You can guess what he's famous for...

Well, it has been quite a long time since I last posted… Quite a lot has happened since then, but most of it is going to remain undocumented, because I have News and I don’t feel like writing about Olds today. Is the suspense building? Am I actually far too tired to be writing a post on my blog? Well, it is 12:42 and I’m lying in bed typing on my laptop, so the answer to the second question is more than likely an unqualified yes.

Anyway, on to the News! I now have an amazing girlfriend! And I’m quite excited. This is what my face is regularly looking like at the moment: :D  (Possibly without the yellow…)  What’s that?  You want to know who it is?  But what about the suspense?  Ok, I’ll tell you… But only because I can’t keep it in anyway.  Her name is Amy, and if you search this page really carefully, you may just find out a way of finding out more about her…  And possibly also a little of the Olds I mentioned earlier. 😉

And, to top it all off, today was my last day as a test engineer, so I am about to encounter lots of interesting new challenges as a software engineer, so as the title of the post suggests, I am starting on a whole new exciting chapter of my life!

You can find them here. They were taken by Andy, a friendly local paparazzi abducted for the occasion.

Also I figured out that I can change the thumbnails for the albums on my photo page to something other than “last uploaded”.

In other news, I went swimming yesterday (at work) and spent about an hour teaching myself to breathe on the side that I couldn’t before. I’ve got that mostly sorted now, although more practice will help. Also tried tumble turns, which are going to take a bit more practice. Not helped by shallowness of work pool. Also did about 250m of breaststroke at the end and found some muscles I didn’t previously know I had. Bed time. The end.

The more astute amongst you will notice that there are no longer any google adsense ads on the site.  I decided to remove them, as there was really no point to them being there.  I had a look today and over the time that they’ve been on there I’ve earned $US2.07.  Not really worth the hassle.  I did intentionally put them on non-prominent spots on the page though.

Other than that, I had work today, went swimming at Jellie Park with Andy, Anna, Mark and Nick and then cranked out the eyetoy kinetic for the first time in months to try some ab workout and some boxing with Amy, Merodie and Mike.  Didn’t really last long though.

My aim of doing work on the lifenet website didn’t really eventuate, but I do have it all set up to be able to work on it on my laptop now, so I can feel myself ramping up to the really productive stage.  If I get enough sleep that is, good night.

Monteith have just released their new Tripel beer. It’s a wonderful thing, and reminds me of my trip to Holland, including the light-headedness. I got some of batch no. 01-1! Note the batch label over the caps and the alcohol content. It is a little dangerous…

I guess I can post about the rest of my weekend here as well. On Friday night after a bit of hassle organising stuff I ended up watching 50 First Dates with Amy, Hobbs and Anna at Hobbs’ flat. I hadn’t seen it before and it was vintage Adam Sandler. Some comedy gold and some cringe.

On Saturday I had a bit of a break to reflect on life. I went up the port hills and sat on a wee hilltop near Sign of the Bellbird for a few hours, enjoying the view and having some space to reflect and spend time with God.

After that I got Subway on the way to Mark’s place from whence we went and spent the afternoon fixing Anna’s boss’ computer. Then I went to Gwyn and Dave’s for tea with them and Megan and Kelvin. Great time hanging out and catching up. After that (at about 11) I went into town and met Mark and Anna and Mess and Andrew and Danny and Jackie at iconic and was there till just before 3. Then home for a cup of tea and then bed.

Today I’ve had a lazy one, dropping off Anna and Mike at their cars, talking to Mum on the phone (mothers day), watching some firefly and sampling the new Monteith’s Tripel mentioned above. I’m still in my Pyjamas… Which leads me to this point where I am considering a big fish and chip shop burger for tea. I think it would hit the spot.

Wow, a weekend update when it is still the weekend.

and then I thought I’d actually do the update…

Anyway, Somehow the time has rolled on and if I am going to complete this update today I only have 7 minutes left. Not going to make it unfortunately.

Well, what have I been upto since I last posted. I’m going to go for a somewhat non-chronological approach this time and go for grouping similar activities.

Exercise type stuff: I’ve biked to Akaroa with Rosie and Mess. It was very cold and wet, I will put photos up that our support crew took, but not tonight. I went mountain-biking for the second time ever at Bottle Lake – I didn’t see a lake though. Lots of fun and I want to do it again. I played another game of soccer which we again won 4-2! It’s our biggest winning streak ever and also our most wins in a season and it’s only the second game! I played keeper the second half and didn’t quite manage a clean sheet. One thing I forgot to mention about the previous game was that one of the other teams goals came from a penalty I conceded. – They kicked it into my hand in the box. Also I went swimming at QE2 with a bunch of people, completing some lengths and then mucking around in the wave pool. I thought it would be a good idea to bike the 15km there, but it reduced the fun of the swimming a bit. I didn’t have to bike home, thanks to the wonderful David Hobbs. Got a burger and chips and walked down the pier with Kristyn and David after swimming too.

Movies: I saw Sione’s Wedding and The Matador at the movies. Sione’s Wedding was great. Very funny, NZ movie. The Matador was funny and somewhat random, although somewhat crude. Also have watched a bunch of DVDs. Saw City of God which I hadn’t seen before. I won’t spoil it with a review. Number 16 on the top 250 films of all time on IMDB. Another one I hadn’t seen before was The Constant Gardener, which I also really liked. Twas eye-opening on some issues, which I guess was it’s intention. Oh and on a whim I bought Teenage Caveman at the Warehouse and we watched it. That’s all I have to say about that. It had one definite redeeming feature. It was only 65 minutes long
Social Activities: Went to Seqoiua 88 with Craig’s family to celebrate his graduation, which was fun. I ate quite a lot. I was carbo-loading for the next day’s ride to Akaroa. 🙂 Also played a few games of pool in town. Also various other occasions of hanging out, a bit of Buzz etc.

Acquisitions: Somehow, since my last post (not quite that unintentionally) I have acquired a digital camcorder and a laptop. Both secondhand off Trademe. Had a bit of fun with the laptop removing the BIOS supervisor password. It involved a bit of soldering. I was successful, right up until when I was finished and had to remove the wires and rather than being smart and desoldering it, I thought pulling the wire off was a good idea. Unfortunately it was attached to the pin of the EEPROM I had been reading from, so the pin came with it. After some emergency repairs it still seems to be working, so I’m quite glad about that. I have since (just before I wrote this post) installed Ubuntu Linux on it, which just worked – wireless, battery indicators, touchpad, office software, browser, instant messenger and more.  The only problem I had was a couple of expected glitches in the installer. (It’s still in Beta)
For those of you who I didn’t lose with the last paragraph, the laptop is an IBM thinkpad T40 (P4M 1.3 with 512MB Ram, DVD/CDRW) It also now has wireless. This means I can go and work on computer stuff without having to sit in my room. Perhaps in a nice cafe in the sun with a cup of nice strong coffee.

Well, that about sums up the last few weeks. Oh wait, there was something else. Currently in our bible study group we are discussing what people’s perceptions of God/Christianity are. Or whether they think about God at all. So, fastfood combo of your choice to randomly selected commenter with a comment they have thought through. – Spam does not count. Like the song says… “Tell me all your thoughts on God.” I may even throw in a free DVD. (Which I may or may not have already mentioned in this post). How can you not comment with such a huge incentive. N.B. This isn’t intended as a debate/discusison, although if you would like to have one, I do have an available forum… Also if you don’t want to post your comments, feel free to email them to me.

If I’m not posting, it’s probably best to assume that I am busy.  I promise to do an update tomorrow.  This update will include cycling to Akaroa, mountain biking, some movies, adventures with my new laptop, some movies, Teenage Cavemen, food, swimming and quite possibly more.

In the meantime, if you’re bored, you could check out rememberthemilk.com.  It’s an online todo list thing which is quite fancy.  Let me know if you decide to give it a go, as it has contacts, so I could add you.

It is quite dangerous though, as you spend time on your todo list…  Mine includes updating my blog with a due date of tomorrow, so now it has to get done. 🙂

One has to wonder… As you will have probably guessed by now, this is what I looked like during the bus trip, after Kristyn attacked me.

In other news, went to The Sentinel last night (Tuesday) after having Indian for tea. Didn’t get as much accomplished during the day as I’d hoped, although we did convince Mark to try the 4.2L milk challenge. There will be a movie, but post-production is still in progress.

For clarification of the previous post, try this.