Saturday 30th October 2004I was told last night that I had been rejected for the Parliamentary Network Support position. They said that as the role was more technical and less management, that I would not be applicable. They liked my skills and abilities, but said that as I had not had any formal training in Exchange 2000 or Windows Active Directory, that I would not be able to work in a technical environment where everyone else was highly qualified. I can see their point, as I have been pursuing the management track of my career and deliberately not attending technical training. I could go and do the training, but it is expensive (up to $10,000), takes time (months), and it could end up that the job I get does not require the qualifications that would have got me this contract job for the Parliamentary Network Support Group.
People are enjoying my 
logotest.
I have already had feedback that "Malibu" was wrong, and that "AMD"
would only be correct if someone typed "Advanced Micro Devices". I
have fixed those errors and have updated it on the website. I wonder if one
day, someone will email the logotest back to me, not knowing that I created
it.
What is going on? Last month, this site got 19,669
hits,
and this month it was 99,049! Since I made this site public, and put the blog
in various directories and search engines, the number of hits has rocketed!
We now have 464 individuals who have visited the site, and the average daily
hits is almost as much as we got in the whole of May.
For those of you who don't know, one "hit" is counted for each component
that is downloaded. For example, the text on this page is one hit. The background
image is another hit, and the bouncing menu down the left counts as two hits.
This means that for every visit to this page, there are 4 hits. For the slideshow
pages, this is much higher, because each thumbnail downloaded is one hit. The
homepage counts as 16 hits.
So, only 5681 pages were viewed this month, but that is still a lot of people
visiting the site.
Looking at the log files, I can see that some people
are coming to the site from search engines. One person came to this site because
they had typed in "Salisbury Westpac BSB", and because I had that
on one of my blog pages, they came in and read my blog for 18 minutes! Interesting
what you can find out...
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Today the clocks spring forward an hour. Nothing unusual about that, but the thing that got me a bit shocked was that Western Australia is a further 2½ hours behind Adelaide, so when it is midday in Adelaide, it is 9:30 am in Perth. Considering that there is only one border and timeline between the two states, that is a big difference. Theoretically, you could fly from Adelaide to Perth and arrive before you left! The other strange thing is that the Northern Territory is directly north of South Australia, but is in a different time zone - almost every state is! This is one big country...
There was front page news today about Adelaide getting a fourth University. There are already large areas of campus and huge research labs around the city and the outskirts, and Carnegie Mellon University is planning to build a new University here. They already call Adelaide the city of churches, so pretty soon it will be like Oxford - churches and universities.
Thomas has been eating a lot recently, but this evening he was not interested in the spaghetti bolognese that I made last week, so Ann and I carried on with our meal. Thomas was looking longingly at our food, so we decided to try him on a little steamed asparagus. He gobbled it down like it was a chocolate treat. We kept on handing him asparagus spears that we had microwaved, and he really loved it. He then started to play with his feet, and pulled off his socks - ending up with a sock in each hand. At this stage, I had cut another bit of asparagus for him - and so he opened his mouth so that I would put it in. I decided to be mean, and put it in his mouth sideways - hoping that he would drop one sock to carry on eating. Instead, he very delicately and carefully chewed the middle of the asparagus, but not so much that it would break - then he sucked in the other two ends. All so that he could keep a sock in each hand.
Halloween is not really recognised here in Australia. It seems strange when we see American programs with "Halloween Specials" or references to a holiday that does not happen here. There is another celebration close to now that the Australians do celebrate - Melbourne Cup Day. The horse race is on the first Tuesday in November, and that is of course this week. The Australians love to bet and gamble, and this race almost brings the whole of Australia to a halt. It's not an official public holiday, but every celebrates in any case.
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I just found out that my interview that was meant to happen tomorrow has been postponed until next week. It was the second interview for a real career job that I was very keen on. I am still waiting to hear back from the other job that I had the second interview with last week - it's all a waiting game at the moment.
Linda told us a story last night about a huntsman
spider. Apparently Ashley was driving the really old car that he inherited
from his father in June, and Brendan was in the back seat. Out of nowhere, Brendan
cried out that the 6 inch huntsman
spider was crawling across his shoulder. Brendan froze, then suddenly flicked
the spider away. Ashley and Brendan then did not know where the spider had got
to, and so there was a bit of panic at 50km/h as they tried to find the hairy
8 eyed arachnid. Then the spider appeared, but this time it was crawling
across Ashley's face, whilst he was driving. The spider tentatively put some
legs up, which went between Ashley's glasses and his face. Ashley was stuck
with a panicking pre-teen in the back, a spider on his face and a beaten up
old car with no airbags traveling in three lanes of traffic - had Ashley brushed
the spider off, he would have also lost his glasses, and had he looked where
the spider was, he would have been in serious trouble.
So, Ashley managed to pull over to the left of the road, to get rid of the spider.
But in this time, the spider had gone somewhere else, and was nowhere to be
seen. So Brendan and Ashley were at the side of the road, with a six legged
hairball the size of an adult's palm taking up residence in the car, and they
were outside in 40° heat. The decision was made that they had to get back
in the car.
Brendan did not want to get back in the car, and the ultimatum was that he either
get back in the car or walk to the Aquatic Centre for the swim. Brendan then
decided to sit in the middle of the back seat, with his arms and legs crossed,
looking around the car like a hawk. The thing with huntsman spiders is that
they are social animals, and they are often found with other huntsmans, where
they hunt together. No more spiders were found before they got to the Aquatic
Centre.
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Today I would normally take Thomas swimming, and Ann would sit on the side and watch. This time, Ann went in the water with Thomas, and I took some photos. It was very different to watch Ann and Thomas splashing in the water, and it was good for Ann to have me there, in preparation for the time when Ann will be alone - when I am at work... Ann said that it was like having a mini-workout, as she felt quite tired after.
Ann has been having headaches and a sore back for several
weeks, and finally she managed to look up her old chiropractor and got an appointment
this afternoon. When Ann returned (having over-estimated the time to get there
and arrived on hour early), she was bubbly and full of life and chatter and
news. It's good to have the old Ann back now. Although she did try and say that
the chiropractor told her not to change any more nappies or lift Thomas - I
am believing it for today, but tomorrow I will forget what I heard.
Ann wants to have a long relaxing bath, but unfortunately, the bathtub in this
house is Thomas-sized. Ann could sit up in it, but not really lie down and relax.
I think when the time comes to buy our own house, we will have to consider the
size of bath.
I am down to my last 10 pints of beer, so I dropped down to
the home-brew shop to buy some more mix and brewing sugar. I wonder what I am
going to do when my mother comes to stay around Christmas - I have been brewing
my beer in the bathroom that she will be using.
Each time I visit the little homebrew shop at the bottom of the hill, I have
a good conversation with the guy who runs the store - maybe he has so few customers
that he craves the company. Or, he could just be Australian and friendly - either
way he always chats to me and Thomas, asking how the last brew went. This time
there were some dodgy looking guys in there buying all the kit needed to brew
and distill their own spirits - they kept on asking how strong it could be.
The brew shop has a reward scheme where you get stamps for each $5 spent, then
when the booklet is full, you get $10 off. I think I will have a full booklet
in the next couple of weeks.
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I had my second interview today with Harris Scarfe. I arrived
very early, so I was reading my book on "Lateral Thinking for Management"
by Edward DeBono to kill some time. When I was called in to the interview, my
prospective boss noticed my book and so had a little discussion about it with
me. The interview went really well, and I was pleased that I had been able to
answer all their questions, and I got good noises and 'excellent' in response
to some of my answers. I was a little worried as I emphasised that everything
that they were saying that they were looking for in a person applied to me -
I think that they might have thought that I was just telling them what they
wanted to hear. I hope they realise that I actually will be a good fit for the
company.
I requested to be shown around, and was pleased to see during the tour that
they have a canteen, a gym, large open spaces and even a barbie (the last friday
of every month, departments take it in turn to put on a barbeque for the company).
Not only does the company offer the best environment that I have seen, they
are also offering the best position that I have seen so far in Adelaide!
Unfortuantely they are also interviewing one other candidate on Friday, so I
don't know what my chances are yet - I just got to hope that it goes my way.
Another weekend of not knowing our future.
Ann and Thomas went to the physio as usual today. Because it was raining, Ann just carried Thomas from the car to the appointment, without putting him in the pushchair. So when it came to snack time, Thomas did not have his usual chair (as it was still in the car). So, Ann just pulled up a child's chair and placed Thomas at the children's table. It is the first time that Thomas has sat in a chair by himself, unrestrained.
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Today would traditionally be a day in England when it rains - because it is usually bonfire night, and everyone is standing outside in a cold muddy field to watch fireworks. Australia does not have a holiday that is celebrated by the average member of the public buying legal explosives, and I don't think it is likely because of the risk of bushfires.
It is raining here too, so we have not done much today. A bit of shopping and a bit of stuff on the computer, but not much.
I got a call at the end of the day to tell me that the job at Harris Scarfe for IT Infrastructure Manager had been given to an internal candidate who only applied for the position today - and was immediately accepted. It is frustrating to know that the last two weeks of interviews and waiting has been for nothing. If only the internal candidate did not have the additional time to think about the role, then they would have given it to me. Still, I have just got to carry on with the search. Not much in the pipeline in the runup to Christmas.
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