1 year today

It was one year ago today that I started my new job. I had kind of expected that things would have dropped of by now, and that I would be working from home.
Unfortunatally that's not the case. I'm still doing long hours and it doesn't look any better. :(

We went out for dinner tonight. There is this resturant just down the road from our place that is always packed, so we thought we would give it a try.
What a dissapointment - Both Shelley's and my meals were crap! We ended up going to Mac'ers for a desert and coffee, but there wasn't any cheese cake, so it ended up being just coffee.
A disapointing end to an even more disapointing day.

On the plus side, I had a hearing test yesterday. After years of my ipod blasting loud music into my ears it was good to find that the damage was minimal and hadn't got any worse over the last year. Time to turn the volume up ;)

World Pinhole Camera Day

On the subject of cameras, it was world pinhole camera day on the 30th April. Some very good photos to be seen at www.pinholeday.org .
If you want to have a go at making your own pin hole camera - I found these instructions on how to create a flash looking jobbie (see right -->).
Since I have a bit of 35mm film laying around, I think Eli and I might have a go at this in the weekend.

Say Cheese!

One of the first things I brought when I left school was a Pentax P30N SLR camera. It was this great camera that took great photos, and went with me everywhere to capture every moment of my life. That, unfortunatally was its downfall. One day, while out in my 4WD I managed to get stuck in a rather deep hole in a river. Everything floated out the door of the Subaru, except my camera. As I scurried down stream after my check book and NOW! Cassette tapes, my camera was sitting behind the passengers seat soaking up the river water.
I learnt my lessons from that, and so when I finally managed to save up an replace my camera (with another P30) I didn't take it to quite as many places. The sad thing was that it meant that now I was not taking anywhere near as many photos. Instead of a roll or two a week, it was now a roll every month or two.
Eventually, that would drop right off, so a roll of film could last almost a year. But it sure was exciting to get the film back, you really didn't know what was going to be on it.
When Eli was born, I brought Shelley a new Pentax M50 SLR. This one had two things that my P30 didn't. A built in Flash, and Auto Focus. Now we were taking photos of the new baby doing everything. Eventually, Shelley complained that the camera was too big to take everywhere so it got left behind when we went out. Then, for Shelley's birthday the first year we were in Singapore, I got her a digital camera. They had just come down to an "acceptable" price. I got her a 3 megapixal Ricoh for just under $800 (A Bargin!) Now this camera was small enough to fit in her handbag, So it started to go everywhere with us and it wasn't long before Shelley had over 1000 photos in her iPhoto library. But before long that camera too would be too big - Shelley didn't take a bag with her anymore, so a new camera would have to be got. One that could fit into her jeans pocket. So, we got a 4 MP Casio. Quite a bit cheaper than the Ricoh, but a good camera none the less.
Now, its time for another camera. This time with a phone attached. Which brings me to the orginal reason for this post anyway. I also have a phone with a camera (try finding one that doesn't) and when I was looking for a new phone I was certain that I wouldn't get a phone with a camera. They were just a waste of space as far as I was concerned. But after having it for a couple of months now, I've come to realise that they are good for one thing. Capturing the moment - and that is exactly what I brought my expensive Pentax P30 for 20 years ago!

So long already

I can't believe how fast this week has flown!!! AFL today, followed by lunch and coffee (Decaf!) at a local mall. The we went to have a look at some new phones for Shelley. I want to get her a Nokia, 'cause the other 10 phones she's had are all nokias, so we can re-use the chargers and stuff, but she's keen on the new Motorola L6. Looks ok, but I remember she tired out a Moto once before and we couldn't work out how to retreive a phone number from the address book. Hopefully they've got a bit better now. At least the Motos will sync with her address book, it has USB and Bluetooth, so we won't have to spend hours typing all the names and numbers in again.

Rick came around to day with Sharla and his new car. He traded in the CRV for a Suziki Swft. Nice car.

SNOW!!!!

Looks like that crap weather for the last few days has paid off - Its snowing at Mt Hotham and Mt Buller:

Eli Kicks a Goal

Eli had a great day at AFL today. The parent/kids game went well with the parents managing to get a couple of good goals. But after staying up late last night to swat up on the rules I think I would have been better off to have an early night and have got up early to practice my catching!

With so many kids there today, some of us parents got inducted as coaches - In my keeness I forgot that I played soccer at school - I was good at kicking, but could catch a ball to save myself!

Anyway fun day was had by all, Shelley managed to get in a few cups of coffee with some of the other mums and even did a few laps round the oval.

Rain

Its raining today - absolutly pissing down!
Took nearly two hours to get home tonight, and even then I had left after the peak flows. It seemed like there was an accident just about every few K's on the Monash.

Eli has his second day of Auskick tomorrow. Shelley and I were meant to study up on the rules for the Kids vs Parents games, but with no time this week I think we will be seriously giving some points to the other side.

Sooo busy again

Ahhhhh. Just when you think that its time to put your feet up on the desk and catch up on my podcasts, work gets busy again!
This week I've had to train a new operator on everything from the ground up - luckly he's got a strong IT background so understands what routers, switches and Sun Boxes are (at least he can point to them!).

Eli has become very proficient at playing Bugdom 2 - he can easily get through the first level by himself, but is challanged trying to get past the snake on the second level. Everytime he trys to get past the little windmill he gets nocked off the baseball.

I was so impressed I had to get him a gamepad this week - that, and I got sick of trying to clean chocolate of my powerbook's keypad. I got a Macally ishock - quite cool. It's a bit bigger than a PS2 gamepad, but a simular layout (I guess they all are). It is very configurable, so works with heaps of programs that don't normally support game pads as you can program the keys to match keyboard keys.

Excuse the grainy photo, it was taken on my phone.