about it.

Renovating and Fishes

2008-08-13T16:30:00.001+08:00

Well the time has finally come to kick the renovations into high gear at home. We've had contractors through to quote on the pergola, car port and air conditioning system already.

I've been down to the shire to work out what's allowed, and what's not, and it's quickly coming up to time to spend some serious money.

One of the immediate problems we had was what to do with the fish. The fish pond was exactly in the wrong spot, where the pergola needed to go, and the option we were initially looking at was putting in a new pond right next to the house, though this was a bit of a nightmare scenario, what with all the waterproofing etc.

My lovely wife came up with a different suggestion which was just to buy an aquarium to put outside under the pergola, so that's just what we did.

Here's the result.

Typo3 News (tt_news) Formatting

2008-07-08T23:50:00.002+08:00

OK - I've been puting up with the hideous green of the default css style on my news pages for quite long enough. With the old version of tt_news it was easy to reformat the news. It just grabbed all the details from your template.

Since they updated things to benefit from css, it's been much more difficult to reformat things. Actually, it's not difficult to change the formatting, but it's next to impossible to access the CSS file in order to do it, especially, if like me, you don't have root access (or even SFTP or WebDev access) to the sever.

One solution is to change the CSS file in the extension, save it, uninstall the extension, replace the default CSS file and then reinstall from the local extension. Much too messy for me.

A better way is to grab firebug for firefox, and find the CSS file. Copy it to your favourite editor and make the changes you want.

Now for the tricky part. Get rid of all the CR (where you press Enter) and Tab's and replace them all with spaces (yes it takes ages).

Once you've done this, save it as a text file.

Log into typo3 and go to your template by pressing the template button in the left margin. Pick the page where you want to change the formatting. For me, it's the root page of my website.

In the drop down box at the top right (where you select the constant editor etc) pick TypoScript Object Browser.

Follow the tree down to [plugin] -> [tt_news] -> [_CSS_DEFAULT_STYLE]. It's the longest line in the entire template, most likely).

Next click on the [_CSS_DEFAULT_STYLE] heading.

Select everything in the Edit Object Text Box (the top one), making sure to get the entire string. Delete it (or cut and paste it to a document if you want to back it up).

Copy the modified CSS from your text file using Ctrl-V and paste it into the textbox labelled "plugin.tt_news._CSS_DEFAULT_STYLE ="

Press the Update Button.

Check your website to make sure it works.

Just a hint when editing the CSS. Do your text formatting etc in each section below the comments (they look like /*-------------------- Some words --------------*/) The changes you make here will cascade down to the rest of the items in the section.

Make sure you do all the parts of the news (ie List, Single Item, Cat etc) otherwise the changes will only take for a single News page.

My page (http://godlike.com.au) now looks a lot better.

My CSS string is here, if anyone wants to use it as a basis.

/*----------------------------------- clearer -----------------------------------*/,/* prevent floated images from overlapping the div-containers they are wrapped in */ .news-list-container hr.clearer, .news-single-item,hr.clearer, .news-latest-container hr.clearer {border:1px solid #333333; clear:right; height:1px; } .news-latest-container HR.clearer {clear:left; } /*----------------------------------- tt_news LATEST view -----------------------------------*/ .news-latest-container {background-color:#000000; border:1px solid #333333; color:#CCCCCC; font-family:arial; } .news-latest-container H2,.news-latest-gotoarchive {color:#cccccc; padding:3px; margin:3px; border:1px solid #666; /*background-color:#D8FA70;*/ background-color:#000000; font-size:14pt; } .news-latest-gotoarchive {font-weight:bold; margin-top:5px; font-size:10pt; } .news-latest-gotoarchive A:LINK .news-latest-gotoarchive A:VISITED, .news-latest-gotoarchive A:HOVER {color:#cccccc; } .news-latest-gotoarchive A {color:#cccccc; } .news-latest-item { /* IE hack */ height: 1%; line-height: 1.3; /* IE hack end */ padding:3px; margin:3px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; } .news-latest-item IMG {margin-bottom:5px; margin-right:5px; border:1px solid #666; float:left; } .news-latest-category IMG {float: none; border:none; margin:0px; } .news-latest-date,.news-latest-morelink,.news-latest-category {font-size:9pt; } .news-latest-morelink {height:12px; } .news-latest-morelink A {float:right; } /*--------------------------------- tt_news LIST view -----------------------------------*/ .news-list-container {border:1px solid #000; background-color:#000000; color:cccccc; font-family:arial; } .news-list-item { /* IE hack */ height: 1%; line-height: 1.3; /* IE hack end */ padding:3px; margin:3px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; } .news-search-form {padding:3px; margin-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; } .news-search-emptyMsg{ margin:0px; } .news-search-form FORM {margin:0px; } .news-list-container H3 {margin-bottom: 5px; padding: 2px; border-bottom: 1px solid #333333; background-color: #000000; color:cccccc; } .news-list-container H3 A:LINK,.news-list-container H3 A:VISITED,.news-list-container H3 A:HOVER {color:#cccccc; padding-left:2px; } .news-list-container H3 A {color:#cccccc; } .news-list-container P {padding-left:3px; } .news-list-date {float: right; color: #cccccc; width: 180px; text-align: right; height: 20px; margin-top: -2px; margin-right: -2px; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: normal; background-color: #000000; } .news-list-imgcaption {float: right; padding-top:3px; padding-right:3px; font-size: 9px; } .news-list-container IMG {float: right; font-family:arial; border:1px solid #666; margin-bottom:5px; margin-right:2px; margin-left:5px; } .news-list-category IMG {float: none; border:none; margin:0px; } .news-list-morelink,.news-list-category {font-size:9pt; margin-left:3px; } .news-list-morelink {margin-bottom:3px; } .news-list-browse {text-align: center; } /*--------------------------------- tt_news Page-Browser ---------------------------------*/ .tx-ttnews-browsebox, .browseBoxWrap {margin:3px; border:1px solid #666; padding:3px; background-color:#000000; color:cccccc; font-family:arial; } .tx-ttnews-browsebox TD {font-size: 10px; } .tx-ttnews-browsebox-strong, .tx-ttnews-browsebox-SCell {font-weight: bold; } .tx-ttnews-browsebox-SCell P,.tx-ttnews-browsebox TD P{margin:0px; } .tx-ttnews-browsebox-SCell {background-color: #000000; border:1px solid #666; } .news-search-emptyMsg {font-size: 11px; margin-left: 10px; } /*--------------------------------- tt_news SINGLE view ---------------------------------*/ .news-single-item {font-family:arial; color:cccccc; padding:5px; margin-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; } .news-single-item H2 {font-size: 16px; font-weight:bold;
color: #cccccc; margin-bottom: 0px; } .news-single-item H3 {margin-bottom: 15px; } .news-single-img { float: right; margin-left:5px; } .news-single-imgcaption {padding:3px; clear:both; } .news-single-category {float: right; } .news-single-backlink, .news-single-backlink a {font-weight: bold; font-size: 10px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px; } .news-single-timedata {float: right; } .news-single-timedata, .news-single-author,.news-single-imgcaption {font-size: 9pt; } .news-single-author {padding-bottom: 3px; } .news-single-additional-info {background-color: #000000; /* clear: both;*/ margin-top: 15px; border: 1px solid #666; padding:3px; padding-bottom:0px;} .news-single-related,.news-single-files,.news-single-links {border: 1px solid #666; margin:0px; margin-bottom: 3px; padding:3px; background-color:#000000; } .news-single-related DD, .news-single-links DD, .news-single-files DD {margin-left:20px; } .news-single-related DT, .news-single-links DT, .news-single-files DT {font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; margin-left:5px; width:90%; } /*--------------------------------- tt_news Archivemenu (AMENU) --------------------------------- */ .news-amenu-container {margin-top:10px; padding:3px; border:1px solid #333; background-color:#000000; color:cccccc; font-family:arial; } .news-amenu-container LI {padding-bottom:1px; } .news-amenu-container UL {padding:3px; margin-top:5px; margin-left:0px; margin-bottom:0px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; list-style-type: none; } .news-amenu-container H2 { color:#ccc; padding:3px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; } .news-amenu-item-year {font-weight: bold; border: 1px solid #666; padding: 2px; background-color:#000000; color:#fff; } /*--------------------------------- tt_news Categorymenu (CATMENU) --------------------------------- */ .news-catmenu {padding:5px; margin:10px 0px 10px 10px; border:1px solid #666; background-color:#000000; color:cccccc; font-family:arial; } .news-catmenu-header {font-size:11pt; font-weight:bold; } .news-catmenu DIV {font-size:10pt; white-space: nowrap; } .news-catmenu DIV img, .news-catmenu img, .news-catmenu-header img {margin:0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; } .news-catmenu-ACT {font-weight:bold; } /* Styles for catmenu mode "nestedWraps" */ .level1 {padding:1px; padding-left:10px; background-color:#000000; border-left:1px solid #666; border-top:1px solid #666; } .level2 {padding:1px; padding-left:10px; background-color:#000000; border-left:1px solid #666; } .level3 {padding:1px; padding-left:10px; background-color:#000000; border-left:1px solid #666; border-top:1px solid #666; } .level4 {padding:1px; padding-left:10px; background-color:#000000; border-left:1px solid #666; }

Please post a comment if you have any questions or you come across a problem, and I'll do my best to help.

BTW - Typo3 doesn't work properly with Mozilla Firefox 3. I think it's because of this

Changes to character set inheritance

Firefox 3 closes a security bug in frames and iframes that allowed them to inherit the parent's character set. This could cause problems in certain cases. Now, frames are only allowed to inherit the parent's character set if both frame and parent were loaded from the same server. If you have pages that assume that frames loaded from other servers will inherit the same character set, you should update the frames' HTML to indicate their character set specifically.

From here...

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Updating_web_applications_for_Firefox_3

Hope this helps all you typo3 people out there.

Getting on getting on

2008-05-14T03:32:00.001+08:00

I haven't blogged here for a while, mainly coz I'm in Europe doing the honeymooning thing. My wife and I have been keeping everyone abreast of things over at http://wanderingwalnuts.blogspot.com. Having lots of fun but am missing our puppy and all the nice studio toys.

I hope Jamie is looking after the toys for me and making lots of music with them.

Will post lots more when I'm back home, but till then I'll keep on wandering Europe.

Owning Pets

2008-04-23T12:35:00.002+08:00

[Listening to: Radiohead - Hail To The Thief - 2+2=5 (The Lukewarm)]

I am (or rather was) dog-sitting my sister's King Charles Spaniel. The dog is not house trained, nor is it trained generally, which makes the experience of looking after the dog, a lot less pleasurable than it otherwise would be.

While our Border-Collie/Labrador is still a bit naughty at times, she's quite obedient and is house trained.

We don't so much mind that we've got to look after the dog while my sister is going through some difficult times and is trying to find another house. We can put up with a few holes in the garden and cleaning up puppy mess, it is family after all.

What is a lot more difficult to take however is the trip to vet I had to do last night. The poor little puppy hasn't been herself for a couple of days, not eating or drinking and pretty much just sitting there being miserable. It vomited the other night and had diarrhoea, so I took it to the vet.

It transpired that the puppy hasn't had it's shots and has contracted Parvovirus, which is often fatal.

So my sister is stuck with a $1200 vet bill, for a dog that may not survive, and will be in considerable pain, and all because she didn't spend the $60 on getting the dog a couple of needles.

So, my message.

If you are going to get a pet, look after it and get it's fucking shots. If this is too hard, or too expensive, don't buy a pet!

Golden Goodness

2008-04-21T13:34:00.002+08:00

Fluke - Oto - Bullet

I haven't had much time of late to blog. That's not so good from the point of view of keeping this little corner of the web all up to date, but it is good from the point of view of getting stuff done.

I spent Saturday in the studio with Jamie working on a new remix for Golden Boy. It's starting to sound amazing, and we're pretty excited about the track, and we haven't even finished adding parts or getting to the mix.

It's the first real chance I've had to try out the East/West Symphonic Choirs, and apart from a few sample clicks it's been amazing. Wordbuilder is a bit tricky to get working, especially with thick harmonies, but it's worth the effort.

The choirs definitely benefit from some effects (well for our application anyway). The track is building nicely, and we'll release when we're happy with the mix. My mate Chuck is going to record some Sax for us which I think will fit perfectly over the top of this pulsing wall of sound that we've built.

Saturday was spent pretty much with 4 hours of effects programming for the choirs followed by another 4 hours of building Kurzweil K2600 setups and Ensoniq SQ80 sounds. The SQ80 is one very underated synth. Best hard sync implementation I think I've ever heard, even better than the Kurzweil's.

Sunday saw me being computer tech. Got 2 computers out the door on Sunday (plus one on Saturday morning). I think I'm gonna have to start charging for that. Maybe a carton of Hoegarden's per computer. That will keep the studio in beer for quite some time.

Anyway the pile of work on my desk isn't getting any smaller, so I'd better get back to it.

The Riddle of Love

2008-04-13T18:31:00.002+08:00

Every now and then there are vague whispers on the wind
I hear tales told of a mystery

Like dragons of old it is a timeless tale
Of maidens fair and heroes bold
And dark villains awaiting their prey.

As the rumour spreads throughout the world
I hear tales of joy and woe
Of blissful liasons and unjust struggles.
Of horrific scarring and lifelong unions.

The mystery deepens when I hear about
Those that strive all their lives for
that which is always there.

Of ancentra momentum and instantaneous gratification.
Everyone seems to agree
That it has importance beyond measure
but no substance whatsoever

It can be held in your hand
But is bigger than god
Like a pebble in your pocket
You can fall from it and not hit the rocks for years

What is this thing of contradictions
That creates so many lost souls?
Does it exist?
Or is this the Riddle fo Love?

TR 909 is back - and badder than ever

2008-02-26T15:33:00.001+09:00

[Listening to: Trance Lab Radio - 11 February 2008 - Lord Bass - The Trance Lab with Lord Bass (1:59:03)]

Finally got my TR 909 back from the shop, all modded and fixed. MIDI now works well (including external Sync and SYSEX) and I've updated my GTRC module to fully support the two banks. Unfortuately, Roland implemented bank changes using a system real time message, so Studio Connections can't do the bank changes automatically, but heck, being able to use a SYSEX librarian at all for 20 year old gear is a testament to the power of MIDI.

One little niggle I did have was in regards to the new button caps and switches from Chip for Brains. The switches aren't the same height as the old switches, and sit a little higher than the existing ones. Also, the button caps do not stay on the buttons very well. I'm going to have to use some blu-tac or some form of glue to stop them popping off all the time, but it sure does look mean in blue. I also had a couple of non-functioning switches which I'm going to have to return. At least we can get the parts though, so the niggle is pretty minor.

I also changed the knobs on the mods so that they are the same as the old knobs and kinda look like they are meant to be there. The Colin Fraser mods are well worth doing if you want to use the TR 909 properly.

I'm currently working on a KSP8/Rumour/Mangler GTRC module which should be ready for deployment in the next few days once I finishe figuring out exactly what it is Kurzweil did with SYSEX on the Rumour and Mangler. It's close enough to the KSP8 to be annoying.

Anyway, back to the grind. Too much work, too little time.

Pop v Art

2008-02-14T15:00:00.002+09:00

[Listening to: Where You End - Moby - Hotel (3:18)]

I read an interesting article on New Music Strategies today, but the real gem that I found today wasn't the article itself, but a comment by Michael.

The difference between “art” and “pop” in two broad (but applicable) generalizations:

- When “art” fails to gain commercial success, the artist still has something to stand behind.

- When “pop” fails to gain commercial success, the artist moves on.

I think he's hit the nail on the head here, and this is probably the best comparison I've ever heard to pop v art. It's got the essential ingredient for the comparison, which is the commercial side. This is important, because it is the essence of what pop is. If "pop" does not make money, it is a failure. If "art" does not make money then it's largely irrelevant to it's value as "art" (though perhaps not to the starving artist).

In many ways it really comes down to the purpose of the work. If the purpose is to make money, then there is a case to be made that it really is "pop". If the purpose is concerned more with the process of creating, then it's probably art. If the purpose is to offend people or make a statement then you should be in politics...

Funniest thing I've read on the Internet for ages

2008-02-11T10:24:00.000+09:00

Maybe it's only funny to me, because I'm currently dealing with unpleasantries from Sonikmatter management, but I laughed out loud when I read this post. (For those that don't know, clif is one of the administrators and owners of the site. Brian and Rick are ex-owners and contributors to the site, and George used to work for Kurzweil, and had a wonderful site that has been reproduced at sonikmatter.)

http://community.sonikmatter.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=37208&view=findpost&p=234016

I'm going to frame it an put it on my studio wall.

Typo3 Page Statistics

2008-01-30T15:53:00.001+09:00

[Listening to: Trance Lab Radio - 1 October 2007 - Lord Bass - The Trance Lab with Lord Bass (1:56:12)]

OK - solved another little Typo 3 headache today.

If the Page Statistics Plugin is installed it's necessary to add some code to your template/s to make it work.

You need to add this

page.headerData.100 < plugin.tx_kestats_pi1

to the SETUP section of your template. It doesn't seem to work if you put it in the Constants Section.

Probably best to type this in rather than copy - paste due to using escape characters to display <. Webpages think it's opening a tag otherwise.

Select Template, then Edit Whole Template Record, when you are in the Info/Modify Page (which is selected from the drop down box in the top right of the window).

Good Deed

2008-01-24T21:23:00.000+09:00

Today I helped an old man!

Frazzled

2008-01-15T17:26:00.000+09:00

[Listening to: Absurd - Fluke - Risotto (5:48)]

It's been a while since I've posted, but I have an excuse. I've been insanely busy.

A quick update on stuff.

Sonikmatter LLC and my association with it has gone completely pear shaped. I'm not happy about the way things unfolded, and I'm currently in the middle of sorting out the mess with the other owners.

My TR909 got broken while I was trying to the update, then it got fixed (sort of), then it got fixed (mostly) then it got modded, now it's back with the tech getting more modded and fixed properly.

Works been insane, but at long last we got listed. Been bashing my head against a wall and other cow-orkers over systems, invoicing etc.

Been doing lots of music, jamming, producing and playing. Got a new Korg EMX1 which is an amazing little box. My wife bought Live 7 suite for me for Xmas, which is as cool as heck.

Have joined up a few new forums. I'll update the forum list soon, but my favourite at the moment is http://www.cunka.com/forums/index.php which is a Kurzweil forum run by my good friend Brian (Cowzar) Cowell.

That's about it for now. Will post more soon.

Typo 3 Direct Mail Subscription Templates and Getting them Damn Categories to work.

2007-09-21T12:30:00.001+08:00

[Listening to: Amen - Astral Projection - Amen (6:02)]

After spending about a day and a half searching the internet for information on how to get category's to work in Typo3's Direct Mail module, I've finally worked it out.

This applies to Typo3 installations with Direct Mail 2.0.0 or higher and with Direct Mail Subscription 1.1.0

Categories are now stored in a database, rather than how they were previously. The categories themselves are still defined in the old way, and in my case I've got them in a system folder (the id is 54) which will help in deciephering all of the code that's coming up.

On backend pages where you want the categories list to appear you will need to put this in the Page TS Config window (you can find this by going to the Edit Page Properties on the page required.

TCEFORM.tt_content.module_sys_dmail_category.PAGE_TSCONFIG_IDLIST = 54
TCEFORM.tt_address.module_sys_dmail_category.PAGE_TSCONFIG_IDLIST = 54
TCEFORM.fe_users.module_sys_dmail_category.PAGE_TSCONFIG_IDLIST = 54
TCEFORM.sys_dmail_group.select_categories.PAGE_TSCONFIG_IDLIST = 54

TCEFORM.tt_content.module_sys_dmail_category.disabled = 0
TCEFORM.tt_address.module_sys_dmail_category.disabled = 0
TCEFORM.fe_users.module_sys_dmail_category.disabled = 0
TCEFORM.sys_dmail_group.select_categories.disabled = 0

You will also need the line

config.insertDmailerBoundaries = 1

In the Direct Mail Folder, but in the TS Setup property. Installing the static template "Direct Mail Content Boundaries" though, should do this automatically for you.

I've got a bunch of other stuff in mine as well, that's working, so if you have this in, and it doesn't work, let me know, and I'll post the full stuff that's in mine.

For frontend pages where you want the subscriber information I've got this in my Page TS Config.

TCEFORM.tt_content.module_sys_dmail_category.PAGE_TSCONFIG_IDLIST = 54
TCEFORM.tt_address.module_sys_dmail_category.PAGE_TSCONFIG_IDLIST = 54
TCEFORM.fe_users.module_sys_dmail_category.PAGE_TSCONFIG_IDLIST = 54
TCEFORM.sys_dmail_group.select_categories.PAGE_TSCONFIG_IDLIST = 54

plugin.feadmin.dmailsubscription.cObjects.CATLIST.pid = 54

I'm not sure if you need the first 4 lines, but the last one is important. It tells the page where to find the categories.

You need to get rid of whatever was in the TS Config box before, because it stops the new one from working properly.

You need to set a template (or at least a template extension) for this page that includes the Direct Mail Content Boundaries Static Template.

You will also need a new tmpl file. The old one simply won't work with the new categories. It will display on the page like it used to, and it will appear to work, but the front page categories won't line up with the new back end categories, and that's kinda the whole point.

To fix it, you will need to add in

[BR]

###CE_CATLIST###

[BR]

(replacing the [ and ] with the angled equivalents.

This will need to go in place of the existing category list (ie the bit that looked a bit like)


[br]
[b]Select Special Categories:[/b][BR]
[table]
[tr]
 [td]###GW2B###Corporate###GW2E###[/td][td][input type="checkbox" name="FE[tt_address][module_sys_dmail_category][0]"][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
 [td]###GW2B###Technical###GW2E###[/td][td][input type="checkbox" name="FE[tt_address][module_sys_dmail_category][1]"][/td]

[/tr]
[tr]
 [td]###GW2B###Announcements###GW2E###[/td][td][input type="checkbox" name="FE[tt_address][module_sys_dmail_category][2]"][/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

[BR]

There is a new template file included with the latest installations, that you can download from the Typo3 repository (go to http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/list/direct_mail_subscription//info/ext_typoscript_setup.txt/ and download the .tmpl file.)

Note that there is still an error in this new file, and that you'll need to edit this file to fix the Edit Profile links. It's still configured for the old module, not the new one. The simplest way is to search for "Edit profile" and put in the ###CE_CATLIST### entry instead of the Special Categories table.\

You'll probably want to edit the email templates near the bottom of this file as well, so that it is more suited your site (ie change the email subject and contents.)

Once you've made the changes you will need to upload the .tmpl file. This is done on the template page for the page where you want it (or wherever you have the direct mail subscription template setup). Browse and upload.

To change the email address and name that the email is sent from go to the template extension and set the constants in the Direct Mail Subscription section.

The Direct Mail Tutorial is still the easiest way to get this incredibly powerful mailing list running, though you'll need the information above for setting the categories, rather than the tutorial file. The manual is useful for the backend stuff, but tells you nothing about the frontend subscription.

The next thing to do is to tie all of this in with the tt_news plugin, but I might leave that for another day.

Hope this is helpful, and I hope this finds it's way sufficiently up the google list for it to be genuinely useful. If you have any comments, corrections, or questions, please add a comment.

Triple J Uneartherd

2007-09-14T11:43:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Machine Room Commercial - LD 120 - The Collection (34:07)]

Well, three acts I'm involved with have got their tunes in the running for Triple J's unearthed competition. Those are LD 120, LOST and The X Lander.

You can have a listen to the tunes, download them, review them and stuff like that below:

LD 120's Unearthed Page
LOST's Unearthed Page
X Lander's Unearthed Pgae

Have a listen to the tunes, and if you like them, please write a quick review to tell us so. I'm not sure exactly how the whole Triple J site works, but I'd say that the more listens you get, the more chance you have of getting your music out there, and we'd really like that, so get to clicking, downloading and all that stuff.

CSU songs

2007-09-07T16:21:00.000+08:00

My favourite CSU song ever. Astral Travel

Destruction

2007-09-07T14:54:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Vicious Delicious - Infected Mushroom - Vicious Delicious (7:24)]

What a hectic few months it's been. Jode's and I got over to China, and back down to Adelaide to catch up with here Dad and Nanna, and little brother. It was great fun down there, though a little bit on the brisk side.

Back home, however there was trouble brewing. We arrived home to find that my sister had left her husband and taken up residence in our house.

Worse yet, she came with 3 children under 6.

Worse still, the said 3 children have a destructive force that is measured on the same magnitude as the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Our house is burried under about a foot of clothing, toys, lollies, paperwork and god knows what else. Some kind of wierd troll has moved into our fridge that seems intent on devouring all the good healthy stuff we put in there, and turning it into junk food. His twin brother has taken up residence in our pantry. Their destructive half brother has taken to breaking just about every kitchen utensil, drink bottle, plate, cup, glass that we own, or at least one piece from each set. Those wedding gifts have got a pretty short life expectancy.

The worst thing of all though is the 4 and a half year old that has some psycopathic phobia of the toilet and who instead likes to have shit running down her legs so she can deposit it from one end of the house to the other, crush it into the carpets and smear it on the walls.

We are none too happy about the situation, and unfortunately we seem to be the last house with the doors still open to her. She has at long last managed to find a rental property, but she's taking her own sweet time moving in there. We've been strongly hinting that it's a matter of urgency that she moves, even going so far as packing up all the clothes and furniture into boxes and leaving it beside the front door.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my sister to death, but our little 4 x 2 was never designed to hold 3 adults, 3 kids and a dog who thinks she's human. Not only that, but we don't really agree with the whole situation, so I'm sitting here biting my tongue, curled up in a ball, praying that the whole mess will just disappear in a puff of smoke.

My brother in law (who was one of my groomsmen, and a really good mate) really has copped the raw end of the stick with this one. While there has been some strain in the relationship, it's not really fair on my BIL that my sister has left the house to be with an old flame, while also looting the house of the furniture, and denying access to the kids in all but the most inopportune moments.

The kids are being used as a bit of leverage between the warring factions, and the stress is starting to show.

So here I am, stuck in a house with 6 women, 3 of whom are Leo's, 2 of which are welcome (and one of them is the dog), watching my sisters relationship crumble in the same way as the big bang did, trying to keep my house from being completely and utterly destroyed. Jode's is frustrated, the dog is scared and kinda skittish and the whole thing is doing my head in.

My sister on the other hand seems to delight in springing the unholy trinity on us at a moments notice as some kind of masochistic live in baby sitters while she's out with her boyfriend.

Fortunately I've managed to keep the keys to the studio hidden, and actually managed to get some new tunes finished in those brief moments that I manage to escape. Heck I've even done a few upgrades over the last couple of months.

Hopefully tonight our torment will end, as it's currently scheduled that the 4 of them will be sleeping at their new house tonight. Schedules seem to have a nasty habit of getting altered, but we've got a plan. The bed get's disassembled tonight, and the air mattress get's deflated. I'm not sure it we're being pushy or nasty here, but there's certainly something inhuman about the whole situation.

If you have any suggestions about how to deftly weave through the sea of ego's and fragile emotions without copping threats of death or castration from wife, sister, brother in law or future teenage girls, do leave me a comment. I need all the help I can get with this one.

Back in China, A married man

2007-05-12T14:07:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Chaishop Music News 057 - Chaishop.com - Chaishop Music News (Psychedelic, Progressive, Goa and Chillout Trance) (1:08:03)]

Well, I find myself back in China again, only 3 weeks after being wed to my wonderful wife.

The wedding was an amazing day of being pampered, and in beautiful surroundings with beautiful people. It went way too fast of course, but the next week of relaxing at the Burswood and down south at a nice little secluded hideaway were magical. We only had a couple of weeks though, and then I was straight back into the thick of things at work. On a horror 24 hour red-eye from Perth to Baotao, in Inner Mongolia, before 5 hours for an overnighter in Linhe, and another 3 hours out to site.

Site is pretty much everything I had expected. Nothing works, getting anything done is a chore (heck, one of my work colleages has been waiting for 8 weeks to get a light bulb changed). I've had a light bulb explode on me, caught a hungry little mouse in my room, and had more shouting matches with unco-operative contractors in the last week than I've had in my life previously.

Every single little thing needs to be endlessly debated and disagreed with, even if it has previously been agreed to. Instructions are issued, agreed to, only to be ignored or completely disregarded. I can understand why this place was doing my fellow workers' heads in. Everything here is about saving 10c right now, even if it's going to cost you thousands in a week to fix the stuff up caused by the 10c saving. Oh, and add to that, the fact that no-one can every be wrong, and it's a recipe for hair tearing.

Not that it's all bad. The labourer's are fantastic. Smart and hard working, even if they have to pay for every shower that they have, and get 75c per day for food. It's the management that's the real problem. Management positions are seen as positions of status where people don't do any work, and just boss other's around. Never mind supporting the bloke's on the coal face, they are seen as a lower class of citizen who should be working as the manager's slaves.

There is a complete disregard for safety, or for anything really that has any real use, or any common sense. There's no problem spending a few hundred bucks on a slap up meal to welcome guests, but be blowed if they'll spend a couple of bucks to supply them with clean drinking water, or a clean room.

Blah, enough fire breathing from me today. I've got to go and fight a contractor for the next few hours to get a valve put in, that they agreed to put in, so that we wouldn't have to shut down the entire plant every time one of their cheap ass flow controllers break down (which seems to be about every 2 weeks). Why they don't get something decent that will last the job rather than the flimsy, leaky pieces of cheap shit that have the lowest price tag on is beyond me.

Ciao for now.

Schtuff

2007-02-12T14:35:00.000+09:00

[Listening to: dj_schwa_-_dancefloor_madness_(live_ - - (1:36:04)]

Only 8 weeks to go to the wedding and everything is moving along like a train. Jode's and I have got a pretty full calender, even though if feels as though we are barely getting out of the house. Cakes, suit's, reception, topiary, dancing, music, wine's, etc, etc all need to be finalized and paid for. Everything is booked, but it's the details that need to be sorted out.

Taking a step back from all of this, I am quite amazed by just how organized Jode's has been in getting this all sorted out. I think if I had been left in sole responsibility for this, then I'd be running around and panicking about now. I don't know how she's managed to keep it all (and me) all organized and in line.

Jode's is back at work now. She's temping, but I think that it's something that she'll kind of enjoy (as much as one can enjoy working). Not being tied down to one employer, and having the flexibility to have time off, is going to fit in with the way she works. Ideally a part time job would suit her best, but they are a bit thin on the ground at the moment. The next best thing is temping for a few months, and having a month off, in which she can do her art and unwind.

I've just had her easel fixed and bough her some new backing boards after we had an accident with the last backing board, snapping the shelf off her easel. Hopefully, everything in the studio is getting sorted into a good work environment for her. Except for all my mess of course. I need to spend a day or so out there, re-organizing the studio and clearing away all of the unnecessary bits and pieces. We need to get some more pastels for Jodes, that have a different, softer texture. I don't really understand it all, but she says it will make it easier to layer the colours, which makes sense. Now that we have some more money coming in, I want to start puting some money aside for them, so that we can get them in a month or so.

I gave her a full set of Rembrandt pastels a couple of years ago, on the condition that they all end up as stubby little well used bit's or pastel. Well, she's not quite to that stage yet, but they have been well used, and she's made a few amazing pieces of art, that we've framed and put up in the house. You can check them out at her website

Last night I finished out wedding waltz after fussing over it for a few weeks, and generally avoiding it. It's a great feeling to have it finished, and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It's kind of dark and solemn, but not in a depressing way. More of an understated elegance - like getting really dressed up, with a very refined style, but without going over the top and getting tacky. It's spacious and glorious, but also simple. It's written very much from the heart, and is a song of feeling. That's one of the reason's why I found it difficult to work on it. It's such an important piece of music to us both, and I didn't want to get it wrong. It can be tricky getting the right feeling into a piece of music.

I have the feeling in my heart, but the technical aspects of recording and problem solving can sometimes cause the head to get in the way, or for the feeling to get lost somewhere in the recording process.

That's one of the things that I miss a little about the old days, when I had a very minimal studio setup. A lack of cables and technical complexity, meant that it was much easier to get the feeling into a song, but often the sonic results were quite underwhelming due to the limitations of the equipment. Now, the sonic results are great, but sometimes the character of the songs is missing.

Not this time I'm pleased to say.

Perhaps that's why the composers of old, have so much feeling and emotion in their songs, because they simply wrote it on paper, in their own special language. There was no technology to get in the way. Like a poet, scratching out their feelings onto parchment, the composers of old, could just let the feeling flow out onto the paper. Of course, they were necessarily brilliant, to know the sounds in their heads, and to put them into a written form, but at least they didn't have the barriers of 20 layers of technology to wrestle with on the way.

Anyway, I've got a volume of laboratory procedures sitting in front of me, summoning my attention, so I'd better get back to it.

Music and Things

2007-01-12T16:14:00.000+09:00

Well, that last post was supposed to go out last month some time, and I just upgraded my account to the new Blogger system, and that kinda screwed up w.bloggar a bit. It's all good now (for anyone who wants to know how, check out http://samishra.wordpress.com/2006/11/08/getting-wbloggar-to-work-with-blogger-beta/ where I found the solution - the server is beta.blogger.com and the user name is your gmail address - all else is the same.)

Anyway, this entry is about music and the legend Lord Bass, who played LD 120's new track Archipelago (he even got the pronounciation correct), on his podcast and radio show Trance Lab. It certainly bought a smile to my face. Archipelago is the track mentioned in the previous post, and is now finished. Jamie and I have started on a new track now.

Also music related, my new toy arrived the other day - a Roland TR-909. Yep, I now have THAT kick drum in the studio, and man am I happy about it. Samples really don't do that kick drum justice. I've got a few modifications to do to it (like removing the 9V battery, which hopefully hasn't fried the SRAM chip, and replacing it with a 3V battery supply, adding some new controls and modifying the existing ones and finally doing the 240V conversion (which seems to be as simple as moving a single jumper and getting a new cable.

I don't think I'll be able to find an Australian cable to fit the existing receptacle, so I'll likely change over to an IEC connector and earth the chassis (like all good electrical equipment should be). Anyway, it works as it is, and I'm getting my head around the sequencer at the moment. I'll likely use it to also sequence my DMPro using the 909's external instrument function, so it's actually an astoundingly good match for my studio.

In other news, the wedding preparations are going pretty smoothly. Jode's is a bloody legend for working so hard at it. I try to tell myself that I'm contributing by paying for it all, but even so, my efforts pale in comparisons to the amount of time that she has ploughed into it. It's certainly going to be a day to remember (as it bloody well should be).

Work is pretty darn busy. I've got a procedure that is seemingly taking forever to complete. I was hoping to get it finished today, but I found a couple of niggly little things that I need to fix, and a few revisions that need to be done on an earlier, related procedure as a result.

Anyway, it's nearly the end of the day, and there's a cold beer with my name on it.

Till next time...

New Toy

2007-01-12T15:29:00.000+09:00

[Listening to: Return To Forever - Global Cee - Trancemaster 2009 (8:15)]

I just received my SPL Tube Vitalizer, which has been on my dream list for about 5 years now. A big thumbs up to Lewis at Awave, in Melbourne, who is the best place in the world to buy good audio gear from.

I'm going to have to rewire and reconfigure half my studio to fit this in, but it is going to be soooooo worth it.

I've started doing some music every 2-3 weeks with an old friend of mine, Jamie Syde who writes some of the best tunes that I've yet heard. He's a genius on the wavestation and programming effects, though he doesn't get along very well with computers, which is fine, because my computer is playing nice at the moment.

In other news, the wedding preparations are moving along nicely, though we've still got lots of work to do on the invitations. I'm not very good at cutting out butterflies. They are really, really tricky and the good scissors have holes that are very tight on my fingers, which doesn't help much. Jode's has been the real butterflies stalwart though. She's done heaps of them. I help as best I can (I wield a mean heat gun :D), and I am getting better and faster at cutting out butterflies. I think we still have about 250 butterflies to go.

Just about everything else is finalized for the wedding. We just need to organize the cake, the suits, some shoes for Jodes and the Honeymoon flights, though we do have 5 months still to get all of that sorted.

The settlement of the house has come through at long last, though I'm still in the process of sorting all the accounts out. What a nightmare this has been, though it will allow me to set things up properly now. You learn so much from experience. We're about to go on a bit of a shopping spree for some stuff that we kinda need (like a new laptop, and new mobile phones), which is kind of exciting.

Anyway, work beckons, so till next time....

Travelling.......Again!

2006-10-22T00:18:00.000+08:00

I feel like I am forever on planes. Here I sit again, in the business class lounge at Singapore Airport, waiting for my flight home to Perth. Another week in China, another upset tummy, though at least I fared better than my travelling companion who has nearly 24 hours of travel combatting vomitting and a seriously upset tummy. This trip took me to the back blocks of Inner Mongolia and Gansu provinces to show some cosultants around two of the projects that I'm working on.

Overall it was a good, and very productive trip, though it was long and tiring. Travel nearly every day, with a 12 hour train trip thrown in for good measure. Actually I don't mind chinese train trips, though do be sure to get a soft sleeper, preferably the entire cabin, though the train service is notorious for re-assigning your bookings at random, so your 4 seats may well be spread over 4 cabins.

In this case we got half lucky. We booked 2 cabins for 5 of us (8 seats) and got 1 cabin plus four random seats in 4 other different cabins. It worked out quite well, because you can comfortably seat 5 people in 1 cabin, though there is only room for 4 if you lay down or sleep.

I managed to get a bit of shopping done in China, and bought lots of silk for Jode's (both for painting and for sewing). I got here a few other surprises too (though I won't mention them here, in case she reads this entry before I arrive back in Perth, and that will ruin the surprise.

Anyway, I'm feeling tired, and not really in the rambling kind of mood, so this entry will be breif. I've got to work out what to do for the next hour until my flight boards. Something that will ensure that I'm awake to board the plane and results in me sleeping soon thereafter, preferably. I'm sure I'll sort something out.

Inside My Head

2006-10-05T13:56:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Everyone Follow (Orgazmix by Daniel B. of Front 242) - Regenerator - The Digital Space Between Vol. 2 (3:49)]

Life takes us on a strange journey at times. You can never be sure what is just around the next corner, and behind the next door. Life has certainly served me up much food for thought recently. I've been very reflective of late, seemingly eternally considering the future.

This actually seems a lot more dramatic than it actually is. The sorts of things on my mind are wondering if Jode's will truly find happiness with the change in her job. Leaving her current employer is something that I think she really needed to do. She tried a number of ways to change things at her work, and to see if she could change things about her job about which she was dissatisfied, but without much luck (or apparent support from her employer). The overloaded work and broken promises were really getting her down.

It's a bit of a tricky time for us financially. Planning a wedding and awaiting the settlement of a vacant house, means that finances will be a bit tight until she finds a new job, but I think it's more than worth it. A job closer to home, in a more friendly and closeknit team will suit her more than the current high pressure corporate role. I think Jode's is going through a similar phase now, to what I went through a few years ago. In my case, my value to the large company I worked for became apparent when they started addressing my mail to my payroll number. How much more impersonal can you get.

Sometimes, I think we forget that a job is a part of our lives, and it needs to harmonize with the rest of our time. A job is not something that we should feel that we are sacrificing something to do. The fact is, that we are selling our time to a business, and we should feel that we are being well compensated for that, and also that we are appreciated in our efforts. While having a good job is a priveledge that I feel we should earn, (though example and experience), I also feel that it is also a priveledge for the company to have good, dedicated employees, and they should also earn that priviledge though example and experience.

For a workforce to be happy and enjoy their employment a balance needs to be struck between the employee and the company. Mutual respect needs to exist, and consideration needs to be given both to the employees life outside of work, and to the company's continuing development.

In Jodie's case, I felt that there was not enough consideration given to the amount of work being expected of one person, and not enough support given to help her cope with the ever increasing workload. The company in question pride's itself on looking after it's employees, but, as with many large company's the gesture is largely cosmetic, and empty. The upper management believes it, and the workers at the coal face want it to be true, but somewhere in the myriad of middle management the whole concept gets corrupted as everyone tramples each other as they strive for some sort of empty accolade from the company or from their peers or bosses.

People want some sort of quazi fame for making money or acheiving some other goal, and give scant regard to who gets kicked to the ground on the way around.

This was partially the impetus of the whole Industrial/Cyberpunk sub-cultures, along with a pointed response to corporate greed and irresponsibility.

Anyway, needless to say, I fully support Jodie's quest for a job that she can enjoy, and where she is valued by her employer.

Weight loss, wedding planning and financial management are other issues that are skating over my mind. It seems that there is so much to be done, and trying to find time and resources for it all, and even thinking about how we are going to manage it all over the coming months is leaving me somewhat exhausted. Jode's and I have decided that we are going to do the Landmark forum and a well meaning friend went ahead and signed us up. That's all well and good, but the timing isn't really very good for us, in terms of our financial commitments.

The whole hard sell, push-push thing is the singlular aspect of Landmark that I abhor, and it seems that this is something that the well-meaning friend has adopted. The friend has decided that we need to do this (and perhaps we do), and seems intent on getting us to go along. The thing is, we want to go, but we want to do it when we can financially afford to do it, rather than getting a guilt trip because someone has booked us, paid our deposit, meaning that we feel somewhat compelled to pay them back ASAP.

For me, that's realistically going to be when the house settles. Selling a house is the way that we have decided to liquify some of our assetts. Having a high net worth is pretty well useless if you can't afford to put food on the table, and while things ain't quite that bad, the cashflow squeeze is certainly impinging on our lifestyle in a manner that neither Jode's or I are completely happy with.

Somehow we need to find time to deal with all of this. It's difficult to find additional time when you are forever worrying and tired, and I have been feeling both of late. There's lots that needs to be done around the house to keep life ticking over, like cooking, cleaning, gardening, bookwork etc, without the added burdens of finding time for exercise, looking for new jobs, and playing catchup with all those things that keep us sane. Tempers (for both of us) get frayed when we are stressed, and that's yet another element that get's thrown into the mix for us both to deal with.

I strongly feel that we are through the worst of it, in terms of our own personal stresses, and that the changes we have been making for the last few months is starting to pay off, though sometimes it is hard to see the light at the end of it. Things will move quickly once we have the injection of cash from the sale of the house, and will completely free up our finances, so we aren't squeezed in the same way. We can then get on and sort out some of the more pressing needs (such as renovations). Hopefully this will have the flow on affect of releiving stress as we come home to a place that we heartily enjoy every aspect of.

Well, that's my stream of conciousness for today. I'm not sure if it's reasonable, coherent, reasonable or anything else. It's simply my brain connected directly to my keyboard and doesn't even necessarily reflect how I'm generally feeling. Tomorrow, I'll probably feel completely differently, but this is, afterall, The Circus of my Mind!

Dog Blog

2006-09-07T17:23:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Existance - Front Line Assembly - Epitaph (8:15)]

Not Dilbert, but our puppy, Satin has her own Dog Blog.

www.dogster.com/?379443

I got a bit bored today, and was checking out some links in forum sigs.

In other news, stuff is busy. Am having a bit of a break from Semikazi until after the wedding, which will hopefully give me some more time for Toastmasters and to do Music, and of course, to spend some time with my lovely fiance and furry family.

Work is still full on, but at least we have purpose. A crockery war has started in the office where by it has become nigh on impossible to get a plate for me to have my lunch on. It's sooooooo petty, it would be laughable if it wasn't such a damn imposition. I think I should just drip garlic sauce all over the boardroom table. I'm sure that would sort the matter out pretty damn swiftly.

Jodes is applying for a promotion at work, which has been stressing her out a bit over the last few weeks, and at long last my tax variation has come through which means that I should have enough money to live on for the foreseeable future. Hellula!!!!

Weddings, Work and Woofers

2006-08-04T15:32:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since my words have graced the limitless confines of Cyberspace, but not without reason. Life has been hectic.

Plans for the wedding are going really well though it is puting a bit of a financial strain on things. Am kinda hanging out to sell the house we have on the market, coz I'm kinda getting sick of having no ready cash, but we are surviving.

Nearly everything is pretty well arranged. Just got to lock in a DJ, and arrange the suits, flowers and cake and choose some food for the evening. We need to book the flights for the honeymoon, and that leads me to my next subject......

Work.

Work sucks. As if I'm not stressed enough already, they've asked me to solve the problem of how they are going to commission a plant while I'm planning on being on my honeymoon. I mean, I know that it's crucial for the company to get this up and going, but this is kind of pushing the sacrifices for the sake of a job a bit far. It's not as though they didn't have plenty of notice, coz we told them 9 months ago the date of the wedding.

I'm dreading bringing this up with Jode's, coz she's going to be less than happy, and frankly I don't blame her. I'm not real happy about it either. I've been pretty well fucked around over the years with respect to the expectations on travel, and I've had pretty much enough of it. I mean, I don't even know if I'll have a job next year, and they are asking me to move my honeymoon.

Is that reasonable?

If you read this entry, I'd appreciate some perspective. Leave me a comment as to what you think.

Anyway, onto a much more cheerful, and bouncy subject, Woofers.

Our woofer (Satin) has graduated her second bout of doggy training, and is about to embark on the journey of becoming a big brave grown up dog, with the "real" dog training. She's not particularly good at healing, though she can do all the other tricks very well. The problem is, healing is kinda a big prerequesite for doing all the really cool doggy training stuff like Agility, so the woofer and us are learning to heal.

Lot's of treats for Satin, lots of headaches and frustration for us as she learns.

She's only 7 months old, so there's plenty of time to get it right, and I'm sure she will. We need to spend more time walking her though, but it's been hard of late. The mornings have been cold and wet, and the amount of stress we've been under has left us feeling pretty weary. Getting out of bed is a real chore at the moment, but we are working on improving that. Getting back to exercising is sure to help with the problem, but being short on cash is leaving us kind of hamstrung at the moment.

Blah......

I just want to shut my eyes for week.

I think I might take some leave.

Work

2006-06-19T11:43:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: DJ Jan (X-Dream) in the mix - Chaishop.com - Chaishop Music News (Psychedelic, Progressive, Goa and Chillout Trance) (2:01:10)]

Am busy

Shit hit fan.

Under the pump.

Big engineering project.

Am snowed under.

Shit Day

2006-06-15T17:02:00.000+08:00

Today was shit.

Had arguments with workmates about travel and the next to no notice that they give to me when I need to travel overseas. Apparently I'm supposed to be "flexible".

Had argument with Jode's about how much my work sucks because they insist on giving me no notice, when I travel.

Fact is I can see the points of everyone. Work is against the wall and really has no control over scheduling, and with such a small workforce, unfortunately, I'm the one that needs to make shit work. To grow, we need to get this plant up and going, and we are at the mercy of other people less organized than us. It sucks for us all.

On the other hand, Jode's wants to enjoy life, and to do that requires us to make some plans. With the unpredictability of work that is difficult, especially for us to make plans together. It's unreasonable for us to drop everything at a moment's notice to do stuff for work.

History - I've told work that this is the last big project that I'm going away for, for significant periods of time. Dunno if it's registered.

The situation as I see it - Jode's told me that she's not going to be a slave to my work any more. I applaud that. My work should not impact on stuff she wants to do. Dunno what ramifications that's going to have at the moment. If Jode's wants to do stuff that she can enjoy alone then not huge (though I will miss out on spending some quality time with her). If I'm integral to the experience, then I still dunno. Will cross that bridge when I come to it. My head hurts.

I just hope that all these investments come to fruition soon, so that I can afford to not work. My plan is to be able to have a lot more time free to spend with Jode's after we are married. Restricting work travel will help, but retiring or going part time will help more.

Options.

1) Change nothing and continue to walk a razor's edge between work demands and living a life
2) Tell work to stick it, and find another job.
3) Reinforce to work again that this is the final big job and long stints away is not an option as of next year, and hope that it pans out.

What do I want?

I don't know.

I certainly know that I'm not happy with not knowing where I'll be in 2 weeks time. Work has agreed that communication needs to be improved
I certainly know that I don't want my actions to make Jodie unhappy. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but I strive to minimize it.
I know that I don't want to keep doing the same thing for the next 20 years. I've probably got 2-3 more years of this in me and then I'm going to need a change. Dunno what. Maybe new career. Maybe new job. Dunno
I know that I want to be happy and relaxed, and laid back. I don't want to be getting stressed out trying to keep everyone happy. I do my best to treat everyone with respect and dignity, and that should be enough. I am kind and accomodating with those things I can control, and try to react in the best possible way to those things I can't. Unfortunately, sometimes the inflexible things clash right above my head, and give me a headache.
I know I need some sleep. I was up late last night. I think that made me grumpy.
I know it's home time, and that I'm about to logoff.

*poof

Industrial Radio Rules

2006-06-07T13:47:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Chaishop Music News 021 - Chaishop.com - Chaishop Music News (Psychedelic, Progressive, Goa and Chillout Trance) (58:55)]
Big shoutout to Jon Murphy at Industrial Radio who played an LD 120 track in show 31. Symphonique Sandra was used to round out the show on a mellow note last week, and boy did it bring a big grin to my face. Dammit, looks like I don't suck most after all (all the Industrial Radio forum Junkies will get that). Anyway here's hoping for some more airplay in podcast land.

Words....

2006-06-07T13:36:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Chaishop Music News 021 - Chaishop.com - Chaishop Music News (Psychedelic, Progressive, Goa and Chillout Trance) (58:55)]

Snot Rocket - noun - Those little furry triangles of hair that form under the notril when one grows a moustache and doesn't trim. They look like the flames coming from a rocket.

Snowberg - noun - 1. A toungue tied snowflake/iceberg. 2. One of those ultra hard snowballs that renders one unconcious when it smashes against your skull.

Stranger and Stranger

2006-05-09T15:13:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Voice Recognition Test (Remix) - Clock DVA - Moonraker (Disc 2) (6:02)]

I discovered something pretty strange with my Laptop, just now. The S/PDIF (digital) output on the front of my NEC Versa P8100 doubles as the headphone output. Now that is nifty. Here I was thinking that my laptop has no headphone output, which was going to be problematic on my upcoming trip to China, because I wanted to use my wasted time at airports to investigate my new software (Korg Legacy Collection - Digital Edition) and I was afraid that I was going to have to share my discoveries with the rest of the Business Class Lounge.

Now I've discovered that I can noodle in silence :D

I was very skeptical about the NEC laptops when our office bought them, but I continue to be impressed by them. My only criticism is that there is only 1 PCMCIA slot and a couple of extra USB2 ports would be nice. Oh, and the Firewire output doesn't play ball with mLAN. My only other niggle is the short battery life. I can get maybe 2 hours from it before it's flat, which is pretty poor really. A docking station option would also have been nice, though I guess they had to keep the price down somehow.

Now my next dilemma is whether to take my good Senheiser Cans, or whether I can stand trying out my new Wavestation plugin with my iPod headphones...

Here's my review of the Korg Legacy Collection (Digital Edition) from my use so far.

Wavestation - Awesome, though I wish it had lots more User RAM banks and the ability to process live audio (like the A/D).
M1 - pretty much what you'd expect. Lots of bread and butter sounds. It's good to have all the ROMs. If you've ever used an M1, well, it's pretty much the same. A bit of a pain to load sounds and navigate through the cards, but overall, not too bad.
MDE-X - A friend of mine was raving about these FX. All I can say is that he obviously has never heard Kurzweil's KDFX or Lexicon or Eventide. These effects are pretty lame and the control sucks. I couldn't find a place to type values in and the knob position is pretty hard to read. The control is coarse at best, though fine control can be had by holding down shift, but even so, I spent way too much time trying to set my compressor than is desired. It was quicker to unload the plugin, and pull up a compressor on my KSP8.

Mind you, I only bought this for the Wavestation plugin. The hardware versions are pretty hard to find and still no where near as cheap as this plugin.

In other news, I'm down to 97.5 kg. It's been a while since I signed in, but we're still eating well and going to the gym (after a bit of a lapse after easter).

Blah...

Work to do...

So little time....

Vibrating Offices, Bad Attitudes and ANZAC Day

2006-04-26T16:02:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Deliver Me - The Beloved - Hed Kandi - Winter Chill 2 (Disc 1) (3:56)]

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.

Jodie's Horse

2006-04-20T14:17:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Re-Entry - Zen Paradox - Numinosum (4:11)]

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.

My Poor Neglected Blog

2006-04-19T16:36:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: 49 Percent - Röyksopp - The Understanding (Limited Edition) (5:12)]

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.

Renovatin

2006-02-24T11:22:00.000+08:00

Had a major milestone acheived yesterday with the renovations. We got the 3m sideboard delivered to the dining room and we hung Jodie's picture of the Cocky, which is now all nicely framed. The dining room is now completely finished except for some plastering around a new power point, and some patches to the painting.

We've had the electrician through and installed all of the lights, and new power points throughout the house. Just need to get a new distribution board installed in the studio and a TV Antenna installed, and all of the electrics will be finished at the new house.

The old house is pretty close to completion as well. We've finished all of the paving (including relaying of the driveway), finished the painting, essentially finished moving everything (just the piano to go - and that happens next tuesday). A few little paint chips need to be fixed, but that's less than an hours work. The carpet, blinds and electrics are all booked in, but we are having problems with the plumber. He wouldn't fix the leaking mains pipe because there were a few bees around. They are only there because of the water, and aren't there in the morning or evenings, only during the hottest part of the day. We've left bug spray there for him, but it was all too hard apparently to either spray them before he did his work, or to reschedule so that he comes earlier or later.

Needless to say, he won't be getting any further work from us.

The wedding plans are kind of happening, albeit slowly. We've booked our ceremony venue, and we've started interviewing photographers. We were due to look at a reception venue tonight, by having a meal there, but they rang us to tell us that they are closed, so cancelled our booking. Pity, coz it was a nice venue, but we don't need this sort of thing happening a week before the wedding, so we are looking into some more professional venues.

Big bridal expo tomorrow, which will be interesting. I've never been to one before, but I have a suspicion that it is going to be very much focussed on the ladies. Anyway, hopefully I can scope out some limosine companies, look at some suits, cakes and honeymoon ideas. That will give the girls some time to look at dresses, shoes, makeup artists etc.

It's all starting to get pretty exciting, and Jode's is working very hard with the organization.

The studio is slowly getting back to a state where it is once again inhabitable. I've got most things connected up and working, but there's still lots of boxes and cables that need to be organized. The office is holding us up a bit, as I've still got one wall to paint before we can get the desk and bookshelf in again. Once that's done, we can unpack a heap more boxes and get the office organized. This is important, because I've got a huge pile of paperwork to get sorted out and that's holding up my cashflow a bit.

Speaking of cashflow, I've had the initial meetings with a financial planning firm. Rates have certainly soared in this industry since the government regulated this industry, and a plan that once cost me $300 now costs me around about $6000 (though this does include the implementation phase, which in my case is going to be significant, because of the complexity of my affairs). Jodie's a little lukewarm about it all. She's been working hard on paying down some debts and the prospect of investing is quite foreign to her I think. She tends to like to live in the moment, a little bit mroe than me, though I really appreciate this.

Her attitude brings me back down to earth when I most need it and I think my long term thinking is a good balance. Together we tend to work well. Not always an easy journey but we get good results at the end.

A case in point is the renovation. It's something that I would probably have put off for some time, but I'm so glad we did it. Jodie sometimes can't see the finished result while we are up to our armpits in paint, but the journey has been worth it. The house looks spectacular.

Work is busy at the moment. We are in the middle of an engineering study for a pilot plant in China which is keeping me very busy. It's all coming together nicely but I'll be glad when it's all up and running.

Anyway, I'd better get back to it...

News, news, news

2006-01-24T14:47:00.000+08:00

Wow - where to start.

It's been a long time since I posted, and lots has happened. I've moved house, started on 2 renovations, got myself engaged and lots of other stuff.

Moving house has been a long, slow and painful experience. I am moving out of one house and into another. Both the original and destination house are being renovated, so living out of boxes is cruel and painful, but it will be worth it in the long term. The paving at the old house is all but finished, the gardens are in, and the painting started. We are awaiting some finance to come through so that we can get new carpets, window fittings and light fittings installed. A load of mulch is required, and some serious cleaning, but then we can get this house rented out.

The new house is being painted, one room at a time. We have bought the new light fittings, though we are awaiting an electrician to install them. It's nigh on impossible to find electricians at the moment in Perth. Everyone is booked out for months in advance, and none of them even want to put us on a waiting list, but I think we have at long last found one. The painting is looking absolutely fantastic. A much better job than I initially thought we were capable of, but the results have been well worth the hard work.

The really big news of course is my engagement to Jodie. We got a fantastic ring designed with a passion 8 diamond and a couple of sapphires, set in platinum. Before anyone asks, yes I did the proper thing and got down on one knee for the proposal, which she accepted. The big date is April 14th 2007 which gives us some time to sort out the wedding plans. We've started looking at venues and photographers, and started puting together the guest list, but lots of work ahead of us.

I haven't done any music for a while, but I'm in the process of getting the studio set up in it's new home. I got a new computer after the last one had a caffeine overdose, and it seems to be running pretty well, except for the dodgy internet connection here at work, but ya can't have everything.

At least we've now got broadband at home, and a wireless link, which really makes surfing the net pretty damn good. We can sit on our comfy lounge chairs with the laptop and get to surfin.

Anyway, I've got heaps of work to do, so I'll post more when I get some more time, but for those of you who follow this blog (and I know there are a few of ya's), you all know what's up.

Till next time

Almost a month

2005-12-16T12:07:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Old flame - The Church - Priest Equals Aura (1:36)]

And what an action packed month it has been.

My life has been a blur of activity as I in the midst of 2 renovations and have been busy on repairs of my new house in lovely Busselton. I managed to crash Jodie's Car, which is going to take 3 weeks to fix, and has necessitated me driving my ute to work, which is a major hassle for parking.

Renovations are progressing though. Jodie and I are moving away from the current property into a property out near the vineyards in the Swan Valley. The property wasn't in particularly good condition when we arrived, and many things have been fixed, but we've still got a way to go. We have painted the master bedroom and should finish up the main living area tomorrow afternoon, just in time for the big move on Sunday.

We are planning on completely gutting the kitchen and expanding it somewhat. There are a few design flaws with the current design making it a particularly squishy and pokey affair, but our plans should open it up substantially and maximize our use of the space.

Renovations have been progressing at the house that I'm moving out of, with the paving all but finished. I've got about 20 bricks to put in and the edges need to be cemented in place before the garden beds are finalized. Some painting is required, and the carpet in the master bedroom needs to be replaced. We are also going to put air conditioning in to this house, so there's still a bit of work required before we can rent it out, but that is the plan.

The extended vacancy's is puting a bit of a squeeze on cashflow though. Currently I've only got 1 of the 4 houses tennanted, which is a problem, but that will ease soon, when the reno's are finished, and my new property is tennanted.

We are having real problems finding tradesmen at the moment. I need to install 2 lights on the wall of the master bedroom before we paint the feature wall, but finding one is really, really tricky. I think I've lined one up, but I'm not sure exactly when they will be able to get the job done.

In other news, my new website is under development. You can find it at http://www.godlike.com.au You can also surf to this blog by typing in http://puppeteer.godlike.com.au which may be a bit easier to type in to your browser.

Have done no music for a while. I've got some sound programming to do for some Van Halen sounds, for a client, and hopefully I can get these sorted out in the next few weeks.

Otherwise for your entertainment here's some links

The Darth Side Blog - A great laugh. Have a read of the pdf for the full thing.

Industrial Radio - My favourite podcast, and great supporter of independent music. Highly recommended.

Till next time.

It's been a while

2005-11-23T10:16:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Julie And Candy - Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi (5:30)]

Life has been keeping me busy.

I'm still serious about losing weight, but have found another place to document it, at the Healthy Weight Forums.

I'm down to 98 kg, and have 13 kg to go to get to my goal. I've been going to gym regularly and eating healthier.

Work is continuing on the paving at the current house, and I've finally settled on my new house in Busselton. Just need to get a few things fixed, and then I'll be renting that one out. The new house that Jodie and I are moving to is finally vacant, though there were some issues which I've asked the Real Estate agent to address, such as missing fixtures and general untidyness. We will be undertaking some pretty substantial renovations in the near future to make the place more comfortable.

In other news, I've created two modules for the Studio Connections GTRC plugin, for recall to and from the K2600 and KSP8. I'm still working on improving the functionality so that I can sync the two units completely, but am having a few problems with the SYSEX compatibility between the GTRC and the Kurzweils. These modules are available on the Kurzweil forum at Sonikmatter

I've also got the Godlike Websit up and running. It's pretty rudimentary at the moment, though it will grow as I can devote time to it.

Otherwise everything is going well.

Jodie and I are doing well, though I think the whole situation of being between things is getting her down a bit. Our lives are currently in boxes awaiting the move, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done at both ends. I'm doing my best to get everything happening, but it is exhausting at times. I wish there were more hours in the day, sometimes.

Anyway, things are busy, as always, and I'm sure I'll ahve more to report soon.

Still Here

2005-10-10T15:01:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Just Around The Hill (Dong Laurent Remix) - Sash! - Trilenium (8:03)]

Well, I'm still here.

Things are going well, and I'm smiling.

I'm still hovering around 99kg, which is a bit frustrating, though admittedly I haven't been at the gym quite as much these last 2 weeks as before, but I have been doing an awful lot of digging in the garden as an alternative. The garden is starting to look a bit better, though it's a battle with the cats to see if they can pollute my paving sand before I can get the pavers down. I'm thinking a trailerload of zeolite might be worthwhile to reduce any odours.

I've removed a lot of grass from about 50% of the yard, installed the cabling for the retic, and a new gate. My housemate has been helping out where he can, though to date, it's really been a bit of a token effort. He's got a few days off this week, and hopefully he'll get his but into gear and get the retic finished.

I'd like to order the pavers this weekend, and get them delivered in the next week, so that I can spend a few days getting a lot of the paving done.

Jodie did this awesome drawing of a cocky last night.

I'm going to get it framed this weekend.

I haven't done any music in a while. I'm feeling a bit hamstrung by the studio situation, what with mLAN still playing up. I got a little start on a new sound the other night, and may use it as the basis of a new song. It's using a few Kurzweil only features (such as multiple lazerverbs) and it morphs and changes quite a bit. Finding time has been tricky, between work, and getting the house finished. The priority at the moment is to get the yard done, and then move back to my other house in the Perth Foothills.

Speaking of houses, I bought another one the other day. I'm not sure if I've talked about this here before, but it's a great house, in Busselton, near the beach. I've just got to decide how I'm going to rent it out, but I need to find some time to get it all sorted. I've got a bit of time, while I await finance approvals and settlement, but I'd like to get it rented for the holiday season, if at all possible.

Anyway, lots of work to do today.

Till next time.

2 Years Old

2005-09-23T16:21:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Aura - The Church - Priest Equals Aura (7:01)]

Hehe - I just realized that my blog is 2 years old today.

Happy birthday to my blog :D

Short and Sweet

2005-09-23T16:15:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Oxygene IV - Jean Michael Jarre - Oxygene 7-13 (3:19)]

It's been a while since I blogged last. Work has been absolutely flat out, so I've had little time to put keyboard to w.bloggar. Things are going well at work. I've been doing lots of drawings with the digital crayons, some database work, lots of spreadsheets, and basically trying to keep up with the demands for work placed on me.

The weight thing is still a bit of a struggle, but we're still working on it. The low GI diet is going great. The food in the menu's is fantastic, and I haven't felt hungry for about a week, despite eating less than normal.

Played squash today. Won some lost some.

Off to Busselton this weekend with Jodie, for a relaxing weekend away. Hopefully I'll be buying a house as well, though we're yet to see the one I'm interested in.

Not much music of late, but hopefully in the coming weeks.

Ciao for now....

In memory of my Pop

2005-09-14T14:04:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Lamentation - Delerium - Karma (Disc 1) (8:32)]

I arrived back from my brief jaunt to Shanghai, China, complete with a nasty cold, and just in time for my birthday. The cold is one of those nasty ones that gums up your head, such that even thinking feels like you are wading through a room of alien goop. It's definately a sudafed grade cold, and I really feel like I could just snuggle up and go to bed.

The trip to China went well. I delivered a paper at a conference, and we met a few mining company's in China who are interested in our technology. There's a lot of work yet to be done, but the technology is slowly gaining acceptance, and producers are beginning to understand the advantages of bacterial leaching.

It was my Birthday on Monday as well, yeah, I know, one day after Sept 11, but ya get that. I had a really mellow day, which was exactly what I needed. I got some cool stuff, but the best is yet to come. Jodie is planning a little weekend retreat thing, I think. She's been pretty secretive about it, but I know it involves travel, and it's in a southerly direction. We will be away on the next long weekend, which is really cool.

My pop died yesterday as well. He will be dearly missed by his grand-children. I have very fond memories of the times I spent with him, from a young age, whether it was fishing, or sitting on his knee, waiting for him to offer me a peppermint from his jar. His health in recent years has been in decline, and I hope that he is at peace. I feel for my Nanna who's dedication and love to my Pop is a model for our generation. Love like that, it seems, is a rare commodity now days.

I will miss my pop dearly.

I haven't given an update on my weight for a while, but it's slipped back to the 102 kg, which is frustrating. I'm not going to gym at the moment, due to my illness, and I missed out on gym while in China, but I am eating healthy, and Jodie and I are working on reducing our portions. It's a long slow battle, but one that I am determined to win.

Song of the Day

2005-09-01T16:45:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Afterglow Show 1 - Various - Afterglow (36:17)]

I got a very pleasant email in my inbox this afternoon from Garage Band informing me that Signum is to be the Ambient track of the day on the 8th of September, which I'm seriously stoked about. I've had 6 reviews in so far and the song is slowly moving up the charts. All of the reviews have been positive, though the concensus is that the ending just doesn't quite work properly, which I tend to agree with. Most reviewers have wanted it to go on longer, so I think that's what I'm going to do. I enjoy the next 2 tracks off the album far more than I enjoy this track, so if these reviews are anything to go by the rest of the songs should be well received.

Anyway, click on the logo below if you want to have a listen to the track.

A bit of an update with the whole weight thing. I weighed myself using the gym scales the other day and came in at about 99kg, though this is fully clothed, so I'm happy that things are heading in the right direction. Jodie went and saw a dietician the other day and we were encouraged that we are generally going well with our overall diet (ie we are eating well), but there's a few things that we have learnt and will take on board to try to become even healthier.

My housemate and Jode are kind of butting heads at the moment, which is very frustrating for me. I'm trying to be both a good friend and a good boyfriend, but there are a few issues that are causing drama's. The biggest is the cat's and their hygeine habits. Frankly it is disgusting, and two of my housemate's cat's aren't being cared for particularly well, though there are a few other issues, such as my housemate's overall contributions to the household, but I'm not going to go into details about that, suffice to say that generally I can see Jodie's point. My housemate is feeling frustrated because... well I'm not sure why, but I'm thinking it's because Jodie and I have kind of taken over the house pretty much entirely and relegated him to his bedroom and his portion of the office. This came to a bit of a crisis point this morning.

I took it upon myself to clean up the office on the weekend, and part of the clean up was to find a home for a lot of stationary and clear away boxes of files from the floor. In order to keep the place clean and in order, I emptied one set of drawers of my housemate's into a box and put stationery into them. It made sense to me because the drawers are part of the desk that Jodie and I work from, and it was our stationery. There is another set of drawers in the office, which I though my housemate also had a bunch of stuff in, but as he pointed out, he really didn't have anything in those drawers, and it was, in fact our stuff in the drawers.

My housemate was understandably upset, and I talked to him and apologised for booting him out completely, and offered a more sensible approach where he can use the other set of drawers, and immediately proceeded to empty them.

I seriously think that we all need to sit down and sort stuff out, and clear the air. Jodie and I are leaving the house at the end of the year anyway. Most likely to China, but if not, to one of my other houses, where there is a lot more room for us, until my work has made a decision about where they want me to work. The cats really are getting to Jodie and there's a few things that are frustrating me as well.

I think that the living situation has gone on for too long and we need some space between us, before we end up stifling and suffocating each other.

We really need to get the house finished off completely before that happens to make it a viable prospect to rent out. As it is at the moment would create problems with renting, so I am puting a lot of effort into acheiving that, and hopefully I can have it finished inside the next month or so, but, to date, it's been pretty much a solo effort on my part, which is part of what is annoying me.

Anyway, I sound like I'm whinging a lot here, but it's something I need to get off my chest. The friction between Jodie and my housemate is getting to me. I'm doing my best to span the divide but I feel stretched and somehow irrelevant and ignored in the whole conflict.

Anyway, that's about it for me today. I'm off to China again next week for a conference, but I'll try to keep on bloggin...

Sad News...

2005-08-22T11:50:00.000+08:00

Today I learned that one of the greats of the synthesizer industry passed away of brain cancer. Bob Moog's contribution to the electronic music industry can not be understated. The humble Minimoog is still a cult classic today, more than 30 years after it's release. When people compare filters available in today's synthesizer's they invariably compared to the filter's available in that little beast. Without the contributions of Bob Moog the music being produced today simply wouldn't be possible. Techno would never have happened and sythesizer's would still be making rude beeps without those characteristic filter slide's.

Rest in peace, Bob. I never met you personally, and have only had the priveledge of getting my hands on an MG1 and a Mini a few times, but you will be remembered.

My weekly weigh in has seen me back up to 100.5 kg's, though my week saw me as low as 99.5 kg's. The scales are those dodgy digital types, and Jodie has complained about them on occasion, so I will soon be investing in a new set with one of those analog dials. Exercise is becoming part of our routine now, which is good, and we are up to 1 hour 10 minutes per session now, which we feel is good. Jodie is going to see a nutritionist next week as part of a holistic treatment for something completely unrelated, but I'm working with her, and we are both keeping the eating and exercise diary.

I've just finished the LD 120 Roborapper Remix of Disconnected, by Perth hip hop band, The Freakz of the Nature. I amped the tempo up a bit and tranced it down and even managed to find a robo-rapper for them :P The plan is to put together a remix compilation of different Freakz tracks at some stage.

I'm ready to get back into making some of my own tunes now. I've got the studio running pretty smoothly now, with a new Firewire card and a Steinberg Midex8 MIDI interface. The Midex8 is definately a stepdown from the 8PortSE, and I'm having some very wierd latency issues with the new hardware, which definately shouldn't be there. These are causing me to line up audio the same as we used to on samplers (gawd I'm glad I've still got some old skool skills). Not a major drama, but a bit of a pain that does interrupt my workflow a little. Steinberg are gearing up to release a new update to Cubase which should solve some of the problems, and Yamaha are apparently working on a new driver which should improve the latency issue.

I'm still getting the occasional Wordclock error, but it's almost like mLAN is syncing to the wrong part of the wordclock message. It's pretty good for most of the time, but it will loose a sample every now and then. I can hear this when there are some phasing issues between two different parts of the same sound file. I'm sure it will get fixed eventually, but it is frustrating at the moment.

I'm waiting on my tax return at the moment, and may well buy a new piece of gear that I've been lusting after for a few years. That being a SPL Mk2T. It will give a professional polish, a coating of fairy dust, to all of my recordings, in a way that only expensive high quality gear can.

Anyway, all else is well. I'm continuing the work on the house and am trying to get a little more done every week.

Jodie did a fantastic drawing this weekend of a Kimberly landscape that I simply love. I'm going to get it framed and put it up in my office. I really, really like it, even though it's not quite finished. Jodie's not 100% happy with it, but at least she hasn't torn this one in half, which is the unfortunate fate of many of her drawings that she considers below standard.

Anyway, I've got to get back to work...

Quickly, quickly

2005-08-15T16:37:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Get Right With Me - Depeche Mode - Songs Of Faith And Devotion (3:52)]

Just a quick blog entry today.

Weight is down to 100kg. It's going down slowly, but is up and down a bit. I don't think the occasional pizza is helping much, and I've instructed Jodie to keep pizza's away from me.

In other news the remix of Disconnected for is nearly finished. We've tranced up this trio from Perth. mLAN is working well again with a new MIDI interface and a new firewire card.

It was Jodie's Birthday on Saturday and we went on a balloon ride, which was seriously good fun. I got lots of photo's and if my new website ever gets going, then I'll post some photo's.

That's it for today. I've got to leave work shortly to pick up my beloved and head off to the gym for a bit of sweating.

Until next time.

From Hero to Villain

2005-08-08T16:05:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Everybody's Fool - Evanescence - Fallen (3:16)]

Today has been a right shocker for me. I'll start the story where it began, yesterday.

Jodie and I were invited to a picnic at the picturesque Araluen Gardens, south of the Perth metro area. We agree to go, though yesterday morning when it was time to be there, Jodie was still enjoying her night's sleep. Not wanting to push her into getting out of bed, I set out on my own, as I'd said that I would go. I'd never been to Araluen before and was relying on my roadmap to get me there, though when I pulled into the carpark at Araluen and looked at my phone I found that there was no mobile phone signal. Not to worry I thought, because I'd told Jodie that I would be gone for a few hours, and didn't know exactly when I would get back.

Anyway, the picnic was relaxing and enjoyable, and the day was fantastic. I got back into my car about 3 and a half hours later to drive home to my dearly beloved. About 10 minutes up the road my phone starts beeping with messages. The first asking what I'm up to. The second was a missed phone call from Jodie but there was no message left. The third made me quite angry "Fine, be an arsehole". OK. I'm an arsehole because I was on a picnic with my sister and some friends that Jodie was invited to but didn't want to come on, and because the picnic was out of phone range so I couldn't respond to the message.

I was fuming and had calmed only a little by the time I got home. I copied my photo's onto the laptop, grabbed a drink of water and went to bed to try to relax a little. Half an hour of fitful snoozing and I had calmed somewhat and went back into the house to enjoy my night with Jodie. I showed her the photo's I had taken and she seemed to like some of the closeup shots of the tulips. I left her browsing the photo's and returned to the living room to watch a bit of TV and unwind some more. Jodie returned a little later and we watched some TV before I made a curry. We had a shower and went to bed.

During our shower, Jodie told me that she'd sent me an email and hinted that I might be upset by it. I was starting to ponder this and was wondering what she'd send to me in an email that she didn't want to talk to me about.

Once we were in bed we got to talking about my friends that I had in Perth. I don't have that many that I actually catch up with these days and I talked to her about them for a bit. She asked me about a few people that I'd received emails recently. One is a workmate from Turkey who I've worked with on and off for about 6 or 7 years, and who was due to be in China about the same time my next trip was going to be. The other was a girl who I've known for many years and who had sent out a broadcast email about her new email address. The language of the email was interesting and referred to the adressee as "tiger" and signed off with Love Name -xx-. I can see that this is language that could be construed as suggestive, but that's not really the issue here. The big issue is that the said email was sent to a lot of email addresses using the BCC field, which hides recipient names. There was one email address in the To field.

Jodie had opened my email program and found this email while going through my computer and assumed that the email address in the To field was some sort of hidden email account of mine and sent off an email to it. I can see how this may have looked, but the email address wasn't mine and was simply one of the addresses on the broadcast list of my friend. Needless to say I never received the email and told Jodie as much when she emailed me this morning asking if I'd received her email.

Anyway, I sent her an email outlining all of my various email addresses and with a bit of an explanation about how BCC fields work as well as a copy of the headers showing a To field and an empty BCC field. Jodie admitted that she sent off the email when she was angry but that she didn't regret it because if I was cheating on her then she wanted me to know that she'd found out, but she did seem to acknowledge that perhaps the strange email address wasn't mine.

I tried to tell her that I wan't particularly happy at being called an arsehole (the reason I was angry the previous evening, which was why Jodie didn't feel that she could approach me.) or being accused of cheating on her. Anyway terse words were exchanged for quite some time before I did something, which in hind sight was really really dumb. I did an internet search for "jealous girlfriend" in the hopes of finding something about how to tell someone that you cared about, but thought was a little too jealous, that they were too jealous. Anyway, to cut a long story short I ended up sending a link to this page. I wanted to get the point accross that I felt that accusing me of being unfaithful and going through my phone and email was something that I felt uncomfortable about.

I don't mind Jodie going through my phone and email normally. I don't have anything to hide, but when something like this is interpreted incorrectly and she starts sending off emails to random email addresses, it does make me feel uncomfortable. I don't want her to start sending threatening letters to my friends or anything, so I thought I should say something about it. Well, perhaps I should have said something, but I definately shouldn't have sent that link.

My afternoon has been filled with expletive filled emails filling my inbox as I try to explain why I felt I needed to say something.

I'm left feeling unsure of our future together, because of this one thing. Jodie is angry and has indicated that she's not sure if she want's to stay with me. I feel terrible about all of this. I feel as though I've caused all of this, but I know that I'm not solely to blame. Maybe I am, I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm feeling a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach at the thought of loosing Jodie, especially over something like this. It would have been a different matter if I had been cheating on her, but the fact is that I'm deeply in love with her and couldn't even consider seeing another woman. I am dedicated to her, but still I feel like I've fallen from grace and become the villain in all of this. I'm a bit lost on what to do, or how to respond. I sent her an email a while back that I was refraining from saying anything else because everything I try to say or explain seems to make her angrier. I feel like I should say something, but I'm afraid that it will be misinterpreted and fuel her anger.

I don't like feeling this way.

Phone Menu's and Podcasting

2005-08-05T14:20:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Philipp Weigl - Common Cause [COM14] Track 2 - http://www.comatronic.net - Starfrosch Podcast Ambient (6:20)]

I found the world's worst phone menu system this morning. I rang a music equipment distributed (or should that be attempted to ring) to buy a piece of gear. I got on to their phone system to be greeted by a phone menu. Well - fair enough, I pressed the selection that was closest to what I wanted (sales) to be greeted by another menu with a more cryptic menu. I selected the area of equipment that I wanted to buy, to be greeted by yet another menu about my affiliation to the company (well I was new to the company so I selected the "I'm not an official reseller" option, to be taken to another menu that directed me to a range of support options for various software. Selecting the next one I got an automated voice telling me that they don't do phone support for the gear I'm trying to buy, and instead I need to email them via their website.

Well, I'd resorted to calling, because my two emails telling them that I have cash and want to buy their equipment have gone unanswered.

So my call to talk to the salesman (who's name I have) resulted in me getting routed through their electronic phone system and redirected to a website, and email that is apparently ignored.

If someone wanted something guaranteed to screen calls, then they could do a lot worse than this system to keep people out.

How can a company expect to conduct business when it's soooooo damn hard for someone to buy stuff from them. I thought the whole idea of sales was to make it easier for the customer to give you money.

Anyway, I'll wait to see if these guys ever get back to me...

Podcasting is this new fad sweeping the net that makes on demand radio essentially. What you do is upload an mp3 and an RSS compliant XML file that is handled by a podcast aggregator that checks for updates periodically and automatically downloads them. It's a bit like blogging, except with audio. My favourite podcast is Industrial Radio with some great music and some great humour. I like the presenter and the way that he's down to earth about the things that break down and glitch up. It's a really human experience. I can empathise with him, but he keeps moving forward and making podcasts.

I'll likely set one up for LD120 and LOST as soon as my webspace is live.

Anyway, I've got a busy afternoon ahead of me, and need to get into some serious powerpointing, so until next time....

Losing More Weight, and Travelling

2005-08-01T13:02:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Walking In My Shoes - Depeche Mode - Songs Of Faith And Devotion (5:35)]

Well, it's weigh in time again.

I'm down to 100.0 kg, so still heading in the right direction. Jodie and I joined a gym this week, and had one workout before getting sick again and spending most of the rest of the week recovering. We're planning on another workout tonight, and for the rest of the week, now that we are feeling a bit better. The weekend came at a good time, because it allowed us the chance to get the rest that was required. I also managed to spend half a day doing some more gardening and have finished with the cooch in the back yard. I'm in the process of spreading sand in preparation for the paving.

Sunday was my nieces 4th birthday party, so Jodie and I attended, supervised the fairy bread distribution and had a pretty mellow and fun afternoon, before heading off to the movies. We saw The Island last night. Not a bad movie. Lots of action, though it was quite reminiscent of Logan's Run, I felt, though the focus has shifted from a fear of overpopulation, to the cloning debate. This is much, much slicker than Logan's Run, though the old skool feel of the older movie is one of it's attracting features.

In other news, I've been continuing to diagnose problems with my mLAN setup. It seems that Microsoft have kind of killed the parallel port support with Win XP Service Pack 2, and the Quatech Parallel Port card for my Laptop has been causing me no end of drama's. As soon as I insert it, mLAN dies, and I get some very nasty Cubase crashes. I tried Cubase last night, without the card, and while I still got the occasional glitch, I did have continuous audio and could probably work under those conditions without too much of a problem. I'm going to try to return the parallel port card because of the incompatibility problems, and instead buy a new MIDI interface, that runs off the USB buss.

That should provide some measure of future proofing. I'll pick up an adaptec PCMCIA firewire card as well, which should improve the glitching problems I've been experiencing with mLAN.

Hopefully then, I can get back to some music, rather than trying to solve computer problems.

I got my latest travelling itenerary today as well, and, well, it's caused some friction.

Jodie wants to travel, which is cool, and my company requires me to travel for business. Jodie resents that I need to travel, and she has to stay home, and I feel like I'm being torn. On the one hand I want Jodie to be with me while I'm away, but the reality of these business trips is that there would be precious little time that we could spend together. I can see a situation where I'm being resented for having to go to meetings, and for not spending the time with Jodie in a foreign country that she deserves. It's a no win situation and it leaves both Jodie and I feeling pretty bad. I feel a lot of sympathy for Jodie, and I realize that she hasn't experienced being in a foreign land and having long, demanding days of travel and meetings. To her it seems like business travel is a bit of a lark, and something pretty mellow and relaxing, which is a common misconception, I feel.

If you talk to most frequent, international business travellers, the story is universally the same. The travel, living out of a suitcase, in a strange land, long days, intense meetings and busy schedules, really do take their toll on you. It's mentally exhausting. I try to explain this to Jodie, but I honestly don't think that she understands.

What I am most afraid of, is that I take her on a trip where I'm expected to be at continuous meetings and have mine visits for days on end and where she is left in a hotel room to fend for herself. If it were me in this situation, I would hate it. I would feel like I had been abandoned. It would be difficult to be in contact with her during the day, because I would be in a meeting, that requires my full attention, so having a long conversation on the phone during the day, is pretty much out of the question. I would much rather travel with her somewhere, where we both have time off, and where we can actually enjoy the trip. We can take our time to see the place, to immerse ourselves in the culture, and experience the destination together. This is my intention.

I'm really not sure what to do. I'm happy to take Jodie with me on my business trips, but I honestly don't think that it would be an enjoyable experience. I don't enjoy business trips much at the best of times, and at the end of a day just want to sleep. This would be the only time I would get to see Jodie, and I think that my desire to sleep and rest, rather than getting out and experiencing the place would be seen as a stifling influence on Jodie's trip. I don't want this.

I want us both to enjoy the experience and to enjoy getting out and about. I'm not sure how to get this accross to Jodie. I don't know how to explain to her that I would love to share the experience of being overseas with her, but that business trips are extremely busy times for me.

I wish I knew best how to balance the demands placed on me. I want to take Jodie with me when I travel, but I feel that she wouldn't enjoy it, especially as her first experience overseas. It can be frightening going through customs and into a foreign land for the first time, where you don't know what to expect. Sometimes I feel that we could have a great time, but other times I feel that it may be a little overwhelming for her, and I'd be caught in a dilemma where I'd want to stay by her side but be required to be at a meeting, which is the purpose for my travel.

I'd certainly like her to accompany me at some stage. If she enjoy's it, then that would be great, but I suspect that she'd find such business trips as draining as I would. I certainly like her to experience foreign cultures and places, but to do so in the best way, which is where I can dedicate my time to her, and the shared experience, especially on her first few trips, while she gets comfortable with the whole international travel thing. Once she's found her feet, then I'd like to take every opportunity to introduce her to new places, and I could be confident that she will enjoy herself and get by in a place where no-one speaks English and your only form of communication is the often vague translations provided in the lonely planet guides.

I'm beginning to dread telling her that the company has arranged for me to travel again, because the reaction I get is almost universally anger and resentment. I feel for her, but at the same time, I don't believe that I deserve that sort of reaction for doing my job.

Travel was exciting for the first 2 or 3 trips, overseas, but I see it more as a necessary evil, now days.

Weigh In 1

2005-07-25T12:34:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Industrial Radio #012 - Jon Murphy - Industrial Radio (34:39)]

OK, well, I'm still serious about this losing weight thing. I weighed in again last night at 100.5 kg which is lower than the week before, so I'm feeling good about the progress so far.

In the last week, I've made some good progress about changing some aspects of my life. I visited a gym and will join up tomorrow, with Jodie. I also worked all day Saturday digging up the backyard, getting ready for some serious paving. I played squash on Friday and am due to play again tonight, though I may have to miss it due to a personal commitment, but that's not too big a drama.

I've cut down my serves for dinners and lunches, and am back to toast and vegemite, with a Barocca on the side for breakfast. Only 2 desserts this week. Pretty good, considering one of them was when we ate out. Anyway I'm still motivated to do this, and will report back next week on the continuing progress.

Thanks to all of you who have sent through emails of support. It is appreciated.

In other news, I've been having a shocking time with Cubase SX3 and mLAN on the weekend. I got 8 bars recorded, and one audio part re-arranged ready for recording. I had non-stop glitches, but fortunately they seemed to be on the output buss, not the FX buss, and seemingly non-stop crashes. The cubase crashes are pretty serious ones, resulting in me having to stop mLAN by stopping the physical layer process before I can reboot. I can't stop cubase, no matter what I do, except for the reboot.

On the reboot, my quatech parallel port card seems to forget that the 8PortSE is attached, and I have to reboot to fix that. It's like it doesn't release the MIDI interface.

I'm going to try to trash my cubase preferences, and rebuild them from scratch. This could be what's causing the problems. If that doesn't fix it, then I'm going to uninstall the parallel port, mLAN and cubase and reinstall them in that order and see if that fixes it.

If that still doesn't work, then I'll see if I can get the system working without the parallel port card. If it's still flakey, then I'm going to get myself a new computer.

It's pretty annoying, because I want to just get down and do some music.

I've also been working hard on the back yard of the house. I've pretty much got all of the cooch removed, and have started carting the yellow sand in, for the paving foundations. I'll need some more sand before I've finished, but we've got to extend the retic before we can finish that. My housemate has started on installing the conduit for the wiring for the retic, and also the water pipe for the gardens at the back. There's still a bit of work to do, but we should get the retic finished into the back yard next weekend, and the yard cleared, and ready for compacting and laying bricks. The yard and front retic will be next on the list, but we'll leave that for a couple of weeks.

I also had dinner with Jodie's mum the other night, and some family friends. It was a fantastic night. We found a nice little out of the way restraunt called the Lamplight, in Forrestfield. Very nice food, and great service, for a very reasonable price. The company was great, and we had some "interesting" discussions with the family friends. A great night was had by all, and the wines that we enjoyed topped the evening off perfectly.

Anyway, work to do, coffee to drink, so until next time, keep smiling.

Banks

2005-07-22T10:10:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Bank - Snog - Lies Inc. (3:20)]

If there's one thing I despise more than religious nutters, it's banks. I got hit for a $45 fee yesterday for a refused transaction, this is despite the fact that I had transferred money, and it had been debitted from my other account, but for some reason it hadn't cleared into the account where the direct debit came from. Now to put this in perspective the debit was for $131 and it would have left me $50 in the red in that account (if the transfer hadn't taken place). $45 is 34% of the total transfer or 90% of the amount I would have been in credit!!! And it's not as though the transaction is out of the ordinary. Every month for the past 10 years there has been money getting depositted to that account. Every other month the amount clears overnight, but not this time, and now that the amount is 1 day late, I cop this obscene fee.

If I had only had $1 in the account then it would have been OK for the bank to overdraw my account by $44, but it's not OK for the transaction to go through as it stands. It begar's belief.

How can a bank justify these fees? There is no way that a an electronic transaction can possibly cost $45. Heck I can get a new phone line installed into my house for that price, and send gigabytes of data around the planet. It's no wonder that they are recording record profits, because they are ripping off their customers, and the ones that can least afford it. I wouldn't put myself in that category, as I'm doing quite well, but this fee is aimed at those with low account balances, and who rely on apportioning payments accross the year through the use of direct debits. Most direct debits are in the region of $50 to $100 and a $45 fee on one of these would mean no food on the table for some families, let alone half a dozen a year.

Perhaps the banks justify it by seeing it as a fine. All well and good, except that the bank is a service provided to customers, not a police force.

On a more positive note, you may have noticed a change in design to the Dark Thoughts blog. While I really liked the old design, the little goblins behind the scenes at blogger.com changed something, so my old template left a huge chunk of blank space at the top of the blog. So the new one now has splashes of orange throughout. Why orange, I've been asked, well, it was the colour programmed for the headings in the original template that I hacked, and I really couldn't be bothered trying to find a different colour and reprogram all of the fields, and besides, the orange looks quite nice anyway, and matches the blogger logo at the bottom of the page.

Other stuff that's happened since yesterday.

Jodie was in a fit of anger last night because her computer had a "Install new hardware" message (due to the motherboard sound card not being disabled) and then because her karaoke function on her stereo wouldn't work when she went to scream her lungs out to her favourite angry song to seek solace. This was due to the minijack-jack convertor being broken, and I think also due to the small minijack on her stereo.

Minijacks are notoriously dodgy, and it is the reason why muso's avoid them like the plague in their audio systems. There simply isn't enough room to make a good electrical contact, and their small size means that the mechanical strength of the connection is always in question. The cable also isn't of the highest quality so the contact with the XLR connector on the mic also isn't the best, but I found a new convertor, tested the cable, and got it all working, but it was too late by then. Jodie had had enough.

Anyway, the good new is that the karaoke is working (well, good news for Jodie anyway :P), and the computer is functioning again (sans the zip drive and CD burner - due to one of the IDE Channels failing).

I wrote an awesome trance bass line last night but the glitches over mLAN meant that I couldn't record it, and then Cubase went down. I'm getting a bit annoyed at this whole Cubase/mLAN thing. It's great when it works, but almost impossible to fix when it doesn't. I just want to sit down and write some music dammit.

Religious Nutters

2005-07-21T09:03:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Bumper (Plump DJ's Mix) - Elektronauts - Ibiza (Disc 1) (5:03)]

I was listening to "God Told Me" by Paul Kelly on Triple J this morning, and it got me to thinking about the role that God plays in so much of the violence around the world. God seems to be one of those unquestionable things. Everything else is up for scientific scrutiny, but not religion, for some strange reason.

Many violent acts around the world are done under the guise of god's word, or as the voice of Allah, or some other deity. These acts that are so fundamentally opposed to the religious views and teachings of nearly every religion on earth, are done in the name of some hitheto mythical deity. Listen People, IT'S NOT GOD TELLING YOU TO DO THESE ACTS!!! The voices you hear in your head aren't god, they are your own deranged psyche willing wanton death and destruction on the world.

Unfortunately when someone gets to a position of power and starts talking about voices in their head, or a direct hotline to god, laughing at them for the fool that they are is pretty ineffectual, and if they have big guns, then it can be downright deadly. Why are religious wacko's afforded more respect than any other wacko who hears voices.

"My imaginary friend, Milko told me to kill those people!" - Man get's locked up indefinately
"God told me to kill those people!" - Man get's elected president or becomes a hero...

If that's the way it's gonna be, then god told me that you must all send me money to upgrade my studio. Music is a thing of beauty, inspired by god don't y'all know...

Affirmation

2005-07-19T10:06:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Just A Fuckin Idiot - The Future Sound Of London - Isdn [Limited Edition] (5:40)]

I stood on the scales this morning and weighed in at a whopping 102kg. Now that is heavy, for my height. Not so heavy that I'm immobile, but heavier than I would like.

I've had enough of worrying about my weight, and seeing those 3 digits on the scale this morning have stirred in me a call to action. No longer will I worry about this. Instead I will do something about it.

Starting today, I will work towards my target weight of 80kg. That's 22kg to lose.

To do this, I am going to join a gym and exercise for 1 hour every work day. This can be squash (Mondays and Friday's) or bicycling to work if the weather is fine, or a cardio workout at the gym.

I'm also going to cut deserts out from my diet. I never ate deserts anyway, but they have crept back into my diet of late. No more. I've put my foot down, and it made an impact in the carpet :P I've asked Jodie to halve my dinner servings, if she is making dinner, and when I am cooking, I will strive for smaller servings myself. I will also report my progress weekly.

On days like today I really despise who I have become physically. Generally I'm happy with every other aspect of my life, but this weight is draining life and energy away from me, and I want to get it back.

Grrls, Telco's and Tradesmen (or why my day is so tortuous)

2005-07-15T12:56:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Rhythm of Time (Messengers of Neptune Mix by The Orb) - Front 242 - Mut@ge.Mix@ge (8:17)]

I'm having a difficult day today. Not only have I spent most of the morning trying to ascertain exactly why it is that Telstra (or any other company for that matter) can't supply us with broadband access despite the fact that our neighbour 4m away can get it, but my dearly beloved is causing grief as I try to organize her birthday present.

It's something that I've been planning and trying to organize for the last few months, having put many hours or research into it, in order to try to give her an absolutely unforgettable and fantastic birthday. My efforts have been frustrated somewhat by a) My work deciding that I won't get back to Australia until the morning of Jodie's birthday (which meant that I need to reschedule the surprise) and b) Jodie's absolute resistance to helping me get this thing happening. I needed some information so that the company providing the present can ensure that it is done correctly and safely, and while I understand Jodie's reluctance to share such information, I can't understand her anger or flat out refusal to give me her height. She is angry at me and has threatened to not even be here for her birthday!

I'm short tempered today after having being lied to by Telstra salesmen, having being forwarded to 5 different departments before being cutoff and then to discover that we are on a completely different line to our neighbour in the first place and that short of spending $1500 to get our cable rerouted (and having no guarantee of success anyway) that we won't be able to get broadband until Telstra decide how they are going to market their new upgraded service sometime in the next 6 months. After finally having found a decent Telstra rep by the name of Richard, who really did do his best to find an alternative solution and find out exactly why our line had excessive signal loss, I then had to move on to finding out why the electrician who has promised to re-imburse me for a faulty installation has not yet paid us. He has the flu and is waiting for the building company (who referred us to him in the first place) to get back to him with the payment details. If he was planning on forwarding this to them to sort out with, then why the hell did he quibble about the amount so much. The fact is it has cost me $1100 to get electricity restored to my place, and he's only going to pay $758 of it, meaning that I've got to get angry with yet another electrician who is openly flouting the trade practices act of Australia, and point out to him why I shouldn't have to pay $350 to them because it's more than they quoted, and they didn't actually do anything anyway.

What is it with customer service now days. All I want to do is get basic services provided to my house in the suburbs of Perth. I think that this house was built on the edge of somesort of Bemuda Triangle anomoly thing, where nothing works, people can't find the house and when they do, they manage to stuff up the simplest possible jobs such that I spend months and months on the phone to incompetent salesmen, tradesmen and complaints lines. It's like trying to wade through thick jungle thicket when you are chest deep in mud. You exert an enourmous amount of effort while leaches suck your blood and the briars tear at your skin, only to find out that you have got absolutely no-where except now you feel a whole lot more exhausted and covered in mud.

Needless to say, these two events left me in a less than pleasant mood, when I got on to trying to do the "simple" task of paying for the present for my dearly beloved. I'm pretty miffed at the moment, as such a simple task as paying for a present has turned into such a difficult and drawn out affair. And I've just discovered that the flights have now been changed so my original plans can still be executed, so now I have to go back and rechange my original changes and sound like a complete idiot.

Aaaaarrrrgggghhh!!!!!!

I wish I was home in bed, but knowing how my day is going, the ceiling would probably collapse on me and pin me to my bed for a week. It seems to be one of those days where the world seems hell bent on placing obstacles in my path to see what extraodinary lengths I will go to in order to get to my destination.

I've given up trying to organize this all at the moment, lest I make Jodie even angrier by my impatience and general grumpiness. I'm going to go and have a quiet lunch and calm down some, before getting back to the task at hand, and diffusing the tension that I have caused this morning. I do love Jodie dearly, and I know that this present is something that she is going to love, but getting short tempered isn't going to get it organized for me. I know that I can do this, and work my way through everything, but it all just seems so hard today.

Anyway, lunch is beckoning and I need a calming atmosphere or a short bout of Yoga to re-align my spirit into the normally positive and forward moving thing that I like.

Working Furiously

2005-07-01T10:58:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: 'Til The End Of Time - Delerium - Karma (Disc 1) (4:35)]

The last few weeks has been somewhat of an exhillarating ride in the mining industry. In the last week alone we've signed two farily major agreements that commit our company to a lot of work in the next few years. The business that I am in, is still in it's infancy, in that it is a relatively new technology in a historically conservative industry, backed by an even more conservative, and risk averse, banking industry. People don't much like things to change, because that involves going out on a limb and testing new water's, where there is the potential for loss.

For an emerging technology, this adds up to 10+ years of development, testing, pilotting, scoping, advertising, demonstration, begging, pleading and then if we are lucky, we'll get the chance to put our heads on the blocks to stand behind the technology.

Anyway, what tends to happen is that the industry has been waiting for someone to adopt the technology for years, and when one company commits, then everyone wants a piece of the action. This is where we are heading this week.

Not that it's bad, just busy.

I got 2 x 200 page engineering documents dumped on my desk yesterday for me to read over. Somehow I need to make a recommendation at some stage on these, and others, some of which may be in Chinese. I then need to convince 5 other people that the recommendations I have made are the correct ones, before referring the matter to the board, and doing the whole thing over again. This is before the work even starts, and for only one of the 4 or 5 projects.

It can be an exciting industry, but at the same time, it can be frustrating to work so hard, and appear to get no-where.

In other news, I got a Kurzweil DMTi last night, which will help to expand my studio. It's a box that allows me to sync a bunch of different digital signals together. For the unitiated, it's a bit like platting hair. The hair start's off unruly and going in different directions with different lengths, but once platted, and controlled, is much easier to move around and keep well behaved. Multiple streams of digital audio is similar, but less hairy. Anyway, the DMTi is the magic platting machine. Put hair in, get plat out.

I still need to get some expansion cards for it, but that will come once Kurzweil have their wharehousing back to normal after their recent turmoil with aggressive takeover's.

Things are going well with Jodie. I'm currently planning her birthday surprise, which is cool. I just need to tie up a few loose ends to make it all happen, but it will be pretty awesome when it all comes together. We've both been sick for the last few weeks and are in the process of recovering both our energy and our health. We're planning on a few more fun trips out, starting this weekend, with a movie and a trip to the wineries for lunch. It should be a fun weekend, but we will be sure to do some more interesting things in the future also.

Anyway, it's a busy day, and I've got lots of paperwork to plough through, so back to the grindstone for me.

Working Furiously

2005-06-30T14:39:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Children (Radio Edit) - Robert Miles - Children (Single) (4:05)]

Lately

2005-06-21T08:12:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Black Fire Mixdown - LOST - The Lost Generation (3:55)]

Of late, much has happened. Jodie has become part of our household, and has been a constant source of amusement with the constant battle with the toilet habits of the cats, and with trying to keep my housemate on the straight and narrow with respect to household chores. I guess I've had to make a few changes as well, which isn't all bad, but when you are alone there's never much of an incentive to make the bed in the morning.

My housemate has changed alot over the last year. He used to be the big neat freak of the house, and was striving to get organized and get his life in order. Instead he's kind of let all of his good habits go, to make room for relaxing, which generally involves spending days on end sitting in front of his two computers playing role-playing games on the internet. He's beginning to neglect most of his household duties. He's never been one for cooking much, but he certainly doesn't mind partaking in the meals that we prepare almost nightly, and really doesn't contribute much to the weekly shops.

I guess I'm sounding like one of those guys that's been hooked by the woman, but there's really a lot more to it than that. I've come to realize that my housemate's cleanliness is really a disguised attempt to clear clutter from the bench and sweep it into some cupboard that is much better suited to actually storing something useful, like food or stationery. He seems to have an obsession for hiding mess away from site behind a closed door, but has absolutely no desire to actually deal with the mess and organize it.

A case in point. He has a computer desk, that he has two computers on, and has relegated the computer used for the business to a much smaller desk. That in itself isn't too much of a problem except that he moves all of his piles of paper, spare computer gear and CD's onto the desk where we need to lay out files and statements. So it's out of mind for him, but it's to our disadvantage. The mess hasn't been solved, merely transferred to somewhere else, for somewhere else to deal with.

The other day, his prized cat after scoffing a big bowl of cat biscuits proceeded to throw up the gorged meal on the floor. Said housemate dodged it all day until I reminded him that we had visitors coming in an hour, and that cat puke, probably wasn't the type of interior design aethetic that he was aiming at with his minimal themed house. Minimal, to me, means seriously organized so that everything has it's place and is organized, not do minimal work to keep the house clean.

He's quite childlike in many ways. He wants all of the nice, pretty things, but doesn't want to do the work for them.

He's avoiding moving in with his girlfriend, because he "doesn't want to put up with being nagged to do stuff". The thing is, it's stuff that he should do anyway, like pick up wet towels, sweep the floor, open the windows to air out the room.

Blah.

Enough venting on that matter.

I'll vent now on my gorgeous little black cat. Normally she is the cuddliest little cat on the planet. She'll snuggle up to your neck and purr for hours on end. Not last night however. She'd had a bit of a tiff with the snooty persian in the house, and was consequently not in the best mood. She started growling at Jodie while she was curled up on the bottom of the bed (the cat that is - Jodie get's to curl up under the covers). I decided that a growly cat needed to be evicted. The LBC decided that she wasn't going to be evicted and engaged in some violent negotiations, resulting in a lot of my blood being spilt and me smelling of detol.

The LBC did however get evicted for the night.

In better news, I've got my mLAN setup running nice and smoothly and have nearly finished my first track using this remarkable technology. For those not aquainted with mLAN, it's essentially an ASIO (professional) soundcard that is set up through the firewire port on your computer. What is really cool about it, is that it allows lots of different devices, by different manufacturers to be connected together. It's like modern day MIDI, but with audio. It also supports MIDI so that the digital studio of the future can be connected with a single firewire cable.

It's still in it's youth, and consequently there have been some teething problems, but the latest drivers have proven to be stable, and very useable, dramatically reducing the processor load from earlier versions. I dearly hope that this standard get's much wider acceptance, as it's really a fantastic way to work, once you've ironed out the bugs.

Anyway, the new track is one that I'm very proud of. It's the third from my new album, and while it's not quite complete, it's pretty promising. I've just got to program the ending, and then it's all ready to be mastered. I'm going to push this album, to try to get some sort of a publishing deal, which will be great. I honestly think that music I'm making now, is better than most of what I hear on the radio, and on CD's. I just need to get the promotional side up to speed :), oh and a vocalist would be great.

Apart from that, things have been busy. Sonikmatter.com is developing well, work is going gangbusters with us signing up more clients than we can really handle, with a heap of work on the horizon. I've been to China once since the last Turkish trip, and have another trip coming up in about 5 weeks. We've got one of our Chinese clients over here at the moment, and I've got a dull day to spend in Kalgoorlie, keeping the entertained.

The move to China for Jodie and myself has been on again, off again, on again, off again, which is really starting to drive us both up the wall. I've asked work for some certainty in my movements over the next year. Here's keeping my fingers crossed.

I've been doing a bit of work on the house. I had to get some electrical stuff fixed, and am still fighting the electricians for PPP (piss poor performance) (ie they charged us an exorbitant amount to tell us what we told them (ie it was broken) and then not to fix it. We've had an extraction fan fitted to the bathroom, and fitted a drier in the laundry. Things are starting to take shape and life is becoming more comfortable. I'm looking for another house to buy, because I want to get the trust going, and growth over the last year in the Perth market has been outstanding. I made more money from property ownership last year than I did from mining, which I'm pretty damn happy about.

Sure, it's not realized yet, but that will happen, in time. I'm not in any hurry to cash out, and merely holding the properties is being of benefit.

Anyway, that's a bit of an update of life at the moment, and it won't be long till the next update.

Till then...

Quite Some Time

2005-05-05T10:44:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Signum V4 - LOST - The Lost Generation ()]

It's been a long time since this blog has benefitted from some additions.

It's been a hectic time. The office was moved while I was away, and while the new office is fantastic, there were a number of serious hiccups to the move.

Firstly the server move was messed up beyond all recognition. The phone and internet lines weren't connected, and no provisions had been made for storing or redirecting mail while the server was off the web (all of 3 weeks). Something that a couple of phone calls could have sorted out. The IT people were changed during this time to save a few bucks which didn't help any either. The few bucks saved per hour were quickly offset by the additional hours required to get people to work out what was going on.

The cabling in the new building is a maze of wires reminiscent of an explosion in a spaghetti factory.

Jodie has moved down to Perth, which I am so excited about. It's not been an easy move for either of us, with lots of pressure and expectations, but we are working through things. We are both very happy, but we still have some way to go until we are both comfortable with our place in the world. Most of this is bought about by our unusual living arrangements whereby we share a bedroom in a house occupied by a housemate and 4 cats. The housemate likes order in his own fashion, and the cats, well... don't. Each of us has got a slightly different idea of how the house should be kept.

We've crossed a few of those universal mysteries, such as "should the toaster remain on the benchtop when not in use" and "should the coffee machine remain on the bench when not in use" and "where is my phone charger?" The types of questions that don't seem to have an answer, and differing opinions over which I'm certain that wars have broken out.

I'm quite keen to make a new start with Jodie somewhere else. A new house somewhere that we can truly make ours, but the domestic situation with my housemate is somewhat tricky. We are in a house in which the yards have not been finished, and as such not really in a rentable state. Neither of us can afford to leave the house if it isn't rented, so we need to get the work finished. Unfortunately money is a little tight, and while we are getting a wall finished this next week, there is still a lot of paving and gardening that is required.

This really needs to be pretty much finished before I can truly move in with my beloved, and both Jodie and myself are feeling a little bit of stress about it.

In much better news, Jodie and I both got our open water dive tickets in Exmouth a week or so back. It was a surprisingly challenging course, even for someone with 20 years of skin diving experience. Jodie, a novice of only 2 dives was extremely brave to do the scuba diving thing after a life pretty much devoid of open water. I'm so proud of her, because even though she was quite scared of some of the exercises, she kept at them, and got her certification.

My Jupiter 8 and K2600 have been repaired and are working nicely again. I'm back into writing music again, and have nearly finished the second song on my new album. I've just got to tweak the levels of the bass sound a bit, and it's done. I've got some new toys on the way for the studio and am in the process of rewiring everything through a balanced patchbay. I'll need to get a bit of new gear to get everything talking nicely, but the results are definately worth it.

Anyway, I've got a bunch of work to do, so I'm going to leave this here for now. I'll try to get back in a post again soon.

Nearly There

2005-03-31T15:59:00.000+08:00

Well, my time in Turkey is coming to an end. While I do like Turkey, 6 weeks (or is it 7) is a long way to spend away from home. The work here at teh plant has been slow and frustrating with lots of quality control problems, and way to much work to do, for the small crew of ex-pats.

It's certainly been a learning experience about many of the things we take for granted in Australia. We've got half of the plant running, but we've got a couple of critical items that are stopping us from getting the rest going.

Hopefully that will be resolved soon, but I won't be here to see it.

Things between Jodie and I have been a bit strange of late. There's a little tension in the air. I think a lot of it is due to the big changes that are about to happen, particularly on Jodie's part, with moving house, leaving her job and family to come and live closer to me. It makes me feel quite humble though I wish that there was more that I could do for her, firstly to make the move easier, but also to show her just how much I appreciate it.

She got a really encouraging email from one of the jobs that she applied for, which I was really happy to hear about, though, unfortunatly she did miss out, because of a delay in communications. I hope that she's still encouraged by it though, because she has some great skills that most company's would find appealing in personnel for their administration departments.

It would have meant changing our plans for my return to Australia (which is to get our diving tickets on the Ningaloo reef) though it would have been a very small price to pay to delay this, if it meant that Jodie would have had the question of her employment sorted out. I'm sure that she won't be hunting for a job for very long.

In other news, I managed to get a day off (that's the second in 7 weeks) and went and visited Efes. Efes are some ruins, south of Izmir which features roman, greek and egyptian influence's as well. It's a pretty amazing place, and the ruins are in such a good state, that most of the carvings can still clearly be seen. Even down to a game of backgammon carved into a marble block.

Anyway, life is generally good, though I am weary at the moment. The days have been long and the work hard, but it's going to make the break that I will have in about a weeks time, all that much more gratifying.

Drinking, Printing and Angry Girlfriends

2005-03-15T15:29:00.000+08:00

Printing first of all. I needed to print a drawing last night, and in order to access the printer, I needed to reconfigure all of my computer network settings, and now I can't change it back, because of Window's "I know better than you" method of not letting you reconfigure domain names unless you are connected to the DHCP server.

I mean, If I leave the domain I can log on normally, without any network support, but god forbid, if I join another network temporarily, then I can't get my profile back, come hell or high water, until I'm re-verified on my domain.

Why?????

It defies logic.

Blah,

Drinking and Angry Girlfriends is kinda related, and is making a bad day even worse. Last night I was "invited" out to dinner, in the kind of "we are taking our visitors out for dinner and you WILL be there" kind of way. After running around madly after work, to try to get the aforementioned printer working and get my drawing printed out (which took 50 minutes) I had to run home (the office is 500m from the guesthouse where I am staying) and get changed, to go back downstairs and meet our guests at the hotel, (which is directly below the office).

The dinner was filled with lots of pompous self gratifying ego building as the boys from the Big Company proceeded to tell us "small fry" why we could never make a project work, and that any opinions we had on the mechanics of our process were grossly in error and that they were the only people in the world who could do it.

Despite the fact that we've already demonstrated the process and are getting better results than them.

Over the course of the night I had about 4 glasses of red wine and finally managed to extract my self from the night of tortuous conversation to walk home to bed at 11pm.

I think the physical exhaustion of the previous few days combined with the alcohol really hit my system because I felt pretty rotten this morning. I've had a couple of coffee's and quite a quiet morning, and I'm starting to feel a bit better now, but Jodie has this impression of me attending some wild orgy last night, and getting completely plastered.

It's really difficult explaining to her just how inane these types of evenings really are. I think people have this impression of mining executives as these young vibrant horny "blokes", when generally they are sad old sacks of flesh that seem intent of stroking their ego's at the expense of every other person that they have ever had contact with.

It's really frustrating, that I need to endure both the participation in such evenings, and have suspicion's cast by my girlfriend about my motives after a few wines.

Almost without exception, dinner is served with wine. Last night, the Raki (a local Turkish version of Ouzo) was being consumed by all and sundry. I managed to wrangle my way out of that, on the basis that I needed to be up early, but I did have a few glasses of wine over dinner. As it turned out, it was probably one too many for my system to process in the evening, and consequently some of it caught up with me this morning.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, when I'm insisted to dinner on evenings such as this. Not drinking at all is becoming an increasingly attractive option. It reduces the headaches the next day, both in a physical sense, and the issues that come about from my beloved, though I do enjoy a glass of good red wine.

I'd much prefer to have Jodie by my side at evenings like this, because it will allow me partake in some decent conversation over dinner rather than enduring the drivel that often accompanies the self important pomp that is so often the subject of such evenings.

I think Jodie is worried about stories of prostitutes and wild nights that has become associated with the excesses of money. I will admit (and have already talked to Jodie) about one evening where prostitutes were apparently on offer. It's a bit hard to tell sometimes whether someone is making a genuine offer, or merely joking, but irrespective there were no acceptances of the said offer from either myself, or the others present at the evening.

Of all the dinner's I have gone to in the mining industry, only twice have such suggestions been made. I'm sure that it happens to some extent in the industry, but I'm equally convinced that this is not confined to the mining industry.

Anyway, all in all it was a particularly dull and painful night that resulted in a particulaly dull and painful headache this morning.

Rollin Right Along

2005-03-11T22:07:00.000+08:00

I think the image says it all.

Dunno how they are going to fix this one, and I'm not 100% sure how it happened, but it did.

In other news today, it sleeted and snowed today near Izmir in Turkey which is rare for this reason, and rarer still in spring.

About 2 or 3 inches of snow up the mountain, and about an hour of sleet and snow this morning on the way into work.

It's all very odd.

Jodie and I have had a series of long conversations over the last few days, and I'm feeling closer to her than ever. It's great. I'm so looking forward to being closer to her when I'm back in Australia.

She's drinking milo and watching a dog give birth at the moment, which is kinda wierd, I thought, but I guess if you are going to drink something while watching a dog give birth, milo's about as good as any.

Anyway, busy day, so I'd better get back to it.

Getting Down and Dirty

2005-03-09T22:48:00.000+08:00

OK I got conned today. Downright cheated....

In a meeting the subject of Bulk SG samples was broached by the Operations manger and my reply was that short of swimming, there was no way to get a sample. I challenged him that if he could produce a 1kg sample from the sampling site, then I would do the Bulk SG test for him (which requires taking a 30L sample (exactly approximately - ie approximately 30L, but measured with precision) and weighing it.

Lo and behold, he produces a bag, so off I go, with a barrel and a shovel to get my sample.

I arrive at the sampling site, so note that he has NOT in fact taken his sample from there, but from a much safer site further along the heap, where there is a stable footing underneath. Anyway, we needed the number, so I took the sample anyway (though from HIS sampling location, rather than the proper one (which would have necessitated being waist deep in mud).

I still got right muddy as the slurry from the new sampling site oozed down the hill and over my boots.

Moral of this story.

NEVER, TRUST A POM!!!

:P

Getting Down and Dirty

2005-03-09T22:47:00.000+08:00

Micromanaging

2005-03-07T17:56:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Billie Ray Martin - Honey (Chicane Remix) - 21st Century Trance 2 (Disc 3) (8:52)]

What is it with absent managers wanting to make decisions (irrational ones at that) from absentia? Shooting from the hip without being armed with all the facts.

Why do mining company's insist on having the headoffice, so far removed from the actual place where the work is being done. It creates confusion and duplication of many of the personnel and functions. It's not condusive to efficient flow of information and the managers still want to micromanage the workers as if they were on site.

An example is the commissioning project we want to do. We have two sources of liquor that we can use for the project but one of the managers doesn't want to use either of them. So somehow we have to pump liquor into the plant from nowhere...

The managers are all in their cushy offices away from the site where the workers on the ground are busting their butts to get it all finished and running, and we get these decisions out of left field. There are substantial delays with procuring equipment at the best of times, but when purchase requests have to be beamed half way around the world to get a signature, it adds considerably to the delay time, and we cop the flack for delaying the project.

Grrrrr....

If I ever get to the level of power in such an organization I'd move the entire office to site, so that problems can be dealt with there and then. If a presence is required in a city for whatever reason, it will be as small as possible but everything will be run, from the site where the money is being made.

Sure it will put a few accountants, and lawyers out of their comfort zones, but it's completely necessary. Those people (particularly the safety department) need to be on the ground. They need to know what is being ordered and why. If they are on site then they can immediately see that we need the widget to join these two pipes together or we're going to make a mighty big mess. There's nothing to debate. It's required. No option. No need for a discussion panel. The $10 you might save by ringing around is more than lost by the wages of people sitting around twiddling their thumbs and lost production.

Just get a friggin widget and now. I don't care where from, and I don't care what it costs, but I need it, and I need it now.

Sure, cost control is important, and if it's that important then get your stock control system working properly so that we don't have the necessity for reactive purchasing.

Blah

This is a frustrating job. Especially when decisions are being made without any information at all. There are no basis for the figures, and no-one has bothered to check if the assumptions are valid.

Speaking of assumptions, I had a long SMS conversation with Jodie last night about that very thing. Challenging the assumptions that you make in your life. Whether they be the dimensions of a slab of concrete or how we think people perceive us. If we don't verify our assumptions then EVERYTHING, every decision, every calculation that we base on them is in jeapordy of being wrong.

We don't go building a house without checking the stability of the ground and the quality of the concrete pad, otherwise there is the danger that the whole thing could come crumbling down. So it is with everything. It's the primary reason why I've been having so many problems with spreadsheets and calculations. I made the wrong assumption that the data provided to me was correct. In reality, this was far from the case, and the more I check, the more inconsistencies and false data I uncover.

I'm in the process of evaluating these assumptions, so that hopefully, I can base my results and recommendations on something real, rather than something, that some remote control micromanager has pulled out of thin air.

Bleh

2005-03-06T18:37:00.000+08:00

Lunch was terrible.

Chicken boiled in a tomato broth, and a floury tomato soup with rice and sour yoghurty milky chivey stuff served on a stainless steel prison tray.

Even the bread was stale.

I need nutrition. Fruit, fresh vegetables. Anything.

I think this is contributing to my down state, and no possibility of exercise unless you count dodging Turkish traffic in the rain, or wading through puddles and lakes created by the non-existent drainage system or pot-hole scaling.

Blah....

Feeling Somewhat Better

2005-03-06T18:22:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: India (Seb Fontaine Mix) - Shagrat - Perfecto Presents: Seb Fontaine (Disc 1) (8:14)]

Well, I finally managed to get in touch with my beloved, after more frustrating attempts at dialling out of this country. I initially got some message that the phone was off, and after a few more attempts managed to get in touch with her mum, and finally to call her at her work.

I feel lethargic and somewhat depressed, so I probably didn't come across well on the phone, but I do feel better having spoken to Jodie, as brief as it was. She's turned her phone back on again, much to my releif, so I can keep in touch with her with what is apparently the most reliable form of communication in the world SMS.

We've even had internet outages here on site, and when we are connected, webmail is agonizingly slow. The blog seems to be OK, but mainly because I can queue topics up in wbloggar and keep trying until it manages to post it.

It's frightening how much we rely on these forms of communications now days. I really feel for the dating couples of my grandparent's age, waiting forever for an unreliable postal service.

Recently my grandparent's on my mother's side passed away, and while tidying up their affairs and their house I chanced upon a letter writted by my grandfather to my grandmother shortly after they met. It was full of nervousness and uncertainty as my grandfather was trying to come to terms with his feelings, and a recent arguement with his future wife before he had to head out to the country.

It must have been terrible to not hear from the object of you're hearts desires for weeks on end as the most advanced form of communication was going through the motions. Even something as simple as having a bunch of flowers delivered was next to impossible, unless you had a good friend in the right location.

Now it's as simple as ringing a florist and giving them a credit card number, and the love of your life will have roses sitting in front of them before they can blush. How men and women of past ages ever managed to weave a path through the potential minefields of mis-communication without the tools of today is a testament to their love. Perhaps the distractions and doodads of today get in the way of feelings and love.

While communication is easier than ever today, it seems we've lost the patience that our ancestors had. With so many swindlers, crooks and morally corrupt individuals in the society of today it's far more difficult to find someone to trust, and if you do, it's often difficult to recognize them or to bring your self to trust them because of past individual experiences.

Government propaganda (particularly that of the USA, Britain and Australia) promotes an atmosphere of suspicion and corruption, and encourages you to betray the trust of someone you know. In business it is practically expected that you can't be trusted, and you're so called "partner" will be looking out for number 1 and looking for ways to backstab you.

This is particularly prevalent in Asian cultures where business negotiations is akin to war. So much so that one of the predominant Asian business philosophy books studied widely even today is Sun Tzu's Art of War. A document dating back over a thousand years with wide ranging philophies about how to identify your enemy, find and exploit his weaknesses and betray their trust all the while elevating your status in the society, and among your peers.

Co-operation no longer exists. Today's society lives by the mantra of WIIFM, and feedsback to itself selfishness and betrayal.

Even within a company that are supposed to be working towards a common goal corporate politics and personal agenda's sabotage the overall mission.

The world is terminally ill, and doing it's damndest to infect the few remaining virtuous souls on this planet.

I know I've found one of them, and it's my mission to do what I can to protect it.

Early Mornings and Late Nights

2005-03-05T21:48:00.000+08:00

I'm feeling exhausted right at the moment. I'm pretty sure that it's to do with the 5AM starts that I've been having since I got here, and the amount of mental energy's I'm having to expend with these calculations. I'm not sure why, but mental stress seems to take more out of me than physical labour.

Sometimes I just need to get up from my seat and go for a walk around the plant. Check that the wobblers are still spinning, and that the pump is still pumping, and that the liquor is going where it's meant to.

Today is the 3rd day without rain since I arrived in Turkey, with the second being yesterday. Most of the rivers are still swolen, and the ground around site is still muddy, though it has dried up a lot in the last 24 hours. With overcast skies and a seemingly neverending drizzle, the mood around the office has been pretty drab. The climate coupled with the continuous power failures and general failing of anything local has taken some tempers to breaking point.

The two other aussies who are here at this plant both seriously need some time off. The younger of the two now has the opportunity to take some time off while I'm here to help the older, more experienced one with the final throes of construction on the plant and the plant commissioning. It's not a job that one person can do, particularly as out of this site, I'm the only one who's ever actually run a mixed hydroxide precipitation plant before.

The local engineers that we have got here are nice enough people, but they seem to have a problem with following instructions. When hard work is pushed their way they want to find someone else to give it to, usually a Turkish laborer with little to no experience in the minerals industry. This leaves the engineer with nothing to do except watch, and puts additional pressure on the laboring workforce.

Yesterday I had a discussion with one of the Turkish professionals from another department, and he was explaining how the engineers had been complaining that we wouldn't teach them anything. I had to bite my tongue and then calmly explain to him that it's difficult to trust them with complex tasks when they don't finish the simple tasks, such as keeping a single pump running, or calculating the volume of a heap of dirt, or completing their assigned testwork on time, or even the project brief.

I explained that they need to learn to walk before they can run.

We're trying to ensure that we give them tasks, and responsibilities for things, such as asking them to do a mixing procedure for the reagents. It's not a difficult task, but one that is essential. It would take us aussies about 20 minutes to write this, but so far none of these engineers has attempted the procedure in nearly 3 months. In a week they need to start the plant, and they need to have those reagents mixed.

The reason that we ask them to do tasks like this is to get them thinkikng about the practicalities of doing the job. What's involved. We don't necessarily expect them to get it correct, but they have to at least attempt it.

Another example is the acid mixing plant. Concentrated sulphuric acid is a very hazadous chemical, and for this reason we went to great lengths to get locks on the valves so that it wouldn't be accidentally released. The engineers were tasked with getting a set of keyed alike locks to keep them locked, and keep the site safe. Four months, and not so much as a quote, a phone call or an order has been place.

How, I ask you, can we trust people like this to do complex jobs where they are responsible for millions of dollars of equipment if they can't even arrange $100 worth of padlocks?

In the meantime, I'm back to spreadsheets again. This blog is actually forming the basis of my procrastination at the moment, and it's helping take my mind off the message that I received earlier from Jodie. I'm not sure if it's a threat or whether she's just seriously pissed off at me, but she said that she'll think about seeing me when I return.

I have to trust in the feeling that I think we have for each other, and that I certainly have for her, that they are strong enough to get through our latest communication breakdown. I don't really want to think of my life without her, particularly right now. She's been a tower of strength for me and someone who I can talk to and listen to, as a diversion from the stresses of working here. Maybe I don't show how much I appreciate her or something, I'm not sure, but I do know that I've come to rely on her strength to spur me on to greater things.

Just yesterday, she was the one that I relied on to listen to me, when I had to vocalize the frustrations I was experiencing dealing with our Mongolian associates. I'd had some troubles with some calculations, and was getting a lot of grief about it. I needed to have a whinge about it, and she was so understanding and supportive about the experience.

This trip has been particularly hard for a number of reasons, and it is forcing me to question whether I really want to continue on in this line of work. Continual stress, long hours, ungrateful customers, heavy responsibility and difficult working conditions are beginning to take their toll on me, and while the money is good, the inflexible work regime and lack of time off is difficult for me to take.

Each day I'm up at 5AM for a 7AM start. We rarely leave before 5PM and get back to the flat at around 6:30 in time to have some dinner an intense talk about what went wrong on that day and what we are planning for tomorrow before retiring to bed at around 8:30 to 9PM. Then the sleep is very restless due to the continual traffic noises, honking horns and raised voices on the street directly outside of our windows, before we rise to do it all again. Seven days a week.

I dunno, I don't really mind I suppose, but every now and then I just need to get it out of my system. This industry isn't the glamourous hi-tech industry that everyone assumes. It's dealing with dirt, people and large sums of money that are never large enough to do the job asked in a proper manner.

Blah... I'm doing lots of whinging, but I guess I'm just trying to say that I'm feeling exhausted and need some sleep.

Well it's 3:46 PM, so I'm going to try to get this little chunk of the spreadsheets done, and then I'm going to go home and try to get an early night.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Jodie will speak to me tomorrow. I really miss hearing her voice and feeling her in my arms.

Turkish Infrastructure.

2005-03-05T20:29:00.000+08:00

Aaaarrrghh!!!!!

After unsuccessfully having tried to call Jodie half a dozen times today using both a land line and my mobile I get a message from her that basically tells me that she thinks I didn't want to talk to her, and am making up excuses.

Nothing seems to work in this frigging country, and now it's impacting on my relationship.

Heck, I've been on site for 14 days now, and we have not had one full day of electricity yet. The backup generator has broken down at least 5 times in that same period, a bridge has washed away and today, now, I couldn't ring my girlfriend, my mother, my father, my sister or my housemate.

Heck, even my workmate is in a foul mood, because the cigarette lighter he bought this morning refuses to produce a flame, thus depriving him of nicotine and making him even more short tempered than he already is.

This country sucks.

I tried again, just a few minutes ago, and got her message bank, which is s step in the right direction, but still I have been unable to talk to her.

I get a little lost at times with Jodie. One day we have such a great day with conversation, and we are both happy, and then wham - like a bombshell, I'm suddenly the baddie because I can't get in touch with her.

Despite a string of messages today, (one of which was her telling me that she was turning her phone off for the weekend "because 'her' attachment to it is over the top".) Was I wrong in assuming that when she sent me this, that she was "actually" going to turn her phone off?

Trying to be diplomatic, and in tune with her feelings, I sent a message expressing regret that I wouldn't get to talk to her, but I tried to put it in a way that supported the decision she'd made. The difficult thing about SMS's is that there is no vocal intonation, so it's difficult to know whether the SMS is said in jest, with anger, with longing, or as a wistful aside. I'm not sure of the tone of the above mentioned message to me, so I tried to hedge my bets, but I missed big time, it seems. I seem to have provoked some sort of anger, because I apparently wasn't going to miss her enough.

I didn't hear back from her after I sent my message for several hours, and thought (wrongfully it seems) that she had, in fact, actually switched her phone off. Assuming that the phone was off, I didn't send any more messages, though I've had the phone on my desk next to me in the faint hope that she didn't actually turn it off and would message me, so that then I could make another attempt at ringing her.

Why not ring her at home? I hear you ask, well, she's currently bunked down in a transportable flat on her parents property that doesn't have a phone line, and her parent's are away, so if I did manage to get a line out then there was likely no-one on the other end to answer it, so it is mobile or nothing (though I'm probably mistaken in this assumption too.)

I hate this long distance thing. It's why I've been so keen for Jodie to move to Perth, so that we can be near each other, and actually surprise each other by visiting face to face rather than attempting the same through the screwed up infrastructure networks that make up this strange place.

Today has become so frustrating.

The Array - Chapter 5 - Digging

2005-03-02T14:37:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Overture - Chicane - Behind The Sun (3:46)]

Jensen wandered out from the front door and across the parking lot devoted to the task at hand. Striding confidently beneath the clouded dark night sky he swung the keys on his right index finger, distracted as he was, by his errand. Tucked beneath is left arm was a photocopy of a small portion of the luminous drawing, the secrets which he had just glimpsed intruding on his psyche.

Catching his bunch of keys in the palm of his hand he deftly flipped the key in his hand and pressed the button unlocking the doors to his black Honda Prelude. Opening the door, he eased into the embrace of the sheepskin seat covers and coaxed the engine into action. After swiping his security card over the panel that allowed the gate to the car park to open, Jensen let the tension that had been building in him find an outlet through the conduit of his right foot and the power of the tubocharged engine.

He followed the route that was almost automatic to him as the cable traced the first 2 or 3 kilometers of his route home. At the end of Francis Street where he would normally turn right, Jensen instead followed the quick left-right chicane that traced around the border of the scenic park where he walked with his dog, and occasionally his wife, Jenny, before he left for work each shift.

At this time of night the traffic was fairly light, but even so, he was forced to halve his speed quite suddenly, as the traffic merged into a single lane, to avoid reshaping the front end of his automobile and that of the small 2 door Ford, illuminating his Prelude with it's brake lights.

Up ahead the yellow flashing lights of roadworks splashed their discordant rhythm of light off the occasionally tinted windows of the oncoming traffic. At his stunted speed, Jensen glanced across to the crowd of onlookers inspecting the open excavation into which the backhoe had it's arm extended into innards of the earth. The crowd was unusual in it's size, particularly for this late hour of the night.

Allowing the veil of fluorescent lettering to lift briefly, Jensen recalled the purpose of his mission, and suddenly jamming the brake to the floor, immediately raising a din of horns from his rear, he grabbed the map from the passenger seat and noted the cable running down the road border of his drawing. The drawing only showed the two lanes of an older relation to this road, prior to it's strongly disputed encroachment into the park, though the left hand border of the road had moved little.

Pulling up onto the footpath on his right, Jensen leapt out of his car bringing another chargrined din of car horns, as the he momentarily forgot his chances of a one on one with a car. Pulling up inches from the passing car he earned himself a vicious knock on his left hip from the wing mirror of the passing car and a muffled string of expletives from the driver. Awaiting a break in the traffic, he quickly crossed the road and joined the engrossed crowd, pressing to the front of the pack and peered into the maw of earth in front of him.

From his vantage point he couldn't actually see the cause of the crowds interest, but his mind could almost see the broken cable that had been unearthed by the backhoe. Forcibly he shuffled around the barrier tape along the front of the crowd until he could see the scorched cable welded to the side of the bucket. The driver and a couple of the laborers were down the trench with a shovel attempting to prise the cable away from the bucket, in order to free the machine, but it was appearing like a lost cause.

Glancing across the trench, Jensen noted a chubby, unkempt man in a day-glo orange vest barking orders to the men down the hole. Pushing his way past the crowd Jensen jogged around the torpid machine and approached the bright orange barker.

"Whoa, whoa, what are you guys doing here?" yelled Jensen, to distract the foreman.
"Who the fuck are you?" was the short and pointed response
"I'm the guy that 20 minutes ago was sitting at the control panel at the other end of this cable, when you took it upon yourself to ruin my shift" retorted Jensen, violently pointing to the spectacle below.
"Really. Well that saves me a few hours of phone calls to find out who I can send the bill to?" came the reply as the near canine temper rising close to boiling point, and the barking foreman invaded Jensen's personal space, his foul breath stinging Jensen's nostrils
Thrown off guard, and instinctively stepping backwards, Jensen feebly replied "Bill?"
"Yeah" continued the foreman. "Someone's gotta pay for the damage to my machine."
"Damage to your machine" snapped Jensen, "What about the damage to our infrastructure? When are you guys going to learn to read cable maps" continued Jensen, waving his photocopied map in the foreman's face.
"Well, if you suits bothered to put your cables on the maps, then I'd stop digging them up" said the foremand defensively.
"What do you mean?" responded Jensen more calmly. "It's on my map right here" he continued, opening the folded photostat.
Glancing at the map "That's no Energy commision cable map" countered the foreman. "Look" he said, motioning for Jensen to follow towards the battered utility parked on the footpath.
Opening the tattered map Jensen could clearly see the distinct absence of his cable, the "official" map showing only a water main next to the buildings lining the footpath and the stormater drain under the edge of the second lane of the road, with the remaining utilities being located in the more convenient location of the park.
"Shit..." came Jensen's puzzled response. Quickly thinking, he instructed "Get your boys out of the hole. I'll get a team down here to sort this out" while simultaneously dialling Charles' number.

Pond Volumes

2005-02-25T21:23:00.000+08:00

OK - Here's my good deed for the day.

Here's the visual basic code to calculate the volume of water in a pond in the shape of a frustrum (ie a truncated rectangular pyramid)

This example the user can choose between any of 3 pond sizes using the PondNum variable. The PondHeight is the only other input variable.

The Pond Dimensions for each pond are defined inside of the function and can be tweaked to your specific application.

Our application, we need to determine the volume of liquor from a height reading on a daily basis for 3 different ponds.

If you want the function to be useable in all of your workbooks, you will need to define it as Public. This is easy. Just put the word "Public" in front of "Function" in the first line"

Enjoy :D


Function PondVol(LiquorHeight As Single, PondNum As Integer) As Single

'Constant Definitions
'BL = Base Length
'BW = Base Width
'TL = Top Length (at height H)
'TW = Top Width (at height H)
'H = Distance from base to the top surface of the pond measured vertically.

Const Pond1BL = 13, Pond1BW = 17.5, Pond1TL = 33.5, Pond1TW = 38, Pond1H = 4.1
Const Pond2BL = 14.19, Pond2BW = 13.95, Pond2TL = 38.25, Pond2TW = 38.01, Pond2H = 4.81
Const Pond3BL = 26.75, Pond3BW = 14, Pond3TL = 50.75, Pond3TW = 38, Pond3H = 4.8

'Area Calculations
Pond1BA = Pond1BL * Pond1BW
Pond2BA = Pond2BL * Pond2BW
Pond3BA = Pond3BL * Pond3BW

'Calculation of "Chunk" for to allow for Tangent Calculation.
'The Chunk is half of the difference between the top length and bottom length
Pond1LC = (Pond1TL - Pond1BL) / 2
Pond1WC = (Pond1TW - Pond1BW) / 2
Pond2LC = (Pond2TL - Pond2BL) / 2
Pond2WC = (Pond2TW - Pond2BW) / 2
Pond3LC = (Pond3TL - Pond3BL) / 2
Pond3WC = (Pond3TW - Pond3BW) / 2

'Calculate Pond Height depending upon Pond Number

Select Case PondNum
Case 1
Pond1HL = 2 * (LiquorHeight * Pond1LC / Pond1H) + Pond1BL
Pond1HW = 2 * (LiquorHeight * Pond1WC / Pond1H) + Pond1BW
Pond1HA = Pond1HL * Pond1HW
PondVol = LiquorHeight * (Pond1BA + Pond1HA + Sqr(Pond1BA * Pond1HA)) / 3
'PondHeight
Case 2
Pond2HL = 2 * (LiquorHeight * Pond2LC / Pond2H) + Pond2BL
Pond2HW = 2 * (LiquorHeight * Pond2WC / Pond2H) + Pond2BW
Pond2HA = Pond2HL * Pond2HW
PondVol = LiquorHeight * (Pond2BA + Pond2HA + Sqr(Pond2BA * Pond2HA)) / 3
Case 3
Pond3HL = 2 * (LiquorHeight * Pond3LC / Pond3H) + Pond3BL
Pond3HW = 2 * (LiquorHeight * Pond3WC / Pond3H) + Pond3BW
Pond3HA = Pond3HL * Pond3HW
PondVol = LiquorHeight * (Pond3BA + Pond3HA + Sqr(Pond3BA * Pond3HA)) / 3
Case Else
PondVol = 0

End Select

End Function

What happens when the power goes out...

2005-02-24T22:48:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was one of the dullest, most miserable days, I have experienced in a long, long time. It started well, but as soon as I arrived at work, we were advised that the power was out. "No problem" I thought, I have a laptop and can keep working. Unfortunately, however, the document I needed resided on the server that was down, so that wasn't an option.

We waited most of the morning for an insulator to arrive from the nearest city (over 1 hour away) and most of that time was spent reviewing the current site works in the rain, and knee deep in mud. Trudging endlessly around the mining site feeling cold and wet, while not actually being able to do anything productive was a stifling feeling.

To make matters worse, being out in the rain, I was away from my phone, and hence didn't send any messages to my gorgeous girl. I think she felt neglected, and now I feel bad about it. It's frustrating, because I've been trying my hardest to keep in contact.

Being in Mongolia was a nightmare, because not only would my mobile not work, but I didn't have any decent internet connectivity, which meant that I was essentially isolated from everybody, except for the Mongolians with whom I was locking horns.

Turkey has been better, and I've learnt from my last trip here, that calling Jodie in the Turkish evenings is not the easiest way to stay in contact, because it's very late in Australia, and she does actually need some sleep. Instead I try to call her in the mornings, on my way to work. It's about midday in Australia when I'm leaving for work. I've only managed to get through once though, which has been disappointing.

While the Turkish telephone infrastructure is herculean compared to it's Mongolian counterpart, international connections are still a bit of a hit and miss affair. Compounded with this, is that Jodie is at work, so it can be a bit of a hit and miss affair to get in touch with her, even if my call gets through. Unfortunately she takes this lack of contact as a sign that I'm not thinking of her, or that I'm avoiding her or something.

I find it difficult to balance all of the demands on my time, and it's something that I need to continue to work on. It's more important now than it has ever been in my life, because my actions have the power to profoundly affect some one I care so deeply about. The fact is, that my mood and feelings springs directly from hers. If she is feeling sad, or down, then I also feel that way. Not necessarily because I've shared the feeling or the event that has triggered her feelings, but because I feel that I've failed in someway from protecting her from feeling bad, or worse still, that my actions may have caused it.

Fortunately she is generally a happy soul, so I'm blessed with being able to magnify her feelings of happiness and joy, but still, the sadder days are the ones that seem to affect me more. Perhaps I should concentrate on enjoying the happy times that we share.

The book that I've just finished reading tells the reader that if you "expect" good things, then good things will come. It's not so much about positive thinking and using your mind, but more that if you aim for good things, then you naturally start doing things, and acting in ways that help those good things to happen. It talks about adjusting your frame of reference, or the way that you view something in order to frame the subject in a positive way.

An example is how you view your weigh. Often we think to ourselves "I'm too fat", or "I'm overweight" or "I wish I was thinner", but what we should probably be thinking is how we can do something about it. We should say "What can I do to loose weight?" or "Exercising more will help me reduce my weight"

Suddenly we've changed the context of the idea from one of a statement that is negative and makes us feel bad, to a statement that is positive and calling for change, or at the least, a question to invigorate our brains.

The book incidentally is Retire Rich, Retire Young, by Robert Kiyosaki, and he didn't quite frame the premise in the same way that I did above. I though long and hard about what Kiyosaki was trying to say in this book. Looking between the self-indulgent memory trip and advertising speil, Kiyosaki has unwittingly managed to bury a very valuable message by using a range of poor examples bizarre conclusions.

Kiyosaki has a unique way of viewing the world, and many of the words he uses makes sense to him, but I find a range of his examples and word choices uncomfortable. Kiyosaki goes on about changing your context and using "fast words". His examples of fast words are not something that I would call fast, but perhaps would to my mind be called positive or smart. The message about changing your context or your viewpoint is valuable, but the examples that he uses are simplistic and not well thought out, IMHO.

The never-ending advertising detracts from an otherwise very powerful message. This is in fact the second time that I've read this book, and the first reading was an extremely positive experience for me. This time around, however, the same powerful feelings were absent. Perhaps I've fallen out of the Rich Dad mania mind set, and decided upon my own route of self-development. I'm not really sure.

I still think that this book is a good read, and what underlies Kiyosaki's commentry can be applied to many facets of life, which is why I used the example above.

In my thoughts today has been my relationship with Jodie, and how much I want us to be happy together. It occured to me that instead of me simply wishing that Jodie were happy and content, that instead, I should frame the premise as "what can I do to expand the love and happiness between us?" I'm not sure that I have all the answers to that (in fact, I hope that I don't, because the discovery of the answers is one of the things that propels a relationship), but part of my mind is certainly focussed on it. I have some ideas of things that I have the power to change, and I will try to put these into action.

As mentioned in a book (who's title escapes me at the moment) the idea of building an emotional bank account is an important element to a relationship. To be loved and trusted, one must ensure that he demonstrates that he/she can be trusted, and is worthy of love. One thing that the book failed to mention is that it is possible for others to make withdrawals from your emotional bank account. If you've been burned by love before, then you should be able to appreciate how your past experiences can affect your current feelings. What is does highlight, however, (and one point that I found particularly poignant) was that it's important to continue making deposits into this emotional bank account, even after the trust and love has formed.

You need to continue to show your lover that he/she is special to you. Taking your partner for granted begins to make withdrawals from the emotional bank account, until all of the feelings are spent.

Thinking in monetary terms, it is important to deposit more into your bank account than you withdraw, to ensure your ongoing prosperity. Similarly, it is important to deposit more into your emotional bank account to ensure ongoing happiness, trust and love in your relationship. I have a goal to be prosperous both financially, and in my relationship with Jodie.

To continue on from where I started this entry, today has been a much more successful day. I managed to fix a problem in a spreadsheet I'm working on, and also managed to get an instrument working, despite the correct wiring diagram being absent from the manual. Even the weather has improved, from the deep, thick fog of this morning, to a very pleasant and sunny day.

My mood has also improved since I received a message from the love of my life, informing me that she was well, despite us having had little contact in the last few days. I truly hope that I manage to get in contact with her tomorrow morning. Her voice is always invigorating to my soul.

Random Link for the day

10 Steps for Boosting Creativity

The Array - Chapter 4 - Hidden Tomes

2005-02-24T15:28:00.000+08:00

The phone on the wall beside Jensen suddenly shattered the meditative hum of the electrical lifeblood of the control centre. Jensen, having verified that the amplifier was in a ready state quickly locked the cabinet and turned his attention to the telephone that was impatiently summoning him.

"Hello"
"Jensen, what's the status?"
"I've just finished the checks and the main trunk contactor is fried. It looks like the breaker shut down before the amp was damaged. It's sitting there waiting for a signal."
"Well, that's something I guess. Get yourself back over here. We need to get out and find out if there's a problem with the cable."
"OK, Give me a minute to lock up."

Jensen double checked the cabinets to ensure that they locked and left the control centre through the same door that he entered by. Pausing on the top step, he turned and locked the door, before ambling back across the courtyard to the main office.

Again he used his security key to open the locked door and wound his way through the maze of control cabinets to his control terminal. He glanced up to Charles desk on the elevated platform and noted Charles hunched over the light table, presumably studying the maps.

Jensen walked around the shoulder high partition that separated his space from the small stairway that led to Charles desk, and the drawing cabinets, and mounted the steps. Turning to his left at the top of the stairs Jensen approached the light table from the opposite side to where Charles stood, silhouetted by the wall of plan cabinets.

Charles glanced up from his studies and motioned for Jensen to check the map. "The main trunk runs along the Francis Street here", motioning to the map.

As Jensen leant across the table to see the indicated crossing, his thigh activated the push button that controlled the light table. Suddenly the fluorescent tubes inside the table leapt to life and illuminated the drawings from below with a slightly purplish light. The paper below Charles fingers suddenly danced with iridescent hieroglyphs as the slight ultraviolet light from the fluorescent tubes activated a hitherto hidden fluorescent ink on the surface of the paper.

Charles' jaw dropped, as though some demon from the past had suddenly leapt from the page and seized hold of it. Immediately he was silenced as his attention was drawn from the red line that bisected the page, to the hazy yellow glow emanating from the page.

The fluorescent tubes only gave off a small amount of near UV light, so the lines and lettering hidden on the page remained elusive, and illegible, but the sheer mass of lines on the page made an impressive display nonetheless.

Jensen was the first to break the silence.

"That's new" was all that he could manage as he stood mesmerized by the discovery.
"Yeah" was the only reply that Charles could manage, equally baffled by the emergence of a hidden drawing. "We'd better take a closer look at this," he continued after allowing the silence to linger a little longer.

Shaking off the shroud of mystery that had suddenly descended on the room, Charles refocused on the problems at hand. "Later, though," he eventually added. "We've got to find out why we lost the main trunk first."

"OK" agreed Jensen, as he reluctantly reached down to reset the power switch to the table. Delaying, in case the miracle before him was a fleeting, once off occurrence, he finally worked up the courage to kill the lights, and the hidden text vanished, leaving the streetscape of the surrounding city naked on the page.

Charles and Jensen glanced into each others eyes, silently acknowledging that this event that they had just witnessed was to stay a privately shared experience, at least for now.

Again they looked down at the drawing, and Charles continued. "Follow the cable's path out of the city and do a quick recon. Look for anything obvious. I'll set up a pulse on the cable under the control centre and you can follow it with the hand held cable locator. Do a check at each of the manholes along the route to check for continuity. Hopefully we can narrow down the problem to a short section of the cable."

Jensen, still shrouded in disbelief, absently acknowledged the request, and like a zombie turned and collected his car keys from his desk, as he headed across the floor to the large wooden cupboard that contained the maintenance kit.

The Array - Chapter 3 - Paperwork

2005-02-22T15:47:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: The Lost Planet - Planisphere - Gatecrasher Global Sound System: Latitude (Disc 1) (6:23)]

Charles was quickly loosing his cool, both physically and emotionally. A sweat had formed on his forehead and upper lip, and his blue cotton shirt had sweat stains under the arms. Having Jensen reporting every procedure to him, like a child of eight wasn't helping his anxious state. His absence to the control centre at least stopped the background noise and allowed Charles to concentrate on locating the drawings.

Suddenly Charles exclaimed "Allright! I found one". Some small measure of relief as he'd uncovered one of the two drawings, though what the schematic of the buss amplification system was doing in the middle of a pile of Mechanical Drawings for the trussing structure for the incoming feed was a bit of a mystery. "Hopefully it's not an indication of the filing system he'll find on the electronic version of the drawings" he thought to himself.

Shifting the drawings from in front of the schematic to the front set of plan cabinet hooks, Charles proceeded to activated the release mechanism that allowed the interlocking jaws to come apart far enough to remove the drawing. He carefully extracted his treasure and laid it on the light table that was acting as a temporary emergency centre for the drawings.

Charles turned back to the cabinet in search of the other drawing, that showed the physical location of the data trunk in relation to the streets in the surrounding suburbs. Either the magnified version showing just Trunk A or the overview showing all of the trunks would suffice.

This one should be the easier of the two to find, as all of the overlaying streets are printed in green and go to the edge of the pages, making them easy to distinguish from the other drawings. Armed with this information, Charles no longer had to examine the drawing identifier in the right corner and paged his way through the cabinet's like a veteran bank teller, counting notes.

Charles' felt as though some of the weight had been lifted from his shoulders as he continued his search at more than triple his previous speed. Finishing plan cabinet four (labeled Control Centre Mechanicals, despite containing the Mechanical Drawings that hid his schematic, and a set of feed bus electrical schematics) Charles closed the cabinet with a muffled clang, and eased the lock open on plan cabinet five.

The top door wouldn't open easily as it should, and a quick examination soon found that one of the hinges had been damaged in the move. Crouching slightly, Charles put his shoulder under the lip of the top lid, and pushed up with his legs. The hinge screamed in protest as Charles forced the lid open. With this pushed up at an obtuse angle, Charles released the catch to allow the front portion of the cabinet fall open to the browsing notch, with the claws still locked together.

Only five or six drawings in, the green lines that Charles was eagerly awaiting began to appear at the edge. There seemed to be a large number of similar drawings grouped together, more than he recalled being present, but never mind, the drawing with the bold red line emblazoned across it's diagonal was now glaring at him from the intestines of the plan cabinet.

Opening the claws, Charles released the cabinet's prey, and laid it on top of the schematic. The red line of the trunk's path from the building in which Charles now stood contrasting startlingly like a deep cut on pale flesh. Quickly tracing the artery of the buss from the building, Charles was somewhat relieved to see that it followed the roadwork of the city for the most part, only passing under the railway station and a shopping mall on it's 28km journey to the splitting station.

"Jensen" called out Charles absently while his focus was still on the page.
"Jensen?" he repeated as he looked up.
Charles recalled Jensen muttering something about doing some checks a while back, and focused his energies on recalling the location. Something about breakers…

"He must be in the Control Centre," he thought.

Reaching for the beige internal phone he dialed 311, the control centre extension.

Back in Turkey

2005-02-21T19:15:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Track 01 - Orb - Cydonia (4:18)]

Travelling has been tiresome this time around. The bitterly cold temperature of a Mongolian Winter coupled with the somewhat frosty reception I received there left me feeling a little down. Currently I'm in Turkey after 26 hours on aeroplanes and only 4 hours sleep. My body feels shattered. I'm looking forward to getting some sleep tonight, and hopefully I can be a little more productive tomorrow.

The weather here is is really quite pleasant. Lots of rain (yes, rain, not that cold stingy snow stuff) and the temperatures are above zero. Very much like Perth winter temperatures, though quite a bit wetter. I'm getting to play with Mud again.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to be doing this time around while I'm here. The stuff I thought I'd be working on might be difficult with the staff that I'm supposed to be working with being in Chile. There's heaps of work that I can do, and so I guess I'll get stuck into that. The first thing will probably be making some major changes to the metallurgical accounting spreadsheet, which is the precise thing that caused me so much grief in Mongolia, so I'm not really relishing the thought of getting into that.

Actually I'm not really relishing the idea of doing anything right at the moment, but 12 hours of sleep will cure that.

I talked to by dearly beloved yesterday from Berlin Airport. It was so good to hear her voice. I really could just have fallen asleep in her arms if she'd been with me. I must have sounded all tired and subdued or something with how I was feeling. I wish that I'd been home, and even now am feeling somewhat homesick.

I'm wondering how I'll be able to cope with being in China on an extended basis, if our company decides to post me there as the regional representative. I think it will be tough, though it will almost certainly be an invaluable learning opportunity.

In any case, I guess I'd better get on with some work.

I'll post another chapter of The Array tomorrow. It's a bit slow moving at the moment, though the intrigue will start to build shortly. If anyone has any suggestions or spots any continuity or grammatical errors, please use the comments to let me know. It will need some serious revision at some stage, and I'm sure that there will be some continuity issues at some stage, even though I'm trying to be pretty meticulous with my planning and outline document.

I've still got quite a bit of research that needs to be done on some of the main plot, but I'll get into that soon.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be a bit more cogent tomorrow after I've had some sleep.

Till then.

Pleasant dreams :P

The Array - Chapter 2 - Short Circuit

2005-02-21T17:43:00.000+08:00

Dish 5 - Phase Loss 21:20:18
Dish 6 - Phase Loss 21:20:18
Dish 49 - Carrier Sync Loss 21:20:18
Data Buss A - Undervoltage 21:20:18
…

Jensen's already loose handwriting style was becoming more chaotic by the second as fatigue set into his wrist and lower arm. Four pages of alarm logs from a single incident and still two more control sections to clear.

More worrying though was that the main trunk 'ready' light had not lit up again, indicating that this was a little more than a glitch in the system. After transcribing each page of alarms the system takes a second or two to acknowledge them across the various processors on the distributed control system. The price paid for redundancy is a hit in performance, though it gives Jensen a moment to check the status of the main data buss in between pages.

Charles in the meantime was cursing his procrastination in calling the draftsmen back to re-organize the drawings into their proper order in the plan cabinets. Usually the drawings are kept in impeccable order with all of the electrical drawings grouped and ordered by number, as are the civils drawings, the general arrangement drawings and all of the vendor drawings.

A month back, Consolidated Drafting had been commissioned to convert the paper drawings to an electronic format. The cabinets had been removed for a week and returned like a deck of shuffled cards. This in itself wouldn't have been so much of a problem if the electronic format of the drawings had been delivered on schedule, but with experienced draftsmen being in high demand in the mining and construction industries at the moment left Consolidated Drafting more than a little shortstaffed.

This left Charles with the perplexing problem of locating the main buss civil and flow drawings in the mess that was left. It had entered Charles' mind that it would be easier finding a name in a yellow pages directory if it had been sorted by street number rather than surname.

Finally the last screen of alarms had been acknowledged and Jensen could move on from the archaic, and overly beauracratic nonsense of recording digital data in longhand when a $50 dot-matrix printer would do the job in under a minute.

His next task was to try to make some sense as to what happened. Why did we lose the entire feed? The simplest solution would be if the breaker tripped, but he didn't recall any overcurrent alarms in the logs. It was possible that heat could cause a trip though, and if a fan in the main power buss cabinets had stopped, then that could be a cause.

Unlikely as this scenario was, Jensen needed to be certain that a simple circuit breaker wasn't the cause of the shutdown tonight.

"I'm just going to check the buss breakers in the Control Centre. Can you keep an eye on the panel"
"If something goes down again, we'll be able to hear the screaming from central." Came the short reply from Charles. "Just find out where the problem is and hurry back. I've got a little bit of a paperwork crisis here."

Jensen, not wanting to push his luck any further than necessary was out exit like a shot, and across the yard to the featureless white building that appeared to be supported by the massive braids of wires that passed through the floor.

Jensen took the three steps to the door in a single bound and in the same motion had his security key into the lock. The blast of cold air from the air conditioners mussed his wavy brown hair as he pulled the door open.

Jensen strode down the passageway between the wall and the first row of electrical cabinets, reading the engraved identification tags as he went.

110 V Utility Buss
110 V Lighting Buss
110 V Filtered Buss C
110 V Filtered Buss B
110 V Filtered Buss A
Data Trunk D
Data Trunk C
Data Trunk B
Data Trunk A

That was the one he was after. Hurriedly, Jensen inserted Charles' cabinet key into the lock on the front panel. The door opened, indicating that the breaker had tripped. The locking mechanism would not have allowed the panel door to open if the breaker was armed. The smell of ozone and melted plastic greated Jensen as the grey panel door swung open.

He glanced up at the door and noted that the fan was still spinning. That ruled out the over-heating, though melted plastic normally indicated something a little more severe. Both the hot and the cold buss bars on both sides of the contactor showed scorch marks on the contactor housing, indicating a short circuit between these busses, somewhere after the contactor, or simply a catastrophic contactor breakdown. The main breaker for the buss had also tripped, which wasn't surprising.

The hot and the cold busses always carried an identical signal but flipped in amplitude. This allowed for better noise rejection along the 28km line to the splitting station. With signals as large as the ones being sent from the Information Defence Syndicate, if the two busses ever touched each other, then some serious current could flow.
Hopefully the shortcircuit hadn't made it back as far as the main amplifier, or damaged the phase lock circuits or signal mixer which used the amplified signals as their control signal.

It's these two circuits that usually allowed the signal to be transferred smoothly from one buss to another without any glitches in the system, but there needs to be a signal on both busses for the system to work. Why they don't just use this system to transfer the signal in case of phase loss or signal loss left Jensen bewildered, but then again, it was a government department. In anycase, the contactor looked toasted despite the fast lockdown by the circuit breaker, and would have to be replaced before the data trunk could be tested again.

Jensen picked up the receiver of the brown telephone hanging on the wall, and keyed in the number of electrical supervisor. While Jensen was qualified to replace electrical components, he'd rather leave the big equipment to that slightly crazy breed of electricians who lived on the adrenalin associated with working with big currents and high voltages.

The phone only rang twice when a young voice answered on the other end.

"Hello"
"Oh Hi Benjamin, it's Mr Jensen here from your dad's work. Could I please speak with your dad?"
"Dad - phone" emerged the distorted shout from the receiver at Jensen's ear just before a loud crack as Jack dropped the receiver onto the table at the other end.
In the 20 seconds or so that it took for Jack Fleming to pick up the receiver, the ringing in Jensen's left ear had reduced to an annoying tinnitus level.

"Yo" came the Australian accent from the other end.
"Hi Jack, it's Jensen here at the array feed. We've just lost the main data trunk, and the contactor looks fried. Any chance you getting one of your boys down here to replace it, so that we can test the trunk?"
"Struth. What didya do, get hit by lightnun or sumthun?"
"We're not sure yet, but Charles is running scared after a call from the president's office."
"Sounds serious. I'll pop over straight away. In the mean time, can you check the status of the amp for me. If the contactor's gone, then the surge may have made it back to the amp. Any light except red is good. If there's no light, then that's bad."
"I'm heading over there now. If there's a problem with the amp, I'll be waiting for you in the Control Centre, otherwise I'll be back in the control room helping Charles find the schematics for the data buss.
"No worries mate. Cya soon."

The Array - Chapter 1 - Breakdown in Communication

2005-02-16T09:26:00.000+08:00

"Awwwe Shit!" proclaimed Andrew Jensen in a wide american drawl typical of a resident of the southern states. "The whole board's lit up like a christmas tree. It looks like the whole array has gone down. What should we do Chuck?"

Before Charles Delvin, Andrew's quiet estudious superior, could reply every telephone in the station began to ring, and the switchboard added it's luminosity to the already impressive display from the control panels surrounding Jensen's terminal.
Charles shouted over the sudden din of alarms and telephone ring tones, "Just get it back up again or heads are going to roll. For the whole array to be offline there must be a problem with main transmission trunk somewhere. It can't be the power because each transmitter has it's own triple redundant generators. Try routing the signal through the secondary trunks."

Charles was reaching for the most important of the incoming phone lines. The one with the rude red light impressing the anger of the man that Charles knew was on the other end when Jensen shot back "Have you got a cabinet key? I don't know where mine is!"

Diverting his right hand from it's journey to the rude phone, Charles snatched his set of cabinet keys off his belt loop where they had lived for every one of the twelve hours or every shift for the last 42 years he had worked with the Information Defence Syndicate, and lobbed them across the equipment loaded desks that seperated them. "Get that array back up, and then you are spending the next week redoing your induction. You know the importance of keeping your tools with you at all times."

Catching the keys in midflight, Jensen moved fluidly to unlock the impressive door to Cabinet 3B where the main signal routing switch was kept. Grabbing the heavy wooden handle from the door he inserted it into the switch mechanism and pulled down with a mighty heave as the 1 megawatt pre-amplified signal was re-routed to the secondary trunk. The satisfying thump of the switch re-energising immediately silenced half a dozen alarm sirens and blacked out all priority 1 alarms indicators leaving only the fetch and acknowledge alarm lights flashing on his board. A dim smell of ozone emanated from Cabinet 3B, a remnant of the arc created as the air was ionized when the switch contacts neared their physical caress.

"It was definately a problem with the primary trunk otherwise I wouldn't have been able to throw the switch" retorted Jensen as he turned his head back to his superior. Charles ignored the report focussing his attention on the white hot heat of anger from Ben Frankston, the presidential aide responsible for the Information Defence Syndicate program.

"Tell me this was an alarm fault Delvin!"

"Unfortunately it was an outage Sir." responded Charles "We lost the main trunk"

"Oh Christ! How much downtime did we have?"

"Twelve seconds sir. We switched over to the secondary trunks as quickly as we could, but it took a little time to open the cabinet and throw the switch"

"Twelve seconds is bad Delvin! Didn't we automate the trunk switch a couple of years back?"

"No. The contactor that the Powertrans guys brought with them couldn't handle the current, and their larger one was going to filter too much of the high frequency content of the signal. They were to report back to you, and I filed a report on the incident through the normal channels and heard nothing more about it."

"Well that report never made it to MY desk. I'm going to investigate this personally, and when I find out who lost that paperwork I'll nail him to the primary trunk. I dearly hope the blame doesn't rest with you Delvin."

"No sir"

"In the meantime, find out what happened to the primary trunk, and have a report to me in the morning. What's the status on the teriary and quarternary trunks?"

Puting his trembling hand over the receiver of the telephone, Charles focussed his attention back on the Jensen, who was in the process of acknowledging the fetch alarms and noting them down in the logs. "What's the current status of the Tertiary and Quarternary Trunks Jensen?"

"They were fine at last check" responded a nervous Jensen

"I don't care what they were 15 minutes ago - What is their status NOW?" Delvin enquired in an uncharacteristically raised voice.

Dropping his pen onto the logbook Jensen turned to the status panel on his left and examined the second row of displays. "Tertiary Trunk is reading OK, Quarternary is also Fine. The phone network reads as congested, but we can use the bypasses on the exchanges if we need to route the unamplified signal that way. The sat-link is up and the laser line to control station 2 is online."

Turning his attention back to the phone Charles relayed the information back to Commander Frankston.

"I'm not happy about this incident Delvin. You know how important this project is. We can't afford to have outages ever! I hope for all of our sakes that there are no ramifications from the break in transmission. I've got to go and talk to the monitoring stations now, though we won't know the effect of this for a few days when the data has returned from the sats. There is going to be fallout from this Delvin, make no mistake."

"Yes sir. I'll get cracking on finding the cause Sir."

"Bring it up to DC personally. I want you in my office with the report by oh nine hundred tomorrow."

"Yes Sir".

Public Computers and Living on Aeroplanes

2005-02-16T06:43:00.000+08:00

I did this huge great big blog entry at Singapore Airport and for some reason it didn't post, and got lost in the internet ether somewhere which if very very annoying. I'm going to try again with this post, to talk about what I was talking about 5 or 6 hours ago.

I feel like I've been living on Aeroplanes of late. The amount of travel that I've had to do over the last 6 months has been incredible. After this trip I'll have somewhere in the vicinity of 180,000 miles which has been accrued mainly in the last 6 months. I wonder if you can list your address as Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 or c/- the Silver Kris Lounge, Singapore Airport. It might be a bit tricky, because strictly speaking, once you are beyond immigration you are not actually resident in any country. You are a person of the world (or at least transit lounges).

Normally I'm actually looking forward to these business trips, but this time it's different. Maybe it's because I know all about the bitter welcome that the Mongolian weather is going to give me, or maybe it's because of the six weeks of long, hard days that I'll be doing when I get to Turkey. One thing is for certain though, this is no holiday.

I know that Jodie finds it difficult when I'm away. She puts on a brave face, but I know that she really misses me. I miss her madly as well, though it's difficult to put into words exactly what that absence means to me. It's not like an empty feeling, but more like I've left my right arm somewhere.

It was Valentines Day a couple of days ago, and I really, really enjoyed my Valentines day this year. I swear that Valentines Day was designed for people in relationships. If you are single, Valentines Day is depressing and lonely time, as you see all of your friends running around, poisoned by the sweet nectar of cupids arrow, and wondering why you aren't getting any.

I bought my beloved a large set of Rembrandt Soft Pastels as a gift. I got her the box of 150, though I've since learnt that there are 203 colours total, so I'll have to find out which colours are missing, and get these for her. There were no full boxes available in any case, the largest being the 150.

I also sent her a big bouquet of roses, which arrived at her work. She told me that she doesn't like these kind of surprises, but I think that she was secretly happy to be able to show off her flowers at work.

Jodie also sent me flowers to work, which I was so stoked about. I've never had anyone send me flowers before, and everyone at work was soooooo jealous. Only one other person got flowers this valentines, and that was from her ex, ex boyfriend. I'm not sure if she was more miffed that her ex seems keen to give things another go, or that her current boy didn't send her flowers.

It's a difficult things being a single ex boyfriend during Valentines. In my experience, if you were the dumpee, then the loneliness really does get to you, and you find yourself considering a whole bunch of silly "what-if" scenario's. And it's not as if you really feel like there's any chance of getting back together, but there's this kind of feeling of "well she fell for me once..." I think that's where my cow-orkers ex boyfriend is coming from.

They are quite good friends and I think that he's throwing the line out even though he's not expecting to get a bite. He can always pass it off as "just being a friend", but I think that there is some sort of ambition in the gesture, even if he's accepted that it's a pretty pointless gesture.

Anyway, despite the pain of others, I had a fantastic day. It's a nice feeling to be one of the have's on Valentine's day, rather than one of the have not's.

In other news I've finished the first song of my upcoming LOST album, and am well into the second song. This CD is being planned as a CD right from the start, rather than a collection of tracks or one great big long monster track that I chop into smaller parts, and I'm dedicated to releasing this album.

The music is ambient, uplifting electonica. Some have called it new age, but whatever it is, I'm actually pretty happy with how it's turning out. I've turned away from the sawtooth waves that is so generic in electronic music for this album, and have featured a bunch of more aesoteric instruments, such as Xylophone and Rhodes Piano. I've still coupled this with some full-on VAST programming and some very detailed KDFX programming to give it a synthetic feel, but using the new sample sources is like expanding a painter's pallette.

While there is a lot that you can do to shape a sawtooth wave, actually changing that wave is one more parameter in the ocean of parameters available to Kurzweil users. I'm particularly happy with the reverb programming that I've done on this last track. I think I'm finally getting the hang of reverbs. The kick drum is naturally a pretty big, ambient type kick, but with the KSP8 reverb the tail is fathomless. It's not muddy or bassy in a loud way, but the way the reverb decays makes the kick sound impossibly big, even though the frequency content is quite tightly controlled using EQ.

I'm really happy with what I've done with it.

I've had to stop work on my music while I'm away, and this has provided me with the opportunity to get my studio fixed up. I've got the Jupiter 8 in to have the keyscanning looked at and the filter retuned, I've also taken the K2600 in to have the mix out's repaired. Ond of the sides is silent and one of the op-amps or muting relays will need to be replaced. Not a huge job or one that stops me working, but it is annoying at gigs where I want to use the mix outs, and have a headphone feed.

The DP4+ is also in to see if the inputs can be fixed. Unfortunately it seems to be an exercise in futility to obtain some schematics for the inputs of the unit, so my tech's hands are somewhat tied.

I'm also taking the opportunity to repatch my studio, and will shortly order $1400 worth of high quality cables (despite being quoted $700 and then having the shop loose my order - Grrrrr!), and I'll also buy a Yamaha i88x and an ADAT card for my DMTi to allow me to have multi channel digital I/O connected to the K2600.

It will be a seriously sweet studio once it's all hooked up and running. I'll be able to patch anything, pretty much anywhere with either balanced cables, or digitally. I'll still need to get some good DI's to allow my unbalanced equipment to play nicely with everything else, but it's a small price to pay for massive improvement in quality that I'm experiencing.

I'm really looking forward to getting my teeth back into some music after the time spent programming ONYX for sonikmatter.com.

Well, I've got about 7 hours to kill, some of which will be spent on the start of my novelly thing, which is tentatively called "The Array". You'll be able to read it developing on this blog, though I'm not sure if I'll be able to publish one today, because I want to keep all of the text on my laptop, and I can't get an internet connection here at the Korean Airlines Lounge at Seoul Incheon Airport.

I'll see what happens.

Databases and Wimmin Drivers

2005-02-01T17:03:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Signum - LOST - (4:32)]

Database design can be one of the most frustrating ways to earn a living. While my job doesn't specifically include this as one of my duties, the mere fact that I know about databases has ensured innumerable hours of pulling my hair out trying to make things work. The biggest problem with databases is getting data put into the right boxes, and making sure that those boxes adequately deal with exceptions to the rule.

For example, the current database that I'm developing is for tracking and invoicing time dedicated to projects to the clients. This is all well and good, but we have a range of rates depending on the position of the relevant person, the specific project, and the type of work. I've had to do some pretty serious hacks on one of Access's Time and Billing database to get this to work, but I've just discovered that if someone changes position, things get very murky.

And to top it off, of one the lovely young ladies at work just went and overwrote a whole bunch of records that I'd entered. Grrrrrrr.....

I even wrote out a procedure to specifically avoid that scenario, but apparently the 18 point Bold type on that particular point wasn't big enough. Grrrr.....

Anyway, no major harm done, it's all sorted out now.

In other news, I've finished the first track of my new album. Actually, I've nearly finished it. I've had a few suggestions about changing the ending, which I will fix. If you want to listen to it, click the following link Signum by LOST

Please post a comment if you have a listen to let me know what you think. If ya like it, tell me why, if you don't, it would be great to know why not, so that I can work on improving my techniques.

Well, it's time to go home, so I must leave you until next time.

TTFN

Hot Pants

2005-01-25T11:25:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Duende - Delerium - Karma (Disc 1) (5:22)]

This morning on the way to work I witnessed a disturbing sight. Before me at the roundabout was a gent riding a bicycle in turquoise lycra hotpants. Now I'm not sure if it was the colour of the cut, but this sort of thing just shouldn't be allowed. It's not so much the sight of lycra on men, that disturbs me, but the sheer audacity of such a short cut of lycra. Hotpants should be relegated to the domain of under 25 females with a really hot figure and then only at a nightclub or a rave where the culture of drooling men can fully appreciate it. Proper cycling pants on men is fine, as long as they are a serious cyclist with more than 1000 km clocked up on the odometer. For the cycling ameteurs, go for the baggy cotton pants or best of all a set of mountain biking pants.

Never, never though, hotpants on a bicycle, and never in turquoise. It makes you look like you are having a cheap attempt at trying out homosexuality for the first time. It's the kind of thing that the average Australian Bogan would think would be required to get the average gay guy into the sack. If I was gay, and saw this thing coming, I would throw up violently.

Anyway, rant over for the day.

It's been a long time since I've posted on Dark Thoughts. Initially I had some problems with my ISP not allowing ftp transfers, and then I couldn't get blogspot happening. This is only the temporary home of Dark Thoughts, which will move to my new web-space, once my ISP gets everything sorted for me.

Since last time, Jodie has been down to visit, and sadly left again. I've been to Mongolia and been frozen to within an inch of my life, and am preparing for a return journey to Mongolia and Turkey.

I've release ONYX and it seems to be selling well, and I'm in the process of upgrading my studio to mLAN and fully balanced cables.

Work is hectic as all of our projects are progressing well. Our new website is up at http://pacificore.com.au if you are interested in what I do for a day job.

Other than that, I'm toying with the idea of using this blog to start on a novel of sorts. I've had a fantastic idea for a sci-fi/conspiracy story and with my upcoming sting in Turkey may pursue writing of it during my evenings, when it will be too late to ring my beloved back here in Australia. It'll help me cope with being so far from home for so long. I'll probably intersperse it with writing Kurzweil tutorials and beta-testing some new control software that some guy is writing for the Kurzweil synths.

Anyway, It's a brief one today, because work is really flat out, and I need ot get back to it.

Stay tuned for my attempt at literature in the near future.

Freezing

2004-10-21T10:56:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Futuristic Dinosaur - Ele-mental - Aether 2 (4:01)]

There is a splinter theme of freezing in my life right at the moment. It's not all encompassing, but there are a few things that have frozen, or will freeze in the near future.

Firstly lets examine the past.

In my last post I talked of my new toy. The KSP8. Well it sounds fantastic. The effects are crystal clear and there is soooooo much power in it. I never thought I could get to the point with effects where I've put enough on and have capacity to spare, but the KSP8 has proven me wrong. What I've noticed with quality units like this, is that you actually end up using less effects because the quality is so high that you don't need to add more effects to it to clean up artefacts of a previous effect.

Reverbs are a good example. With cheaper units, there is a certain shine to the top end that is missing, requiring some enhancement to bring back that spacious presence, but on units such as Lexicons and the KSP8, the top end is so beautifully defined that further processing is often unnecessary.

Anyway, while the unit does sound beautiful, the configuration of mLAN is still proving to be a bit of an enigma, and has caused freezes on my computer as I'm attempting to get it properly configured (the start of the theme).

As a bit of history for the unitiated, mLAN is a new protocol developed largely by Yamaha that aims to replace the spaghetti of cables currently used to connect studio gear. A single mLAN cable can carry both audio and MIDI bidirectionally as well as allowing networking and data transfers at speeds of up to 800 MB/s. The mLAN protocol layer sits on top of the IEEE 1394 Firewire layer and communicates with a dedicated chip in the hardware unit. One of the beauty's of firewire is that once you have configured the connections on your computer you can unplug the computer, and everything will remember what it was connected to, both MIDI and Audio. You can also change your configuration completely and save those settings.

The patching capabilities are impressive as are the flexibility of the entire protocol. Hardware can be daisy chained in a similar way to computer networks, and each unit could theoretically be fully connected bidirectionally for control and data with a single cable.

The technology itself is still quite young with only a handful of devices having been developed to date. The driver software still chews up quite a bit of processor overhead on my system, though apparently that has improved, and will continue to improve as it becomes more integrated into computer systems.

Anyway, it looks very promising and will be a nice standard if more people start to integrate it into their systems, but there are some teething problems with it at the moment, which I am fumbling my way through.

The theme of freezing continues with my impending trip to Mongolia. Temperatures as low as -30C will necessitate some serious cloting. I'm going shopping this afternoon with my workmate, who is travelling with me to Mongolia.

The suggested list of clothes reads as follows.

Down Jacket (not pertex)
Boffin Island Fleece Jacket
Windstopper Gloves
Fleece Beanie
Fleace Scarf or Fleece Neck Windstopper
2 Pairs Super Fleece Socks
2 thermal core/polypro thermal tops
2 thermal core/polypro termal bottoms
1 pair radial fleece pants or trail fleece pants
Polypropylene Balaclava

Hopefully that will keep me warm.

I'm going to miss Jodie tho while I'm there. I think it would be much easier to stay warm if I could snuggle.

Anyway, I've got a paper that needs writing for a conference at the end of november and some shares to sell, so until next time...

Jet Lag is Gone - yay!

2004-10-08T11:36:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: The Road To Lostwithiel - BT - Escm (8:35)]

I finally made it back to Australia in one piece. The trip home was arduous and seriously tiring. These long flights really do take a lot out of you. Things are pretty good back here at home. At work I've been following up a bunch of stuff that I started while I was overseas, and one new project to get stuck into.

On the music front, I've just ordered myself a Kurzweil KSP8 with the mLAN Option and RSP8 Remote Control. It's a pretty formidable Effects unit, and will replace my burnt out Ensoniq DP4+.

Speaking of the DP4+, I'm going to replace the current burnt out board with the previous one I had. The previous one still has 3 good channels, whereas the one I've got now, has none. It will still be enough to get the reverbs and the phasers happening, and I might even try a bit of surface mount soldering to get the defunct channel happening again. It looks like it's just a few of the tracers that need to be rewired. I think I'll be able to fix it with a bit of thin enamelled copper wire and some fine soldering. I can't do any more damage anyway.

I sent an email off to a guy in the US to try to find out if it could be fixed, but got no response. I might try to send him another email, because the DP4+ is a really nice effects unit. I still haven't found the cause of the problem with the DP4+. I suspect that it's either the mixer (a Mackie 1202 VLZ) or the Jupiter 8. I can measure a DC current from ground to the mixer chassis of about 0.12 V when the Jupiter is plugged in, but can't get a current otherwise, and the current is some tiny amount. I can't imagine how a groundloop that small could fry all of the input buffers on the DP4, but it happened anyway.

I'm a bit frightened of plugging the Jupiter into the KSP8 in case I fry that as well. I might go and by myself a nice transformer staged stereo channel strip to run the Jupiter through. Something that is robust enough to stand up to the output level, while being electrically isolated from the inputs, and providing me with lots of options for nice juicy tube distortion and warmth. Will probably need to save up some bikkies, coz the nice ones like Neve Channel strips and the like are pretty damn expensive, though I could always hire them out to mates who are doing recording. Probably bring in $50 to $100 a day for hiring them out.

Anyway, onto other stuff. I had a bit of a hard time with Jodie the other day. She was upset that I hadn't talked to her for a while, and had missed a few messages on my phone (which I didn't hear come in coz my phone was in another room) and she took this as me avoiding her, or ignoring her. It's kinda tricky being in situations like this because I try to explain myself, but the very answers are treated with suspicion themselves, which makes the whole explanation, trying to find out what was wrong and trying to resolve the disagreement, kind of difficult. Anyway, we've since resoved this issue, and I think we both got a few things out of the whole exercise. On my part, I'm going to make time to stay "connected" with Jodie when I'm away.

Speaking of which, I've got to ring my phone company today, because my mobile didn't work in Mongolia, when it should have. I've got to get this resolved, or keeping in touch with Jodie while I'm there is going to be extremely difficult.

I played hockey last night, and we had a win. I got a goal, which was cool, and the guy who's pretty new to hockey got a goal as well, which was awsome. It's his first goal ever. He's still learning the basic skills of the game, but he's picking it up really quickly. He's playing left wing, and his reverse stick stops and tackles are really getting pretty good. He just needs to learn to defend a bit better, and he'll be a pretty good player, but there's plenty of time for that.

They've got new umpires for the game. One guy was new last night, and they didn't blow their whistles very hard, which was a bit annoying. They missed a few decisions in the D's and the play got a bit scrappy, so I hope they crack down on that a bit in the future. All in all, it was a good game. Apparently we also lost the grand final 3-2, but the other guys said that it was a really good game, so I don't mind much. As long as it was a pretty even and good game, I never mind losing. The enjoyment is in actually playing and having a good fun tustle with the other team. It's supposed to be a social competition so that's cool.

Anyway, it's the weekend tomorrow. My list of tasks for this weekend is

1) Finish transferring all my files onto one computer and organize them all together.
2) Write some tunes
3) Do a bit of accounting stuff
4) Have beer with Shawn at the Inglewood
5) Chill Out
6) Clean up the house.

Pretty cruisy weekend all up.

Anyway, time to get some work done.

Till Next Time...

Workin, Workin, Workin

2004-09-26T18:34:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Meltphace 6 - Aphex Twin - Drukqs (Disc 2) (6:24)]

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.

Last Day in Mongolia

2004-09-18T20:19:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: The Illuminati - Snog - Dear Valued Customer (5:39)]

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.

More on Mongolia

2004-09-17T23:59:00.000+08:00

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.

Live From Mongolia

2004-09-17T10:47:00.000+08:00

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.

Here We Go Again

2004-09-15T07:28:00.000+08:00

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...

It's been a while

2004-09-03T16:56:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: 3.1 (Bedrock Remix) - Humate - Platipus Volume 4 (9:54)]

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.

Accounting and Friggin Banks!

2004-08-11T16:02:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Dreaming (Evolution Remix) - BT - Gatecrasher Global Sound System - Longitude (Disc 1) (3:50)]

It's been one of those slow days today. Had an arguement with the bank this morning about why they charged me an overlimit fee before my account was over the limit. Apparently it's illegal for them to actually report the charged interest to my account until the end of the statement date, but it's not illegal for them the deduct a fee against the interest charge in the meantime.

It's simply not right. I'm going to fight this one.

I spent last night teaching my housemate the basics of MYOB, so that he can manage the accounts for our house. To the casual reader, that might seem like a bit of an over the top exercise, but seriously, we are going to rent this out, so need to start recording equity positions for distributions, Capital purchases for depreiciation purposes etc. Plus, my housemate really wants to learn the software.

It was a bit frustrating. Apparently he either doesn't like my keyboard or he is Capilal Letter phobic, because he just wanted to type everything in in lowercase. I guess it does get the information across, but it is seriously hard to read. Sentence case is the way to go. Anyway, he's responsible for it, and he needs to explain to our accountant why it's all in lower case, so I'll let him sort it out.

Anyway, the technical side went all right. We covered the banking part of MYOB (Deposits, Withdrawals and Reconcilitations) as well as a bit of an introduction to the Journal Entries. The highlight, as always is getting to stamp all the bits of paper with the "Entered" stamp. Seriously, this must be the reason why accountants do their job, for the big collection of self-inking stamps that they get to acquire.

Anyway, it prooved to be a nice little distraction from me needing to do my own data entry, so I just did lots of filing instead.

In other news - Mongolia in 4 weeks. Looks like it will be fun, but am picking up some travel tips from my cow-orkers in the meantime.

Also, a friend of mine got in contact with me today and wants to work on some collaboration work doing some music. It should be great, because he's got an awsome talent. I think we'll be able to do some seriously good music together. I'll torture the Kurzweil and I'll let him mangle with the DP4+.

I'm also planning on how I'm going to restructure my studio for my trip to China. Probably sell off lots of the boxes and get a Kurzweil KSP8 as a audio interface via firewire. That would rock.

Another strange thing happened to me today. I was going through my in tray and found a letter addressed to me detailing a substantial pay-rise. Wicked. A very pleasant surprise. It's left me in a very good mood, despite my earlier banking conflicts.

Blah, anyway, I've got stuff what needs to be finished before I can go home, and then to Toastmasters. I've got to do a speech tonight. It's going to be called Something about Zen, and it will be a parallel between my experiences on the back of a motorbike between Izmir and Assos in Turkey, and the plot of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Hope it goes OK. I've only had half a day to prepare.

Should be fun though.

Conflict, Friction and Big bad Doobies

2004-08-10T12:16:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Something (Radio Edit) - Lasgo - Trance Central (3:41)]

Well, Jodie and I had a bit of a moment last night. I don't know if I would call it an arguement as such, but we seemed to have managed to put each other on edge a bit.

What happened was that she sent me an SMS, while I was gaming with my housemate. We were in the middle of a pretty intensive Starcraft battle with some Big bad Doobies and Starcraft, being one of those games that rely on doing lots of stuff instantatneously kinda precludes taking a break to respond to an SMS.

Anyway, I think Jodie really wanted to speak to me right at that point in time, and the problem with SMS's, being a written text medium, intonation, and the sense of urgency normally detected in speech simply doesn't come across, so I thought that the message was just an message of endearment. A short message to remind me that I was on her mind.

Unfortunately, Jodie really did want to speak, and took my silence as some kind of avoidance. A second message about an hour later gave me the impression that I'd really done something wrong. Anyway, to cut a long story short she became angry, and I became confused, and somewhat worried.

As it turns out Jodie has a lot on her mind, especially with the future looming, and many decisions to be made. It's also her birthday soon, so it's a time of inner reflection for her, and to top it all off, I appeared to be ignoring her.

Anyway, the night progressed with yet more SMS's, of which again there was feelings and true intents clouded by the lack of intonation with the SMS's.

In the end I've concluded that SMS's, while convenient, can be menacing at times. Sometimes the tone of the voice and the lack of feeling expressed in the actual comunication can cause the written word to be misinterpreted. I am now officially a victim of that phenomenon.

Friction is one of those things that happens when to objects aren't moving together, which was the case for Jodie and I last night, though to call us objects is pretty impersonal, but probably more correct from a bigger picture definition of friction). There was some heat, some sparks and noise generated when our directions clashed. In some way's it's a good thing, because it reminds me that I need to consider that sometimes direction changes can occur, and it reminded me that I need to keep my guard up for it.

It also reminded me that I need to be wary of not taking Jodie for granted. It's strange what we come to expect of one another, and sometimes we don't realize that there is effort behind those actions. Sometimes we need something to bring this fact to our attention, and last night was one of those moments for me. While not a pleasant experience at the time it I hope that we are a little closer because of it.

It's strange because the song that I am listening to right now seems very relevant.

I don't want to say I'm sorry
Because I know that there is nothing wrong
Don't be afraid, There's no need to worry
Because my feelings for you are so strong

Hold me in your arms, and never let me go
Hold me in your arms, because I need you so.

I see it in your eyes
There is something, something that you want to tell me
I see it in your eyes
There is something that you have for me.

I see it in your eyes
There is something, something that you want to tell me
I see it in your eyes
There is something that you have for me.

I don't want to say I'm sorry
Because I know that there is nothing wrong
Don't be afraid, There's no need to worry
Because my feelings for you are so strong

Hold me in your arms
Hold me in your arms, and never let me go
Hold me in your arms, because I need you so.

I see it in your eyes
There is something, something that you want to tell me
I see it in your eyes
There is something that you have for me.

Is there a reason why, there is something,
Something you want to tell me.
I see it in your eyes
There is something that you have for me.

Kind of apt I think.

Anyway, I'll be seeing her again on Friday, when I go up to Derby to meet her parents. A little daunting, but is should be fun.

Till then - Doobie Trashing with my housemate, until those messages come through ;-)

Aaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!

2004-07-31T21:10:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: No Holly for Miss Quinn - Enya - Shepherd Moons (2:43)]

This is the most friggin frustrating day ever.

I'm trying to send a friggin email. That's all I want to do. Send a friggin email. I've been trying to send this friggin email for the last 8 friggin hours, and each time the SMTP server times out.

We're on satellite here. You know that expensive high bandwidth internet solution that is supposed to guarantee connectivity. Well let me give you a bit of news. All day today the most data I've been able to send in one go is about 200 friggin KB!!!

This wouldn't be so bad if that was the end of it. I'm trying to save my final report here, and apparently my C drive is full. Hmmmmm....

Let's see, when I look in explorer it says I've got 7 GB of free space. Where's the "Listen Mr computer - why don't you open your friggin eye's and see the wide barren landscape of platter space sitting in front of you begging for data to be written to it.

And if that's not enough the other guy in the office has just started playing this inane friggin turkish nasal whiney folk music. Sounds like they've set a cat on fire and recorded it.

The office is full of flies that just keep buggin the hell out of me, and they obviously haven't heard of flyspray here, or keeping the friggin door closed.

What have I done to deserve all of this today. Yesterday I was in such a good mood, but today someone's decided to wreak their vengeance upon me.

1 hour and 13 minutes left to go before I can send my junior met home and I can go have a shower, wire myself up for sound and partake in a bit of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

If my day were to be summed up by Parsig, he would say that I had the mother of all gumption blockages today. The type where you need to leave the country, find an isolated spot and go to work on cracking the earth open with a large inanimate object. Parsig says that sometime you've just got to take a break, or grab a coffee.

Well no coffee here on site, so I've settled for some Turkish Tea, and have done what I can with breaks. I wish this were just boredom, but it's far deeper than that.

Heck - even my report's not going that well. I've got this set of numbers that simply does not make sense. We had this crushing circuit that was poorly set up and generated too many fines, so we opened up the crusher to let larger material through, and the next set of sizings tells me that the ore got finer.

WTF????

You don't have to be Einstein to work out that a 100 mm gap will let bigger rocks through than a 25mm gap and that big rocks will spend less time in the whirring fury of the crusher when the escape hole is 4 times bigger and hence get less pulverised. How the heck am I going to explain THAT in my report?

I vote that we completely cancel today due to lack of interest (to borrow a saying from a good friend of mine). If there were ever a day that deserved it, it's today.

Hopefully dinner will prove to be delicious, though if the rest of the day is any indication we'll be served up luke warm dog food on week old soggy bread crusts with only a straw with which to eat it.

I'm sure it's not all that bad. I just needed a place to vent, and this Blog is like my little window into the blackhole of cyberspace, into which I can shout without upsetting the neighbours. Hmmmmm.... I'm feeling better already. I think maybe my keyboard will stop working shortly due to the pounding that I've just given it as I've physically driven the message home by trying to punch the keys through the surface of the desk.

Aaaaahhhh - a bit of Enya on the iPod to calm a troubled mind......

Anyway, it's about time that Dark Thoughts had a few Dark Thoughts. Here's hoping for more lightheartedness and a return to happier climes tomorrow.

Still waiting for the friggin email.....

Rosebud

2004-07-31T15:06:00.000+08:00

Closed tight from the winter rain
Tendrils entangled,
With an eye to the heavens
And roots in the ground.

Alone atop
Unable to see a reflection or the beauty of the garden beyond.

A gentle rain
A rainbow through the dewdrops
Settled on the green leaf that protects the scented petals within.

The beauty inside hidden from all

But a roses purpose is to bloom
To open
To perfume the world
Wigh blood red petals of velvet
Embracing the world

A metaphor of beauty and romance
Given with love
A tear is shed
And falls upon the petals
A rainbow through the tear drop
Illuminated by the sun

CNBC and Birthdays

2004-07-30T22:26:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Tolerance - Marco V. - Gatecrasher Global Sound System: Latitude (Disc 2) (4:24)]

Yesterday was another of those surreal days when something gets thrown to you out of left field and you are expected to catch it. In this case, I was asked to give a speach to Turks about the impending heap leach operation at Çaldag here in Turkey. Half a day to prepare everything including the display and then to speak to people who can't understand a thing I'm saying was a bit of a task. What I didn't know however was that the TV camera's were going to be there from CNBC.

Anyway, I did the speach, got my mug on the TV (or will do when the finally show the piece on the box) and it all went well. I don't know how much of it they'll show, but I think the only thing that will go in is me sticking my hand into the leach solution to demonstrate that your fingers won't drop off when you do so.

It's funny, because such a thing can send mixed messages to people, because now they may think it's OK to go sticking their hands into concentrated acid streams, which is very uncool, and will in fact cause your fingers to drop off. Overall though, I think that it was more important to dispel some of the fear surrounding this project.

It's amazing the knowledge that we take for granted. Being from a country with a long and proud mining tradition, it's difficult to imagine what it would be like to be witnessing one of the first mines being constructed in my country. This coupled with a relatively low education level, and some blatant scare-mongering by some greedy lawyers and journalists has created a near panic in this region. True, there will be some dangerous chemicals on site here, but the safety systems that we are designing will hopefully keep people safe from the worst of them.

The general solutions used in the plant are relatively harmless if you get them on yourself, though you will experience a little discomfort when the contact your skin. Many people are worried about what will happen if the liquors leach into the subsoil, but seriously, two layers of 1.5mm HDPE coupled with the leak detection system all sitting in ground which is nearly pure limestone should keep this place pretty safe. If I was a local I'd be more worried about the raw sewage that gets discharged from the local latrines into the rivers and irrigation channels. I think that is a far greater risk to the environment, and everyone's health, but people have lived with this for hundreds of years, so it's a non issue for them.

Anyway, birthdays.

After trying to organize flights so that I can be with Jodie, we've given up. Flights are criminally expensive here in Australia. For the same price of a flight to Broome from Perth, I could fly from Perth to Europe, and have change for a hotel room. Not that I was going to let that stop me, but Jodie kind of refused to do the booking for me.

People have been warning me about women and money, but I think I'm one of the lucky ones who's girlfriend is actually stopping me from spending money. In any case I'll get to see her soon afterwards, and we'll do something special to celebrate.

The only other downside is that I won't get to meet Jodie's friends and family in Derby at this time. I was kind of looking forward to getting up to Derby for a bit of an unwind and to meet some new people. Heck I'm even missing out on cold beer - the injustice of it all.

It looks as though I'm going to be out of the country for my 30th which is a real pain, because I'll have to postpone my bouncy castle party :(

It will happen, but if I'm paying for the friggen thing, then I'm going to be there to enjoy it, dammit!

Anyway, I've got a big report that needs my attention that summarizes my work over here in Turkey, so till next time...

Books and Stuff

2004-07-29T13:47:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Synaesthesia - The Thrillseekers - Gatecrasher - Sub Aqua (Disk 1) (4:43)]

Being in Turkey has afforded me quite a bit of time to get back to reading books. I've finished three so far, and am about 2/3 of the way through the 4th, so here's my reviews so far.

Who Took My Money - Robert Kiyosaki
Another book from the Rich Dad series. The series itself is quite good, particularly for those who struggle from paycheck to paycheck. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and Retire Rich, Retire Young are definately the best two in the bunch, but the rest are worth the read. Rich Dad's Philosophy is an interesting read and it is this book that is a precursor to Who Took My Money.

Basically this book follows the first investment experience of a young Rich Dad into managed funds (or mutual funds) and looks at investment from the point of view of a number of professions such as a banker, insurance salesman etc. It regurgitates much of what has been mentioned in previous books, but it does hilight that you need to do your own due dilligence when looking at potential investments rather than relying on the advice of someone who has a vested interest, such as your financial advisor.

Real Estate Investment and Insured Share Trading and options are again mentioned as good investments with owning your own business being the most highly geared and rewarding way of earning money. A couple of one liners in there that business ownership isn't for everyone, but still promotes it heavily.

Not a bad book. 3 1/2 dollar bill from your fiver.

How to Pay Your Mortgage off in 5 Years - Anita Bell
This is the second of this authors books that I've read. I'm not sure that I agree completely with Bell's strategy because I think I can better returns in investing in other assets than by paying off the loan, but it's still a good read. For those who struggle to meet their monthly mortgage repayments, this book is a must read.

If you really want to own your own house outright in the minimum time then the method outlined in this book will acheive that for you, though it relies on your own hard earned post tax dollars to do it.

Bell should be commended for the amount of detail that she uses in this book. The tables and appendices are useful and practical, and she gives anecdotes about what worked for her. If you want to learn to budget and start getting ahead financially then I recommend this book coupled with Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and perhaps Noel Whittikers Making Money Made Simple.

Overall 4 houses, but not quite the hotel yet.

The Millionare Next Door - Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
A fabulous book about who the real wealthy people in America are. I like their definition of wealth and their way of measuring progress. It's easy to apply it to yourself using their simplified formula's.

It appears as though there's no substitute for discovering how to do it yourself out of necessity and then excelling at it. This book shows pretty well that the key is to live frugally and below your means. It shows that most of America's self-made millionares have various methods of doing this. It also shows an interesting side in that inherited money is flowing out of the hands of the wealthy as they have not had the need to learn it's real value.

These guys have definately done their research and it shows.

I particulaly liked the section that discusses how to pass wealth on to future generations. I think many parents could learn a thing or two from reading this book.

Overall, the full million

Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M Parsig
What a friggin fantastic book. I grabbed this off the bookshelf just before I left for Turkey not really meaning to read it, but am I glad I did. I've actually read this once before, and got an awful lot out of it, but this second read 10 years later is like a completely new book.

I've picked up different threads this time to what I did last time and it's provided a new launchpad for internal reflection for me.

I think that this is a book that everyone should read every 10 years of their lives. At the age of 10 you can follow the adventures of Chris and recognize the difficulty that he has relating to his father. At 20 you can learn that the motorcycle that is your life is best off being continually tweaked and maintained, rather than letting it break down. At 30 you can appreciate the sentiments about quality and stiving towards being a true craftsman in whatever you do. When you have children of your own you can sympathise with the struggle to reach out to your children and communicate with them. I'm not sure what this book has in stall for me as I reach my 40's 50's and beyhond. Perhaps a better understanding of the philosophy that is discussed, and an ability to be able to look back at it as Parsig has done. Perhaps we will all have a Phaedrus of our own that we can remember and analyse.

Overall Rating - this one hits the full Nirvana State. Just Read It.

OK - That's the Turkish Sessions book reviews this time around. Lots of motivational stuff there, but it's been an enjoyable journey.

Other news from Turkey.

I spen last weekend away with my friend Korai at some really nice beachfront places north of Izmir. Had a great time and did lots of unwinding. I've spent quite a bit of time conversing with Jodie in true multimedia style. It's difficult being apart from her, but I think we are growing closer because we are forced to communicate in ways that we might otherwise not do. I hope that we never lose that ability even when we are physically close.

There was a bit of a fight here at the camp the other night. Apparently some bloke got a bit upset with his work and with his bosses so decided to take matters into his own hands. Some of the other workers did the sheep thing and got into the whole mob mentality thing. Couldn't find the bloke that they wanted to rough up so took a swipe at some blokes car puting a nice dent in the front fender. Lots of sorting stuff out by the staff here all day yesterday and lots of high emotions, but I think everything is quite a bit better now.

We've got a barbecue on site this evening where I need to make a bit of a presentation about exactly what it is that we'll be doing. Dunno what I'm going to say, but I'll probably print out some photo's from the Radio Hill operation, and show them what we're doing with the ore.

Hopefully it will all go down well.

Anyway, I best be back to it.

Till next time

The World of Travel

2004-07-18T13:47:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Temple (Fretwell Dub) - J Punch - The Forth - Electric Calm V.2 (5:06)]

Well, I'm one step closer to spending the next 2-3 years in China. I'm awaiting some extra details outlining exactly what my role will be if I decide to go to China, and Jodie seems keen on coming with me if I do go. It will be an adventure, and somewhat of a frightening concept.

Uprooting my life, and that of Jodie to pursue a career advancement in a foreign country where I can't even read the letters let alone speak the language is pretty darn scary. I'm not sure what to expect, though I'm sure we'll be able to cope. I think the biggest challenge will be the language, and I'll be pushing for lessons in Mandarin before I leave. Six months should be long enough to get the basics sorted out if I work hard at it.

The other issue is what am I going to do with all of my stuff. I've just got myself settled in my house in Perth and things are going pretty smoothly. Now I have to work out whether we are to rent the house out, and if so, just where am I going to store my stuff.

Also on my mind is the feelings of my housemate. We've got a good partnership happening with the house purchase and in many ways I feel like I'm leaving him in the lurch somewhat. I'm not walking away from the deal that we made, but some hard decisions are going to have to be made in the next month.

In so many ways I'm quietly changing the direction of my life, taking a turn that is one of life's choices, but I feel that the ripples will be felt by many. I hope that this doesn't put anyone off balance or cause some sort of butterfly effect catasrophe.

It's humbling sometimes to consider the scope of your influence on the world. When I think of how many people I know, and how many close friends and family I have it can be a little overwhelming.

Anyway, I'm inspired to write a poem about this, so if I don't loose the feeling, then you'll all be reading it soon.

Until Then...

Traffic in Turkey.

2004-07-16T00:31:00.000+08:00

OMFG traffic is one hazadous thing.

In just over 2 weeks I've been in a car that a bus ran into, been in a car that hit a bicycle carrying two children and had about half a dozen near misses.

It's not that the road system is bad or anything, but just that people seem to be completely uneducated in road rules. The kids, for example, in the city that we pass through simply don't look out for traffic. The goats have more road sense. It's frightening to travel by road through these areas.

On a more positive note, the company that I am working for are intending to start road safety lessons at the local schools.

Other than that Turkey is a hoot. If you get a chance then get over here. Izmir is great, as is Foca, but the computer keyboards suck seriously with all these extra letters all over the place.

Anyway, a cold can of Efes Bira has my name written on it down at the local pub, so catchya's all later.

Shooting Stars

2004-07-06T13:11:00.000+08:00

Shooting Stars
A streak of black
Tails intertwined as they tumble towards each other,
Towards Infinity,
Towards their destiny.

On fire,
All flame.
So peaceful.
Such perfect harmony as they arch across the sky hand in hand.

Cratered Surface
Worn by work
Pocked by the savage environment of life in a vacuum
Forever Tumblng
Forever Soaring.

There is no difference in a world with no up - no direction.
The journey is hi-light
That brightens the sky with spectacular fireworks as it entwines itself, around another.
Across the gazes of those that wonder at the courage and strength required for such a journey.
Always too comfortable to climb the ladder to the launch pad.

Always content.
Always sad.
Always gazing
With their butterfly nets at the ready to ensnare a unique specimen and drag it back down to the ground.

Serated Razor wings, this pair!
Shining, sparkling in the cool blue twilight.
Forever in defence, carefully dance upon the starlight as electric blue sparks trail in their wake.
They unravel the net cast upon them and soar,
Once again through the fading twilight to their domain of night.

Again -
Shooting Stars.

In Turkey

2004-07-06T00:26:00.000+08:00

[Listening to: Dead Eyes Opened - Spooked - Severed Heads - Dead Eyes Opened (9:05)]

Well, I made it to Turkey.

Things have been manic, these last few days. So much work that needs to be done, in such a short period of time.

I'm quite lucky because I'm over here with a metallurgist who has a lot of experience, and who I work well with. We've actually worked together before, and he has a wealth of experience. We are learning a lot from each other, even at this early stage of the project.

It's actually quite difficult trying to achieve what we've been asked to do. There are a lot of very tight deadlines made by people who have an interest in keeping investors happy rather than any type of realistic project plan. Anyway, we'll do our best to walk the razor between the two aspects of the job.

Turkey is a great place. Fantastic climate, nice people and even the traffic isn't too hectic. Turkish as a language is proving difficult for me to grasp. I'm not sure why, but Chinese seems infinitely easier. Perhaps it's because Chinese is so completely foreign, whereas many of the Turkish words and characters are very similar to English.

I wish Jodie was over here with me. I think she'd really enjoy it.

Speaking of my fabulous lady, we had a great chat the other night. We talked about a few bit's and pieces and even got down to a bit of DMC. She asked me to do a little compatibility quiz, which was fun in itself, but it also got us talking about some deeper issues which I really valued. Strangely there were not very many surprises, which I think just show's how open and honest we've been with each other. Even so, I think that having these little reminders from time to time is great.

She also sent me a really long SMS (actually I didn't know that SMS's could span 5 messages), but she talked about an almost subconcious pushing me away. Strangely I can understand this, because I often have the same feelings. I can't quite put my finger on "why" I (and apparently others) do this, but I tend to think that it might some sort of sub-concious test. I'm not sure what it tests, but it's like a gentle nudge away to give each other room before the heart catches up. Perhaps it's a change over in feelings from the initial lust and puppy love at the start of a relationship to the deeper and more serious love and the long term bond that forms. Often it is this time that people work out that they shouldn't be together. For some reason, I think that the result will be different in this case.

Anyway, it was great to hear her voice last night, and it made me realize just how much I miss being able to hold her in my arms.

Soon we'll be able to again.

Away Again

2004-06-28T22:05:00.000+08:00

Well, here I am in Singapore Changi Airport, awaiting my next flight. It seems my life is just full of travel at the moment, whether it's me making it, or someone else.

Things with Jodie went exceptionally well over the last week. A few moments of "Oh My God - What have I got myself into here", and a few fearful thoughts as memories of past loves surfaced, but I braved the waters, crashed through the waves and found someone wonderful waiting out in the water for me.

I'm not sure who was more scared, her or me, but we managed to work things out between us.

We spent the entire week together, excepting the days when she was in her course, and I worked, taking in many of the better parts of Perth. From Jane Brook Winery, to Alfred's Kitchen, from feeding parrots in John Forrest National Park, to snuggling in the cinema watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which by the way was an awsome movie). Check it out if you get the chance.

I played a gig as LOST, and recorded it. I've called it "In Transit", for two reasons. Firstly it represents a change in direction for me musically, and secondly LOST In Transit, sounds kinda funky.

The gig was well received, despite having no sound guy, a bad sound system, and a couple of glitches at the start of the gig, but once I got through that, it went smoothly. I even got offers for 3 more gigs, which is great, but means lots more work.

Life is being generous to me at the moment, though I am thankful for the opportunities that are constantly presented to me, even small ones such as the opportunity to feed parrots with Jodie last week. Such a small and unexpected event, but a memory that will stay with us both I think.

Anyway, time is short, and I've got to get my bearings before the next leg of my flight.

Until next time