Saturday
5th February 2005 It has been warmer today, with the sky being an almost perfect
blue with barely a wisp of cloud. I was feeling much better this morning, and
so I went to the shops to get a few things. Ann does the weekly shop on Fridays,
but there were a few things that we had forgotten - and I needed to get a birthday
card for Ann for the 19th.
I finished reading "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown today. I started
last week, and have read little bits every evening. Ann read it a few weeks
ago, and Eleanor read it before that. Before Christmas, Linda had read the book
in one day - she locked herself in a room, told everyone that she was not to
be bothered, and read it all. So, one of the things that I was going to buy
was another one of his books, I bought "Digital Fortress" this time.
When driving back from the supermarket, I felt very low down
in the car - the little Ford Laser that I have is not as high up as the Renault
Scenic that we drive as a family, or Anne's Mazda MPV that I have been taken
to work in most days.
It reminded me of a story about my father, and my first trip to America. I was
about 7 or 8 years old, and we were on holiday for 2 weeks in California and
Oregon. We had flown out with PanAm - I remember the flight for two reasons,
one was that we were not all seated together and it was not until later on in
the flight that we were all in the same part of the plane - and the other memorable
part was the toys and gifts that we got - we had colouring books and toys, and
most memorable was an inflatable Jumbo Jet - which I had begged my father to
buy. The inflatable plane was too big to open and inflate whilst inside, and
I had to wait until our first hotel to inflate the plane and then use it as
a toy in the swimming pool.
The holiday was split into two halves - one week in an 'RV' camper van, and
a week in an ordinary car when we would stay in hotels. The RV was great, we
saw lots of scenery and enjoyed the camping sites and having the comfort of
our own mattresses to sleep on. When it came time to swap the winnebago for
a car, we were in a bit of a hurry to get to the first hotel in time. I think
that it was for this reason that my father did not know how to adjust the seat
position. At that time, England did not have any cars with electrically operated
seats, and Terry was having extreme difficulty in getting the seat to adjust,
particularly vertically. My father is only 5'6", and the seat appeared
to be adjusted for someone who was at least 6'6" tall, and so Terry was
having difficulty reaching the pedals and seeing over the steering wheel.
So then the idea came about to use the inflatable PanAm jumbo jet as a cushion.
It was a simple and effective solution, because the shape of it provided both
vertical lift (from the wings...) and pushed Terry closer to the pedals. It
worked quite well for a couple of days... until it developed a slow leak...
As Terry started to sink into the seat, gradually disappearing from view, the
wings of the jumbo started to move and spread out, and would reach up from either
side of his buttocks and start to envelop him like plastic arms holding on to
him. As the sinking happened more frequently, I have memories of my father jumping
out of the car at traffic lights, frantically hyperventilating into the jumbo
jet to inflate it enough to be able to see and drive. It did not help that the
rest of the family were roaring with infectious laughter, and there were some
times that Terry had to leap into the car with a semi-limp jumbo under him.
Passers-by and other drivers would look on in amazement as this short Englishman
would leap out of his car with a noisily raucous family inside, puff into the
plastic bag and then sit on it.
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As Ann spent all of yesterday in the house, we decided today to go out for a drive. We decided against going to the Zoo, as we left it too late after having the Sunday fry-up on the barbeque. Once we left the house after Thomas' lunch, we headed over towards Chain of Ponds to look at the Winery.
In the Adelaide Hills, there are a few wineries, but they are not as big as the Barossa Valley large-scale producers. We drove up towards Gumeracha, and then stopped at the Chain of Ponds vineyard. They have a restaurant that is only open at weekends, and they are quite highly regarded. Originally, we had intended to only get a snack and a quick drink, but the restuarant was really a place where you have a meal - not a snack. So we ordered just a plate of Antipasto and a Insalata Caprese with a couple of glasses of Pinot Grigio. We sat outside on benches under the sun shades and trees, with a warm breeze from the vineyards and pine forest gently cooling us from the sun. It was a really lovely place, and then when the sliced meats, tomato basil and mozzarella, and marinated artichokes arrived, it really set in us that we would like to go back again.
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Back to work and back to daycare for Thomas. It's still not easy for Thomas. When Ann went to pick him up, he was crying as soon as she was not visible to him, and again he had been upset during morning tea. Ann does not think that he is getting any better - but these things take time. Thomas has been spoilt for the last three months in having nearly 24 hour attention by his mother and grandmother, and of course attention from all the other family that he knows - and now to be suddenly with totally new people can be daunting for anyone at any age.
At work today I took one of the pool cars in to the city to
collect some old servers from one of the Universities other computer rooms -
there has been a server consolidation project (which of course has resulted
in more servers than ever), and so Ashley (the trainee) and I went in to the
city to collect some old servers. The machines are still usable, but the hardware
is old and not as reliable as the newer equipment, so it will end up being 'test'
hardware. Luckily I have a project to test out a system monitoring solution,
so I need lots of servers to test against.
The City East campus is a strange one - on North Terrace, Adelaide University
has a lot of the grand old buildings that are around the 
State
Library, the Museum
and the Art Gallery, but then in amongst that are some UniSA buildings. It seems
funny to have competing universities on the same campus.
Yesterday evening, a guy turned up on the door to collect
money for a children's charity - he had an ID badge on and a clipboard and looked
very official. So I gave him some money, and then he asked me what name I would
like on the receipt. I then wondered why he wanted the name - was it because
the charity really wanted to get my name and address for some sort of marketing
or to sell my details on to marketing companies? So I only gave my first name.
Then, when he gave me the receipt, I noticed that at the bottom was a small
line that stated that all charitable donations that were over $2 were tax-deductable
- so that's why he gave me a receipt.
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Yesterday I was given a pedometer by the university - part of a scheme that they have to ensure that all staff are getting healthy. So today, I walked 3.6km whilst in the office - just doing my regular work. I wonder how far Thomas crawls each day?
Ann and Thomas went to KinderGym today on a try-out. Now that
Thomas is crawling and able to stand by himself, it's much more enjoyable for
him than the last time they visited. Thomas loved the swings and a big pool
of balls - at some stages Ann said that all she could see was the top of his
head, as he swam around in the balls.
Ann also met some other mothers, including one that had twin boys around Thomas'
age. Both the boys have been walking since 9 months - probably from the necessity
of the mother not being able to carry both. The twins were very interested in
the ceiling fans and the large lights in the roof, in the same way that Thomas
is. Both Ann and the mother laughed about the aisle in Big W where they sell
the fans - the babies love it!
I was so busy in meetings today that I forgot lunch. So I was very happy when I came home to smell that Ann was already cooking bolognese, and even happier when it was on the table within a few minutes of me being home. I used the opportunity to play with Thomas - who was still in an energetic state after his gym experience.
I took one of the guys at work to my website, but his computer was set up to block JavaScript, which is what I use to make the bouncing menus on the left. Because of this setting on his computer, he could not navigate around the website - so I have now added a very simple (plain text) menu at the bottom of every page that just links to all the index pages within the site.
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Today was curry day at work. One of my colleagues goes around with a menu and gets everyone's orders on Monday, and then on Thursday he faxes the order to an Indian restaurant, and on Wednesday it arrives - even with people's names on each tub of curry. I ordered a Chicken Korma, because I did not recognise many of the dishes - but when it arrived, it was more a chicken madras - which I don't normally like. Annoyingly, everyone else's food looked far more tasty than mine, so I know what I will be ordering next time.
I have been given a major project at work to implement a system monitoring capability, so that we are able to see the status and performance of all systems at a glance, and when something goes wrong we will be the first to know about it - instead of the end-user having to call us to complain. It's a big project, as there are over 120 things to monitor, and some products will cover some of our requirements, but not all. I think that I might end up having to implement two products to keep an eye on all 300 systems that we have. I am looking forward to the project as it covers so much.
Ann and Thomas went to daycare again. This time Thomas played in the sand pit and found that the sand does not taste very good. Ann had a chat with some of the women who work there, and Ann is being such a frequent vistor that they joked that she could even work there!
Cherie Blair has been touring Australia this week. She's already made a gaffe by calling the New Zealanders Australian (like calling an Irish person English...). There is a big debate over her fee - the 'lectures' that she is giving are charging $195, and it's meant to be for a charity, but she is taking a $250,000 fee, and the charity is getting around $500,000 - but in the past the promoter has donated as little as $1500 to charity from similar events.
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Someone at work said that they had heard about my website, and that it was amusing. I don't think he meant amusing in a good way. He implied that some people are finding it funny about how little I write, and how it seems so boring. Well - I will try to make my personal diary a bit more interesting - maybe I will have to make things up.
Today Ann and I won the lottery. We decided that we did not want the $20,000,000 jackpot that we had won, and instead gave it all to charity.
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