This morning Mark came out with me and the jiu-jitsu guys for a morning surf. Dayne had Adam's old board which he's sold to me ($50 - bargain) so Mark used that and I used BJJ-Adam's spare board, which I've been using all along. I'd also been using his fins and bicep leash, so I needed to get my own. Fitzy claims to (possibly) have a body board and bag, so I might snaffle that as Mark expressed interest in coming out again with us. The bag will keep the Zed from getting wet carpet in the boot which would be nice.

After our beach antics, Mark and I went back to my office for a shower and then headed into Perth for some breakfast. We went to Tiger Tiger which was really bad. I'd heard good things, but the food was pretty average and the service was crap - they all had attitude just because they were working at a cool coffee house. Anyway, this crapness was offset by some wicked chatting with Mark.

A good start to the day, again.

I bought some fin savers in the Gold Coast - they're velcro straps that go around your ankle and attach to each fin. I also bought a wetsuit for the Gold Coast trip, so that box was ticked. I hit Star Surf on Murray St. after breakfast and picked up some fins and a bicep leash, so now I've got all the gear I need for a summer surfing safari.

Finally, a party worthy of voting for - The Secular Party of Australia.

From their website:

We stand for

• Constitutional separation of Church and State
• A secular Republic, free of hereditary privilege
• Pro-choice regarding abortion
• Same-sex de facto marriage recognition
• Recognition of gay families
• Contraception and sex education
• Anti-homophobia education
• No anti-discrimination exemptions for religious schools and businesses
• Right to die
• Voluntary euthanasia
• Embryonic stem cell research
• Lesbian IVF availability
• Scientific research not to be limited by unfounded religious objections

We stand against

• Censorship
• Unwarranted impositions of religious dogma
• Government support for religious schools
• Religious attire at schools
• Religious indoctrination of children
• All forms of religious coercion and theocracy

WA Senate candidates

Jennifer Armstrong

Jennifer Armstrong is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia, in English and
Cultural studies. She emigrated from Zimbabwe in 1984. Jennifer favours the use of all relevant scientific and sociological facts to apply to solving human problems. She is particularly concerned with global warming, the role of religion in motivating armed conflict and invasion, the use of taxes to promote religion in schools, and the use of the Centrelink network to promote a particular agenda.

Michael Tan

Michael Tan is a Clinical Audiologist currently working in the Public Health sector, as well as being a performing musician and teacher. He has lectured in Music and Physics at the University of WA, where he is currently completing a PhD in Psychophysics. He has particular interests in religion, science, education, equality and human rights, and hopes to establish clear boundaries between religion and government in the Senate. Michael strongly believes that reason, not faith, must guide our decision making, and hopes to actively promote a fair and free-thinking environment for all Australians.

How to vote

OK, so you've read this far; you probably want to make a difference. Print this PDF out and take it with you to the polling booth tomorrow.

Early this morning I went out to Scarborough with Adam, Nathan and Dayne for a morning surf. I know it's really bodyboarding, but they call it surfing, so who am I to correct them?

The waves were really quite small and sparse, which was great for me as it meant I could actually get "out the back" to catch some. Last time I went it was too big and I ended up paddling about in the whitewash, so to be out with the rest of them was a good change.

Adam's a great BJJ coach - we already know that, but it's funny to see his practical teaching ability transcend martial arts. I was content letting the bigger waves pass me by, but that ended up meaning that I'd been out there for 10 minutes without a ride at all. Adam commanded me to move "there" (with a point of the index finger) and followed that up with a few "paddle, paddle, paddle!" instructions.

Within 10 seconds of him deciding that I was going to catch a wave, I was on it. That's the kinda guy he is.

I then caught a few more on my own and even managed to get some air. OK, it was unintentional, but it still looked cool.

How great our office is was reinforced when I rocked up at about 7:45AM, wet clothes and all and found Aaron and Adam here already. I threw the gear in the shower, made some breakfast for Adam and myself and then had a shower myself.

The great start to the day was then underlined by mother nature when I looked in the frying pan. One egg; two yolks.

Last night many of us had the delight of attending Melinda and Tony's engagement party. The party was great and I enjoyed a few beers. I got to spend some time with Carrie's boyfriend (though not according to Facebook) Tony and we got on pretty well, even though he takes my "tallest in the group" title.

A few times (Melinda's) Tony approached me during the night with his usual warmth and said he wanted to catch me for a chat. I figured it was just him being his usual friendly self and having recently experienced my own engagement party, I knew he would be busy and being pulled from person to person, so I said it wasn't a huge deal and we'd chat later. On reflection, to the outsider, it would have looked like I was blowing him off. Towards the end of the night he cornered me and we got chatting, and it turned out that he had a pretty important question to ask me... and I'd been dodging him all night - oh noes!

He asked me if I'd be a groomsman, to which I answered "of course!" What an honour - I am really, really chuffed :)

Today we deployed the latest version of Harmony Backup.

This major update has been in development for several weeks and drastically reduces the time taken to backup a remote host. In our testing we saw speed increases of up to 35%. This means your data is safely on our server in as little as two-thirds the time it used to take. Needless to say, our development team has worked very hard and we're proud of the huge improvements.

All of our clients that use Harmony Backup are now enjoying the increased speeds automatically.

You can get information on Harmony Backup via the website.