Saturday 18th December 2004The car thermometer on the way back from the Skyline restaurant last night said that it was 32°C at 10pm. Today it has felt like 38°C - well the water out of the cold tap feels that temperature anyway.
I used the barbeque twice today - for lunch we had prawns
on the barbie, and for dinner we had chicken kebabs and sweetcorn. It's been
great to throw ourselves into Australian culture by getting the final piece
of Australian equipment.
I have decided that we will leave it a bit before we invite people over for
a barbie, as I still have not yet got the hang of the temperature and the barbie
needs to be used a few times first. We are thinking of doing our Christmas roast
in the new barbeque as it has a hood especially for roasting. I threatened to
make a fried breakfast on Sunday, as I can do sausages, bacon, fried eggs and
a bit of toast - but we decided that it would be a bit of overkill.
There is still lots of news about the shark attack in Adelaide. The waters are empty of swimmers and there are patrols and searches for the two White Pointers that took the teenager on Thursday. The front page of the newspaper today showed a view from a helicopter of a 6 metre boat alongside one of the 5 metre Great White Sharks that were thought to be involved in the attack - it was incredible to see the comparison, the shark looked like a small whale.
My mother spent this evening doing the ironing. She has also been doing the washing up each day, and keeps on top of the plant watering duties. So far our tomatoes are putting on weight, and Eleanor has bought me some window boxes, which are now stuffed full of herbs. With the new barbeque and the plants everywhere, it's getting difficult to move in our little patio area.
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Today we left reasonably early to go up into the Adelaide
Hills to Mount
Lofty and Cleland
Wildlife Park. We wanted to 
show Thomas some
kangaroos and a koala, and we wanted to make sure that Eleanor had a photo
of herself with a koala. The views from Mount Lofty were great, and the weather
was just right, so that the sun was not too harsh, and the air was clear enough
to get great views over the whole of Adelaide. Eleanor was very pleased to get
the overview of the region, as it has been difficult for her to know her way
around Adelaide with so many names of places.
Today the temperature was a very pleasant 27°C and this
meant that we could spend all day outside without constantly having to look
for shade to keep cool. The kangaroos at Cleland were still lazing around in
the shade, but we had a small bag of food pellets that we could take with us
from the reception of the park. The kangaroos were quite happy to eat out of
our hands and they were very gently nibbling at our palms - they felt like very
soft horses, with noses the size of a small puppy - but without the slobbery
tongue.
Thomas had started to fall asleep before we got as far as the park, but as soon
as he saw the animals running around, he was very interested in seeing everything.
He was particularly pleased with seeing the ducks - he recognised them from
his bathtub and his favourite song. Obviously we only have plastic ducks in
the bath, but Thomas still saw the connection.
After cuddle with a koala (which I neglected to take any photos of), we headed
in to the visitors centre to have a lunch. As the weather was so good, we had
enough energy to get back out there to play with the kangaroos. Thomas wanted
to get out of his pushchair and hold the kangaroos' tails, but he still can't
walk so we kept him strapped in and out of harm's way.
We were all most impressed buy the newly built wombat
enclosure, where we could look through a glass wall into their underground burrow
where they are sleeping, rolling around on top of each other like hairy pigs.
There was a slightly less than happy Tasmanian
Devil pacing around and around it's enclosure, but we were all happy to
see him up and about.
On the way back from Cleland, we took the scenic route through Burnside, winding our way through the hills on narrow roads cut into the hillside. Ann managed to get some photos out of the side of the car as we were driving along and holding up traffic behind us - I have no idea how they could go faster than me around those bends...
Another barbie tonight - lamb steaks and barbequed asparagus with salad. It was great to get use out of my new toy. I tried to fix the broken sparker starter, but it worked once and then stopped working. I will have to use matches to light the gas now - I'm glad I got some long handled matches!
A new job tomorrow - I am apprehensive, and looking forward to it at the same time. I really hope that everything goes well - but I will tell you all about it.
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I started at UniSA
at Mawson Lakes (previously known as The Levels) today. It has been great first
day, with all the rest of the team apparently accepting me - after a few hours
of nervous conversation where they were investigating my skill level. I can
get on with all these people because they all have a personality - which is
a little rare amongst some technical professionals...
The building where we work is split into two floors, with network people and
the helpdesk downstairs, and the infrastructure and systems/servers people upstairs.
The server room is large and well appointed - unlike many places that I have
been in where the computer room is cramped and appears to be an afterthought.
They have plenty of high quality equipment, and they have made many decisions
similar to what I would have done, so I feel at home immediately.
I can see room for improvement - mostly for systems and processes that they
are hanging on to because "it's the way that it has always been done",
so I hope that I can make a difference. The people are all friendly and there
is plenty of space - there is a large room for 'building' servers and a room
for testing, plus two large meeting rooms with plenty of whiteboard space. Those
resources are great, because there is normally a battle over meeting room bookings,
and test environments are normally made next to the desks of the technical staff.
My exact responsibilities and roles are yet to be made clear to me, but I am
working with the infrastructure team on Active Directory and server consolidation
tasks, and working with Exchange email server on some SAN clusters. All very
exciting, and to some extents, cutting edge work. I am impressed by their plans
for the infrastructure - they already have a 1000Mbps link between their three
main campuses, but they are upgrading it to a potential 220Gbps - which is currently
faster than any network equipment (any that costs less than a small country)
could handle. They are also using a technology called .1x which only permits
computers to talk on the network if they comply with specifications such as
anti-virus and hotfixes.
Eleanor, Ann and Thomas went out shopping today at Burnside
Shopping Village. It's a very beautiful shopping centre in one of the more affluent
parts of town. They went into almost all of the clothes shops and ended up buying
Ann a top. It's been a while since Ann has been able to get some new clothes,
so it's a real treat for her.
Ann has been coping well with spending all day with her mother-in-law. Eleanor
says that she spent too many years alone, so talks every chance she gets - and
Ann is a particularly quiet person, so they have both been getting used to each
other. Eleanor is relaxing quite well, and Ann is enjoying the company. Thomas
is getting used to Eleanor being around too, and Eleanor is remembering how
to deal with a baby - after all, it's been 30 years!
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My second day at The University of South Australia today. I arrived in plenty of time, so it was good to get a bit settled in before everyone else started work. The day was pretty much just me getting to grips with the organisational and political structure of the University - they have a lot of red tape and separation between groups.
It was a very nice 26°C today, and I remarked to my new colleagues that it was a great day. They told me that as far as they are concerned, Adelaide has the best climate in Australia. The heat is a dry heat, so not as oppressive as the Queensland tropical climate, but dryer than the Victorian rain. They also told me that these sorts of days with the 26°C warmth, no clouds and bright sunshine, are very common in Adelaide, with almost 5 months of "Indian Summer" between summer and autumn. Even the winters are not too bad - the occasional heavy downpour, but the skies are blue and the sun is bright.
I got a long-awaited letter from Thomas' godfather today. Johnny is my best friend and was the Best Man out our wedding, but it's been a while since I spoke to him, so I have been missing him. Before we left England, I introduced him to a friend that I had made whilst commuting. Helen and Jon got on very well straight away, and they are now very close - the whole letter was focused on how strong their relationship has become. It's wonderful to hear his news, and I hope they do well together as they are ideally suited. They both needed to meet someone just like each other at the time, so it worked out perfectly - it's also a good way to keep in touch with both of them if they are both together. I will probably telephone him on the morning of Christmas Eve to say hello.
Whilst in Australia, it's been hard for me to meet new people,
as I am not really in the situation where I meet many new people. I get on well
with all of Ann's friends, but the guy I get on best with lives nearly the other
side of Adelaide and frequently works nights - I will have to wait until footie
season again to spend some more time with him.
I also joined a couple of meetup
groups, but never actually met anyone from the meetup
groups (either they don't turn up, or no-one says they are going). The best
chance for me to meet people is through work, and that's been a little impossible
recently. I did get on quite well with a guy in EDS called Andrei, but I didn't
take a note of the spelling of his surname, so can't get back in touch with
him - it's a pity as he also migrated to Australia this year.
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I decided today that I would not wear my suit in to work today.
No-one wears a suit, and only two people wear a tie - my boss and his boss.
I looked a little out of place on my first day, and on the second day when I
left my tie at home, I still stuck out.
So, today it was black jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. I am glad I did wear
jeans, because today I was in the computer room on the floor getting dusty.
I was 'building a rack', which I will explain for all you non-IT people. A rack
holds computer servers, and is approximately 7 feet tall and 21 inches wide
and 4 feet deep. It can theoretically hold up to 42 small servers, but most
commonly it has a mixture of servers and other equipment like tapes, screens
and networking equipment, so will often have up to 10 servers. When full, the
cabinets can weigh almost 1 tonne - and when empty, they are still extremely
heavy. What I was doing today involved unpacking lots of cardboard boxes of
components that bolt in to various parts of the rack. Each part can fit in multiple
places on the rack, and so varying bolts and plates are supplied for putting
the components in - which means you end up with boxes of screws and bolts that
are not needed.
I was scrabbling around and under the floor to run cables and retrieve dropped
fixings (they supply 100 of the bolts that you don't need, but only two of the
bolts that are unique!), but had a real trouble tightening a few of the fixings.
After 4 of us tried three different screwdrivers to get the screw into a hole
that appeared to be too small, someone decided to use a cordless drill and a
screwdriver bit. We all stood back to let this guy try the drill on the tight
screws, and watched as he progressively tried harder to turn the screw. At one
stage, the drill was trying so hard that smoke started to come out of the back
of the drill.
Of course, there are smoke detectors in the computer room, and there was an
air of panic as we worried about fire sirens and automatic extinguishers. The
man with the drill ran out of the room, covering the vents of the drill with
his hand, yelling "it's hot, it's hot!". Eventually we got all screws
inserted and the cabinet was built.
Eleanor, Ann and Thomas went to the Botanic Gardens today. Thomas watched the ducks and Eleanor identified each plant as they went around.
When I was at EDS, Andrei told me about how his family had
migrated from Moldova
to Adelaide. He and his wife had decided to move to Adelaide, not to escape
the Black Sea country, but to come to Adelaide. It took him a year to get the
visa granted, during which time he had to sit an English test and prove his
IT skills.
Then came the journey to Adelaide. They started on January 24th, by Andrei going
to Bucharest to visit the British Embassy - to get a transit visa to go through
the UK. Moldova
has no British Embassy, so he had to travel for half a day on the train - and
then when he got there, he had to queue for nearly 6 hours, finally getting
his family's transit visa at 4 am. Then, his family were snowed in, and could
not leave the town as there was over 2 metres of snow from the Carpathian Mountains
(Transylvania). His wife was so keen to get started on the journey that she
suggested that they arrange a helicopter to get them to the train station. Eventually
(and I might get some of this wrong as Andrei's accent meant that I missed some
of this), they all got to the Chisinau train station, to find that the train
was delayed by 3 hours from the snow - which was helpful, as the family were
an hour late for the scheduled departure time.
Then, Andrei, his wife and two sons, were on a train for a day, going to Moscow.
Once in Moscow, they got to the airport and from then on it was much simpler
- Moscow-London-Singapore-Melbourne-Adelaide. They arrived on January 30th 2004
- with $2000.
Andrei - if I have got too much of this wrong, register
on the
messageboard and I will then have your email address
and I will correct this.
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The days are starting to get shorter now, but it is due to get warmer. They predicted that today was going to reach 38°C, but it only reached the low 30's - there was also a breeze that made the day reasonably comfortable. A few days ago, Eleanor had a difficult night sleeping in the heat, so we ended up getting another fan to move the air around. Liam and Shirley have also been kind enough to offer a bed if Eleanor gets too hot.
At work today, there was a mad rush to pass information to
me before two of the team go off on annual leave - but nothing really got done
because it was the last day of work.
As I was in the same room with the two who are now off for 3 weeks, I have moved
my PC and stuff into the larger office area that has more people in it - this
should be good for me to get to know all parts of the team. They also have the
coffee grinder and percolator in there.
I had a short conversation with HR about my pension (called
Super in Australia - superannuation). In Australia (well, South Australia in
any case), each employer must contribute 9% of the employees' salary into a
private super (either the employee's choice, or a the employer's chosen fund
company). Sometimes the salary is quoted as the amount without the super - so
the employee has 9% deducted, and other times the salary is shown including
the contribution that the employee "looses" from their total salary
- so the take-home pay is reduced. It's all very confusing, as it's difficult
to compare two job offers that quote the "same" salary (not that I
have been in that situation yet...).
Anyway, the University of South Australia has it's own Super fund, which they
contribute 9% into on top of my total salary, plus I am expected to contribute
a further 7% of my salary, and I get a bonus 1% for doing this. It's all good,
so I am going to go ahead with it.
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This morning Eleanor and I went to the supermarket to get
fresh fruit and veg to last us for the next 5 days when all the shops are closed.
We left early so that we could ensure that they would not run out of stock and
to beat the crowds.
How wrong we were.
We arrived at 7:10 am - and Woolworths supermarket was packed solid. They were
running short of trolleys (when we finished our shopping, there were none left),
the fruit and vegetables were disappearing (we got one of the last quarters
of watermelon), and the crowds made it difficult to get around the shop. I am
glad that we took a shopping list, as the pressure and panic from other shoppers
made it hard to remember everything that we needed. The queues at every checkout
went into the aisles and the cashiers were going as fast as they could. We left
with a very full trolley at 8:15, and the car park was completely full for the
first time.
Once back home, we realised that we had forgotten a few things and would have
to go back. I was dreading fighting with the crowds again. Luckily they were
non-perishables so we were able to get them with no problems.
Thomas has been an angel today - he has been standing unaided for at least a few seconds. He just needs the nerve to take his first steps and then he will be running around in no time.
We are having to bath Thomas twice as often as we usually
did. This evening when I bathed him, I kept the bath water for a little while
so that I could gather it in the watering can to revive the plants that look
like they are tentatively holding on to life in the late spring heat. Luckily
for the plants, Thomas has run out of bubble bath, so there was no foam coming
out of the watering can, but the water was running off the hard surface of the
soil - I had to put the rose onto the can so that the water would penetrate
the crusted earth.
All our tomatoes and herbs are doing well next to the barbeque, and I am sure
that we will be able to harvest our first tomato within the next few days -
I just hope that they do not come ripe when we are in Sydney for the New Year!
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