Three-thirty-brain dump
Here's some things that are on my mind, or have been in the last 24 hours.
Mark Shuttleworth
Go watch this video and then tell me that he's not the best thing that has happened to the IT industry since its inception. I rate him as my biggest idol right now. It's not about the money. Just watch the video. It was taken at Debconf last week. Debconf is the annual conference for Debian developers and users.
The Beach Boys
I grabbed the 3-CD platinum collection and it's belting out through my headphones. Their tunes always remind me of my childhood - The Beach Boys were one of the first bands that I remember getting dad to make a tape of for me. They only sing about girls, surfing and cars, so I understood it from an early age ;)
I used to sit in our lounge room in Roleystone with dad's massive headphones (the ol' skool style with mad puffy earpieces) and listen to them for hours, normally on a Saturday when he was ironing and mum was working at Myer. I would have been about 6 or 7. I used to listen to the Top Gun soundtrack too, but that would've been later on. Of course it was records I was listening to.
It's a shame Mags doesn't "appreciate" this music (or the Bee Gees) and doesn't like it on when she's home.
Finally, the Beach Boys remind me of Flight of the Navigator. I'm not going to link to what that is, because you should know. If not, Google it, but never tell me you didn't know.
Plans comin' together
As Hannibal says, "I love it when a plan comes together!" Yesterday things were not looking good with a wireless project we're working on with PACC. We'd put our gear in and it just wasn't working. Today we did some re-jigging and re-working and devised a plan. I'm confident that our new approach will be better, because it was my idea. With Peter it was always my idea, and that's a good feeling to know that if I said something he'd listen. He might not agree at first, but I always got/get my own way.
Fitness
This week has been a pretty healthy one. I went running on Tuesday with Ben, Al, Mark and Ben's sister Elise. I went to the gym Wednesday evening and had my appraisal with a trainer. Last night I played indoor soccer and I plan on hitting the gym either Saturday or Sunday. I think Sunday is more likely.
I want to work up to the 12km City-to-Surf by the end of August, and with my training schedule and Ben/Al/Mark's help I think I should make it. Right now I'm running about 6km comfortably.
The big thing I need to remember is how frickin' great I feel after exercise.
Magazines
This weekend I will hit the pile of magazines that's been growing over the last month. There's three I bought yesterday: Hyper, a game mag that has a feature on the next-gen consoles; White Dwarf, a model and minature gaming mag that I enjoy flicking through. The little men are cool and I like the tactics that they use in battles. I've talked about it before. I also bought another video game mag from Planet Video (when I bought twin packs) which is pretty arty. It's focussed on the culture rather than what's the latest game on the market, so I think I'll like it. On top if this I have a Dr. Dobb's Journal and several Linux magazines - a Linux Format and three or four Linux Journals. It's gonna be a wordy weekend.
Books
Maggie doesn't let me read in bed - she can't call asleep even when I have a tiny single-LED light on! I swear it's all in her head, but anyway... I have been reading books more lately. It started with my finishing When Wizards Stay Up Late, which was a gift for my birthday from Mark and Gordon. It detailed the history of the Internet as we know it and was really interesting, but a bit slow in some places. I'm reading my Batman manual and Geek Chic which is a nice change from computers-computers-computers. Next in line is Joel's book that I got from Mark and Em for my birthday too. This will be good, I know it. I also bought Snow Crash simply because I want to read a Neal Stephenson novel. I think Hale's read it before, and I'm expecting good things.
And my half hour break is up. Back to the coalface/codeface.
heh, I have no curtains. NO curtains you hear me. I sleep with the sun coming in directly through a 4 x 4 m glass door/window! it’s alllll in her head.
Hehe. I agree that it must be in my head too, but the fact is that I still toss and turn while that freakin light is on! Just knowing it’s on makes me focus on it and I can’t sleep. In Capel a couple of weekends back I went to bed at about 7am with the sun blaring through the bedroom window and was out within minutes. So clearly the most reasonable solution is for me to exhaust myself to that level every night, thus eliminating the light problem.
Sounds like saturday night might have been a way to do that!
Since having to catch public transport to work it provided me a great opportunity to start reading on a daily basis.
I recently completed reading the “Tomorrow Series” by John Marsden.
It is a seven book series about Australia being invaded by a foreign country, written in first point of view in the perspective of a girl who is part of a group of teenagers turned into Australian Guerrillas.
A lot of schools do the first book “Tomorrow When the War Began”; unfortunately I wasn’t so privileged.
Anyway, if you haven’t read this series I really recommend it; that and the Da Vinci Code!
Thanks for the recommendations Jonny. I’ll check it out. I have heard of that series before - Hale perhaps?
I like the Da Vinci Code too, though it’s really not that solid a story. It was entertaining I thought, which I why I read novels.