Deforestation on a domestic scale

The first phase of our grand renovation plans was always going to involve the careful removal of the mish-mash of trees in our yard. Bluntly encouraged by our respective parents to hurry up and do something, we've booked to have some professionals come in mid January to see to our unproductive mango tree along with an ugly wattle that threatens to sever the telephone line.

In anticipation of an incoming wood chipper, Alsie and I donned woodsman gear and launched a naive assault on the smaller resident flora. Weapons of choice were a pair of long handled snippers and a trusty hand saw on loan from John. While the blade at first glance seemed inadequete for the grand task before us, I've come to understand, as an man of Asian descent, that it's not size that matters, but what you do with it that counts.



Imagine my surprise when we began to slowly decimate the humungous oakish tree next to our verandah, followed by a heavy pruning of the frangipani out back. By the end of the day I could sense the fear in the surrounding plant life as I lifted the remains of my nemesis over my head, roaring in exaltation. They call me the destroyer of trees, annihilator of shrubs, the Arborator!



I don't have the tools or the knowhow to remove the actual stump in the ground, but rest assured that any green branches that try to grow back will soon taste the wrath of my shears. Or teeth if I'm feeling particularly vicious.



Now the way has been cleared down the side of the house and we can finally bask in the sunlight. Actually... it's getting a little hot now. Maybe we should plant some trees there. Hrmm...

Bang Bang Bang Bangalow

Alsie and I had such a great time in Byron last month that we figured we'd take mum back there for a little day trip. Mum and I decided to forego breakfast with the promise of smoking hot German sausages on our arrival, so my tummy was rumbly by the time we pulled into the car park. I ordered a sweet and tender buffalo sausage covered in sauerkraut, onions and wrapped in fluffy soft panini. Seems like mum really enjoyed her Bratwurst.



The three of us had a great time browsing the stalls until the heavens opened up. Our dinky little umbrellas weren't much help and before long my shoes were absolutely soaked. That did however give me a perfect excuse to get out of my soggy Campers to pick up a cheap pair of Crocs thongs, sadly my only purchase for the day.



Retreating from market drenching, we proceeded slowly into Byron itself to have a light lunch at the Beach Cafe. Tempted by the fusion choice on the menu, I ordered a spicy crust Atlantic salmon on a bed of soba noodles, rocket and cherry tomatoes dressed with soya sauce.



The sky looked pretty threatening once again after lunch so we blitzed by the lighthouse and hit the road once again back to Brisbane. Driving up the Pacific Motorway in a torrential downpour was nerve wrecking to say the least. It turned out to be a pretty uncomfortable three hour trip back home in the end but at least we had a fun time trying to keep dry in NSW.

Merry Christmas

Another Toowoomba Christmas has come and gone, though this one was particularly special as mum got to share it with us this year. I think she did remarkably well to remember names as the avalanche (har har) of Snows descended on us Christmas Eve. The evening proceeded in typical fashion with Peter taking on Santa duties, a belt busting feast and an involuntary choir recital of the 12 days of Christmas. It's what we do every year but I wouldn't have it any other way.



James and Dora were sorely missed this year at the long table, as they're currently busy galavanting around Spain. With the wonders of technology (and a recent purchase for John) we managed to catch up with the two of them in their Barcelona hotel room virtually through Skype. Peter was predictably impressed by the whole concept of video conferencing.

Presents for us this year had a decidedly domestic slant which was absolutely brilliant. I'm now the proud owner of a full complement of BBQ utensils along with a book of outdoor recipes to inspire me once we fork out for a new barby. Alison I've never seen so excited as she ripped open her bottle spray of weed killer that will come in useful in our battle with the front lawn.



I'm pleased to say that we've made some great steps to tech up the house in Toowoomba. John has inherited my old Netgear wireless router and we braved the raging mob at Harvey Norman on boxing day to pick up a webcam for Sheena's computer along with a set top box. I tried to convince them to just get a PVR but that's going to have to be a fight for another day. At least Sheenie has access to ABC2 now.

Alsie and I won't have to return to the stress of working life till early January so we intend to spend the rest of our break showing mum a little more of our corner of Australia. The first trip should kick off tomorrow with a leisurely drive down to the Bangalow markets. Ah, I love holidays.

Team Dinner

Had a chance to take the team out to dinner this week, both as a thank you for all the great work they've put in on the project and to finally meet the everyone's partners. I'd booked a table for twelve at Arrivederci with the promise of huge meter long pizzas. Of course some people on the team didn't heed my warning of large servings so we ended up with quite a few left overs.



The restaurant wasn't as busy as I thought it was going to be, especially in Christmas Party season. I'd actually found the pizzas to be overly cheesy and salty in the past but our order that night turned out to be really light and tasty. A good thing given the meters of Italian goodness that stretched the length of our table.

Alison wasn't feeling too well so we didn't press on especially late, but we had a great time chatting and chowing down. It was nice to see the full complement of our work family at dinner and I hope to do this again. Think I'm pretty darn lucky to have such a great bunch to work with.

Circus of the Sun

Ann and Sanj had invited us to see Cirque du Soleil in Brisbane a while back and last night we finally got a chance to see what all the fuss was all about. To be perfectly honest, I didn't really have high hopes for the performance. I enjoy a display of acrobatics as much as the next person, but every time I'd seen Cirque on TV it didn't seem all that special. When I read the premise for Dralion I was even less impressed, expecting an over produced, "kwai-lo" take on traditional lion dance and Chinese performing arts.



The night itself didn't start off brilliantly as we were battered by heavy rain on the walk from the car park to the big top. Thanks to clever forward planning by the girls we had brollies to shield us from the elements. Other patrons weren't quite as prepared and we took a sadistic pleasure in pointing out drenched bogans in tasteless frocks.

Finally getting to our seats in our sad soggy state, things surprisingly began to improve. Two clowns did a brilliant job of keeping the crowd entertained while we waited for the main show to start. Soon enough the lights dimmed and we were treated to an explosion of colour, action and music that didn't let up for the next two hours. The choreography was unbelievably clever, making great use of trap doors in the stage and a hidden compartment above the tent as well as sensational props. Granted the acts still had obvious origins and influence, but the total package injected so much originality and beauty that the final result was an absolute joy for the audience to behold. Solo acts were breath taking, costumes were stunning, music was moving and... I seem to be out of superlatives.

Didn't think I'd be a fan but both Alison and I are happy converts, eagerly looking forward to the next show that graces Brisbane. The videos on TV don't do the show justice at all, but have a peek at the promo video to get an idea of the spectacle we were treated to last night.

Tree with lights

We never found space to put up the Christmas tree in our previous unit in Annerley. At least that's our lame excuse and we're sticking to it. In fact, the last time we put up the big tree was when mum was out last time. How appropriate that we waited till her next Australian Christmas to break out the fairy lights again.



Now that we have a real house with space we'll try not to wait three years before decorating again.

Packed week

Yowzas, it's been a long week filled with stuff. To celebrate our recent good news, as well as some special time before the incoming mother, we booked a night at a small room in Byron. It was a really nice spot, close enough to the beach but far enough out of the action that we weren't bothered by booze fests. A particularly good thing given that we'd failed to realise that it was schoolies week.

Of course a trip away for us wouldn't be complete without the odd culinary discovery. We've been dying to try out this little English cafe, Marmalade Deli, that's just down the road from us. Breakfast prior to the drive down to NSW offered the perfect opportunity, and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Aside from a lovely plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and maple syrup dressed over hot waffles, I treated myself to some snacks from the old country I'd been missing. Great to know that I no longer have to go to Sydney to get my Monster Munch fix.



At Byron I ignored my mild crustacean allergy and indulged in a whopping plate of seafood. I suffered a minor sore throat but somehow managed to survive without an adrenaline shot to the heart.



Even after that feast we choked down a little platter of delights from l'Ultime Patisserie. That succulent piece of chocolate cake was divine.



Mum flew out on Tuesday night so Alsie and I took Wednesday off to show her around the new area. She's since been busy feeding us gut busting quantities of yummy food and sketching up a pile of drawings to capture our renovation ideas. We've had to reign her in on her more eccentric bias towards water features but overall the plans look very exciting.

It unfortunately didn't take me very long to destroy the mower that Peter had lovingly restored for us. On the second trip into the yard I managed to lose a wheel, drop a bolt into the spinning blades and finally cause the engine to die unceremoniously. We were mower-less despite receiving a letter from granddad, with misplaced faith in my proficiency with fuel injected machinery, containing explicit instructions on how to diagnose the problem. John, in his great generosity and obvious discomfort at the thought of an unkempt lawn, bought himself a new lawn mower only to hand down his old model to us.

Dad's old Honda has "Easy Start" plastered on the side of the motor and thankfully the claim appears to be genuine. Increased robustness combined with a walker function meant that I trimmed our front yard in record time. Great thing too as the recent storms had encouraged the local weeds to take to ground with gay abandon.

Inspired by a neat yard, the three of us visited the Rocklea markets on the weekend for the first time in search of fresh veg and cheap plant life. Our inaugural gardening project was to clean out the plant box under our front windows to resit the resident yuccas and introduce a mature cordalyne to the mix. Cheap river stones from Bunnings scattered haphazardly over the soil completed the look. Not bad for landscaping novices.



Our green thumbs weren't satisfied even then. Soldiering on we demolished the lemon grass infestation at the side of our house and replanted a few tamed stalks in a new pot. Barbara came by for a visit as well and brought a pot full of cute unidentified succulents which we transplanted in the hope of cultivating new growth. Apparently they're prolific little buggers.

Looking forward to another week of fun in the lead up to Christmas holidays.

Ready to rock!

Our collection of fake plastic instruments has exploded recently on account of the release of two big games I've been waiting for. The first is Rock Band which has finally reached our shores after being released in America over a year ago, even spawning a sequel which we won't see down under till next year most likely (grr). The second game was Guitar Hero 4: World Tour, the next progression in the series which introduces some interesting new additions.

I remember saying the first time I saw Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania connected in an arcade that a full band music game would be absolutely brilliant. Rock Band came out last year and aimed to give us exactly that experience. Assuming you get the full pack and an extra guitar, you and three friends can make up a band complement of vocalist, guitarist, bassist and drummer. Of course the game can be played solo using any of the instruments but it really shines when playing through a song that everyone knows and loves. *cough* Living on a Prayer perhaps.

Not wanting to lose out to their music game rivals, the developers behind Guitar Hero decided to follow in Rock Band's foot steps and released a full band experience with their latest offering as well. After much consideration I decided I absolutely needed both games to provide the largest set list possible. I'd picked up Rock Band and a guitar last week, followed that up with the Rock Band drums for the weekend and finally received my pre-ordered full instrument pack of Guitar Hero 4, with yet another set of drums, a second guitar and a karaoke like microphone.

Now fully equipped we just needed two friends to rock out with so Kath and Andrew were happy to oblige (even though they were supposed to be packing for a very exciting trip to Europe on Monday). It's amazing how much fun the games are even though our fingers and throats are now fairly sore from the long play session. The biggest surprise was how fun the singing turned out to be as the general consensus initially was it would be too embarrassing to have a good time. Thankfully the microphone volume is configurable so the vocalist can hide behind the audio of the original artist need not feel quite so self conscious (unless they try to free style eh Kath?).



While I enjoy both games, I can't help but feel that Rock Band is a slightly better package overall. Once Rock Band 2 comes out to bring the full set list close to 200 songs (replacing quite a few offerings from Guitar Hero 4 in fact) I'd say that will be the party game of choice. It's nice to have options though.

New Leadership

It was announced today at work that our team has a new team leader. Sparkey, our old TL, left the company under unfortunate circumstances which was a shame because he was a good guy. The new chap they've decided to appoint seems a little suspicious to me. He's always jabbering on about gadgets and stuff he wants to buy regardless of how you roll your eyes and try to ignore him. I'm not usually one to judge a book by its cover but just look at him...



The project's in dire straights now. Hope the rest of the team can prevent him from doing too much damage.

Green lawns

We've been so busy setting up the house and enjoying it that we haven't had the time to put up photos. Still haven't got anything to put up really but we did have a little excitement in the yard today when John and Sheena brought down a hand-me-down lawn mower for us to use. Probably a good thing too as the front yard had turned into a thriving ecosystem of weeds and wild grass.



The first attempts at starting the mower were comically concerning, though I knew that Peter must have done a bang up job of getting the old girl running for us. After the toxic cloud had cleared we were on our way with a quick lesson in lawn maintenance from John. It's a lot harder than it looks I must say, my early patches look more like crop circles than rolled cricket pitch.

We spent most of the morning weeding and pottering around the garden getting to know the new tools, which also included a whipper-snipper. Didn't get much of a chance to try out the new couch we've received courtesy of James and Dora though we'll get to show mum and dad a little more hospitality next week when they come down for the night.



The lounge room now has the temporary camping chairs removed and is shaping up nicely. Things are slowly coming together on the renovation front too with our fly screens hopefully coming in next week. We ordered some retractables from here which should finally keep those crazy bugs out of our house.

Moved In

After a long weekend of heavy lifting, uncoordinated unpacking and anarchic assembly I think we can finally say that we've officially moved into our new home. Most of the big jobs have been done and all that's left is to put away the mountain of books, games and office items that now clutter the floors of our bedrooms. Oddly enough this seemed like an easier move than our last one, even though we've managed to accumulate a staggering collection of 'stuff' over the last two years.

I was supposed to have conveniently avoided the whole relocation effort for most of the weekend as Flight Centre had a conference on at the Gold Coast on Friday and Saturday. As luck would have it, the mild flu that I've been incubating over the past few weeks finally decided to rear it's ugly head midweek so I've missed my free night of inebreation. Not one to sit idly by and let Alison do the work, I off course tried to help move carloads over when I probably should have been in bed whining for chicken soup. As a result I'm still feeling pretty rotten today but thankfully already had the day booked off in advanced to recover from the weekend. On the plus side though, I think we've gotten set up here far ahead of schedule which is great. Alsie has the luxury of the next full week off work (lucky thing) so she can take her time putting away and cleaning the rest of the house.

The usual moving pain of going without a proper Internet connection will plague us for a couple of weeks. I've thankfully got limited connectivity with the phone this time but as much as I like the iPhone keyboard, this wasn't made for long posts. Putting photos up of the new house will of course have to wait as well. Darn shame that Apple don't let you tether this device.

The other delivery that we've been hanging out for was the super new bed that we ordered right back when we first signed the contract for this place. Alison's old IKEA bed just felt a little sad and we'd moved away from my single futon pretty early on in the relationship so this was going to be our first proper bed. It's a luxurious queen sized ensemble with a visco-elastic mattress and let me tell you that my spine is singing sweet tears of joy now. Worth every penny.

We borrowed John's 4WD for the week to help with the move so mum and dad came down in our car on Saturday to swap and see the place in its cluttered glory. We got flowers, biscuits and some surprise visitors when Mary and Peter rolled out of the car too. It was great having our first guests over and comforting to see that we finally have a home that can handle more than four people comfortably.

As for the house itself, we're absolutely loving it. Kinda scary how much space we have now and that huge expanse of garden is sitting there awaiting our attention. Only major mishap so far has involved a leaky hot water tap in the laundry which is no big deal. Our first job for the place is to get some retractable fly screens in and we have someone giving us a quote this morning. First of many improvements that we're looking forward to.

Got the keys!

Seems like it's taken forever but we finally got the keys to our first 'house' today. Fueled by excitement and general apathy for work, Alison and I rushed home only to race out again with a car packed with the inaugural load of assorted boxes to meet the real estate agent at our new property.

After handing us the keys and a generous bottle of Moet, our real estate agent kindly offered to take a photo of us in front of our new home. An act which sadly proved to be worthless when we discovered that the camera lens was obscured by a chubby digit. Photographic duties fell unto me once again though I'm afraid all I had handy was my phone. Substandard tools aside, I think the jacaranda in our backyard tops the roof line nicely.



The weather today was an unpleasant reminder that summer isn't far away, so the house felt pretty oven-like until we opened up half a dozen windows. With ventilation and the help of an evening breeze the place soon cooled down and we went on our merry way unpacking the boot. Following mum's advice and continuing a little cultural tradition, we brought a cup of rice, salt and boiled water in the new kitchen. The place obviously doesn't quite feel like home yet but we're seeing lots of potential.

Will have to do a lot more cleaning tomorrow and another car load. Still can't believe we actually have a garden!

New laptop for the family

John's been talking for some time now about getting a laptop for work. We've been keeping an eye out for reasonably priced laptops that would suit his needs but nothing has really stood out as price worthy. Most of the sub-grand lappies were all criminally ugly and horribly ill equipped to handle the ubiquitous plague of Windows Vista.

Finally managed to hit pay-dirt this weekend on an impromptu trip into Harvey Norman while we were out doing odd jobs. A Compaq Presario was on offer with enough grunt to run reasonably and wouldn't scare away the aesthetically sensitive. In fact, at $950 it even outspecs Gemini in some areas, and I paid considerably more than that a little over two years ago. Ah, the life of a technology enthusiast.

Fueled by the excitement of our purchase, we invited ourselves over to John and Sheena's for the night on Saturday so that I could set the new machine up and give John a quick walk through with his new machine.



John was suitably impressed by the electronics disclaimer, in four languages to boot.

I spent most of the afternoon, and probably half of mum and dad's download quota, setting up the machine. It's disgusting how much trash HP and Microsoft have installed by default, most of which are obviously trial versions that are meant to entice further purchases. Being the cheapskate that I am, I promptly removed these to install FOSS equivalents. Well... maybe just free...

• Open Office
• Picasa
• Skype
• AVG Antivirus
• Chrome

Alison and I then subjected John, who was very patient, to a basic but thorough tutorial in computer use. I think he did very well and I'm sure he'll be making good use of the computer in no time. Might need to find a free typing tutor for him to speed up his chicken pecking though. :)

Head Boppin'

As a change to our usual lethargic Saturday evenings, Alison and I caught a train into Brunswick Street to check out the Valley Fiesta. We'd haven't bothered going in previous years as most of the bands playing weren't familiar to us... not entirely surprising when you consider our music tastes. This year however Charlie's band (The Boat People) were playing a set at a respectable time (6:00) for early retirees so we figured we'd best turn up to mosh.



Krit and Charlie also just had some pretty exciting news to share. He'd popped "the question" on stage in their last gig, which we unfortunately missed because we're losers. Thankfully someone was recording the event for posterity.



I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't really listened to their music before. They don't have wailing female lead singers but I still found myself enjoying it. Bought a couple of tracks off iTunes to help support the boys. Quirky and fun!

Music

Seems like I'm in a bit of an experimental mood. Just signed up for a last.fm account to try to expand my musical horizon as I seem to be listening to the same four albums again and again. I'd read about Pandora before and found the concept of a "music genome project" a fascinating one. If it works right you should be able to submit artists you like and the service will make new recommendations based on your selections.

Due to stupid licensing issues we can't use Pandora here in Australia, or anywhere else outside the US it seems. Thankfully last.fm seems to be free of this rubbish. Played around with it a little and uploaded my listening history to my account and resulting recommendations have been promising.

I especially like how you can plug an artist in and have a custom radio station of similar music created just for you. It works pretty well for the more common western artists but I must say that the recommendations I received for "Hitomi Yaida" weren't all that impressive. Seemed like they just chucked in every J-Pop band they could think of in there. Symptom of a limited Japanese music library perhaps.

Even so I've gotten quite a few new names to look up (excuse my teenage girl like taste in music)

• Sarah Blasko
• Rachael Yamagata
• Aimee Mann
• Charlotte Martin

As with my other recent web 2.0 take up, I've added a little gadget to the Rabbit on the right side so that the Internet can snigger at my song choices in unison. Enjoy.

Unconditional

The day we've been waiting for has finally arrived. Alison got a call late in the day to inform us that the contract of sale on our unit has just gone unconditional. For people outside Australia this basically means that the buyers have no option to back out now, and come settlement date on the 13th of October will be legally bound to fork over the cash to us... I mean the bank.

We'd been hearing pretty positive noises from all parties involved through the two week period post contract, but you just never know in this market. There have been far too many stories floating around of contracts falling through on the last minute due to dodgy finance or a change of heart. Thankfully the news has been saturated with predictions of upcoming interest rate drops so the property market has been rather upbeat as a result.

To celebrate Alison and I had wanted to check out Blue Smoke, a saliva inducing restaurant in New Farm that Dan had told us about. Much to our dismay we discovered that the place was not open on Monday, so we settled for a night of Turkish cuisine at Ahmets instead.



We'll probably leave Blue Smoke for another dinner this week. Satiated by an overflowing meat platter and the smokey aftertaste of baba ganoush, I think it's time to enjoy a night of sleep free of property related stress. At least until we have to start thinking about moving...

Reshaping the Rabbit

Hunted high and low for a decent alternative to the official Twitter badge, which in my opinion is a little bland. I could probably have come up with something that stood out a little more with some CSS hackery but I'm not sure if I could have really made it any more prominent sitting all the way on the side.

In the hope that I'll be using Twitter more, I've made the bold move of placing my Twitter updates above the blog posts here. Given that they're really just small blog posts anyway I figured that would make sense. Any thoughts people?

I'll just have to remove it if the Twitter phase passes...

Duck and Cover

That's what I get for trying to foster an active lifestyle. Figured we'd cap off a sedentary day of (in my case) iPhone fiddling with a nice stroll around the neighborhood to get some fresh air and exercise. Ended up getting sniped in the back of the head by a demonic magpie in the park for my trouble.

Thankfully we managed to execute a tactical retreat from the military hand book of "Hand flailing and feminine squealing". Got a little bit of blood from my combat wound but I shrugged it off with barely a whimper.

I'd always met Alison's ornithophobia with a hint of amusement but now I can empathise. On the bright side, I got a legitimate excuse to Tweet about something with my iPhone out in the wild. Yes, the irony of tweeting about a bird attack was not lost on me...

iCaved

I've been joking a fair bit lately about heading out to pick up an iPhone but honestly never thought I'd actually do it. Rationally I figured I'd wait till the rumoured iPod refresh on the 9th of September to see what new toys would roll out of the lust factory in Cupertino... but impulse once again got the better of me.



We drove out to Carindale this morning to pick up a yummy white 16GB iPhone on the lowest Optus plan possible. It only gives me an anorexic 100MB per month but I'm hoping that I won't be using that much data to check email, a little surfing and using my iPhone apps. Alison forced me to pinky swear that I wouldn't be looking to upgrade my phone in the next 24 months for the duration of the contract...

So far it's been an absolutely gorgeous experience. Browsing with Safari is far better than anything I've tried with a PDA (and yes that's including using Opera Mini on Windows Mobile). The interface is responsive, good looking and most importantly makes sense for a hand held device (that means no freaking start menu Microsoft).

Apps that I've downloaded so far have been pretty impressive too. Twinkle has been an obvious stand out given my recent foray into the world of Twitter. Evernote of course is great which I've talked about before too. Then there's the mobile version of Net News Wire which even syncs with my News Gator account. NICE!

Downsides so far have been the usual smudging that seems to be prevalent with any Apple product these days (the white helps a little), though in truth the screen gets just as smudgy on my HTC Touch. The 16 gig may also feel somewhat claustrophobic as my culled 9 gig music collection takes up a fair bit of my space. Certainly glad that I didn't go for the 8 gig version.

Overall though it's pretty much what I expected. Chalk up one more happy Apple whore.

Tweet Tweet

I thought I'd never jump on this Web 2.0 bandwagon but I guess I've been wrong about things like this before. Looking to try something new, I've signed up for a Twitter account and finished setting things up so that my diminutive musings propagate through all corners of my online presence. If you cast your eyes over to the right you'll notice that a new gadget has been added to The Rabbit, perhaps distastefully titled "Skin the Bunny" in light of the short nature of Tweets.

So what is this thing? Twitter's basically a form of micro-blogging crossed with some social networking. The idea is that there are things that happen in life which don't warrant a full blog post or an email but may provide a passing interest to other people in your life. Trying an interesting recipe, reading a good book, going shopping for an iPhone (I wish)... essentially anything that would normally come up in small talk. Rather than catching up and asking all the usual questions you can just check your mate's Twitter feed and do away with inconsequential chit chat. Don't you love it when technology brings people closer? :)

I jest of course. Here's an entertaining youtube video which does a reasonable job of explaining the attraction of Twitter. For me, it's really a handy way to do a little blogging on the move through my phone or when I don't feel like typing out a full blog post. I'm sure that a better man would just leave his private life off the internet rather than contributing to the build up of shite content in cyberspace... but I'm such a geeky exhibitionist that I just can't help myself.

I've been told that you get to find out a lot more about your friends and family through this disconnected voyeurism which could certainly be interesting... if any of my friends or family actually used the darn thing. Expect the usual torrent of inane blah-blah until the novelty wears off for me. I'll try my very best not to keep things out of the gutter...

There's a sticker!

We had what we hope to be the last open house for the unit today. Only people that came through were the buyers and some real estate agents that were dragged along to give a rental appraisal. Building and Pest inspection was done yesterday and went off without a hitch apparently. In fact, our agent is so confident she's actually put a (somewhat tentatively phrased) "SOLD" sticker on the sign at the front.



Probably more for her benefit really but I must say it's a bit of a high to see that we're pretty much home and hosed. Just another week until the contract goes unconditional.

Braeburn just got a boost

Thought I'd use what little luxury money I had lying around to give myself a little treat and picked up some RAM for the MacBook. I've been toying around with XCode lately and have noticed Braeburn chugging along with all my normal apps open at the same time. Worse yet, if I don't close some of them down things just slow to a crawl when running Parallels for the odd Windows program that I still need to use.

Grabbed four gig of "Mac compatible" memory from UMart and have noticed an improvement in responsiveness already. Even now I've got pretty much everything I'd ever want open and my little Mac is handling it with nary a Page Out.



Ahhh... look at all that free space. Yes, Quicksilver is a memory hog but I just can't live without it anymore.

Speaking of apps that I can't do without, I've recently developed an unhealthy attachment to a nifty note taking program called Evernote. I started using it at work to take notes for jobs and processes but have since been using it at home and on the move for everything from receipts to project ideas for the new house. It has great support for tags and searching (it even searches for text inside photos!) which means that your notes are easily recalled when you need them.

The brilliant thing about the app is that it's cross platform and (get this) it syncs your notes between your computers! If installing an application on a computer isn't possible then there's also a web client available, though it's obviously not as responsive as a local installation. You do have to create an Evernote account to sync but this is a painless process and it's ABSOLUTELY FREE if you only need to sync 40MB worth of notes a month. They even have an iPhone version which would provide you with access to your notes regardless of wherever you are. Shame I don't have an iPhone yet... *grumble*

My "art" spreads to the iPhone

For a change, here's something that's not house related. I was asked a while back to contribute one of my food snaps to Schmap, an online guide that wanted something that represented Chinese New Year in Brisbane. Apparently they've just jumped on the Apple bandwagon and released a new iPhone application to view their guide online, and were kind enough to send me a link to see what it looks like.

Pretty nifty... now if only I had an iPhone to check it out for real. ;)

Going once, going twice... SOLD!

Things were bleak earlier on in the week. We got our first offer on Monday with a figure which was almost insulting, but at least it was something down on paper. The rest of the week was a gruelling back and forth between us and the potential buyers as we rejected each minute increase on their offer price, which even by the end was still close to 20,000 below what the unit was listed for.

With no firm contract, Saturday morning was once again filled with frantic cleaning for our third open house. We fully expected to have no one through on the day due to a major internet mix up but somehow four groups managed to find their way over to inspect the unit. A reasonable amount of interest but by then we were past getting excited with visits without offers.

John and Sheena were down for the weekend for a few errands today so we planned on heading out to dinner at the Blackforest Cafe, Brisbane's home of authentic German fare. We were looking forward to a nice quiet dinner out to take our minds off selling the unit, so imagine our surprise when the real estate agent called to say that another buyer was on the way into the office to put an offer in.

Dinner conversation obviously skirted around what the offer would be as we were expecting to see the agent after our meal, but we all tried to steer the discussion towards less stress-inducing topics. Most of the evening was just spent enjoying the ridiculously large portions we got served in between belting our folk songs with the resident musician.



Alison was sober enough to capture a touching moment on her camera phone.

Upon returning home and suffering a short wait, we finally received the agent who was obviously having a late night of work (Alison's plan to enter Real Estate one day have thoroughly vanished). The offer from the new buyers was a good one... but still not quite at a level where we would have been comfortable. Biting the bullet, we stood our ground and proposed a modest counter offer for the agent to bring back immediately... except the buyers weren't answering their phone at that time of night. *argh*

This morning we woke up and shambled around all day, fully resigned to the fact that in all likelihood we wouldn't be getting any closure till sometime on Monday. Then out of the blue we got a call to say that... after much deliberation... the buyers accepted our counter offer!

We now have a signed contract for the sale of our first property. Still not out of the woods yet obviously as it's still going to be 14 days till finance, building and pest inspections are done and the offer goes unconditional. For that reason we still have an ad in the paper and will be having (hopefully) our last open house this Saturday.

All in all though we're very happy with the result. It's a huge weight lifted off our shoulders which will put us in a great position to jump for joy in a fortnight when things are set in stone.

Still going...

Nothing came out of the open house last week but we had another one yesterday and nine groups of people came through to see the place. More inspections coming out of it lined up for the week and hopefully we're getting closer to a buyer putting something down on paper.

In the mean time we're trying to occupy ourselves with fun activities. We were treated to a lovely dinner at Kath and Andrew's while marvelling at the obscene amount of money that was spent on the Chinese Olympic opening ceremony, which was admittedly impressive. Saturday night had us chalking another mark on the social score board as we had a scrumptious evening BBQ at the Ko's place around the corner.

Emotionally recharged. Just got to pace ourselves as this selling game is likely to be an endurance race across the rocky Australian real estate landscape.

Promising start, still a ways to go

Not too much concrete news to report. About six groups of people came through today at the open house and we have three potentials that are expressing their interest. Still early days yet and nothing's certain but overall it's looking upbeat. Will post more as things progress. Very exciting!

Paper and Signs

Anxiety levels slowly rising but somehow things have actually gotten off to a good start. Real estate agent called today to say that we've had three enquiries for the internet ad already and has arranged to get two buyers through tomorrow at 12. Hopefully just a small taste of the interest we'll see at the open house!



Ad spot in the local paper looks snazzy, though I did try to get her to change that darn ampersand... no one listens anymore. Sign has been put up in front of the house too so we'll be paying attention to any slow drive-bys.

Two more sleeps!

For Sale!

And here's the first drip in what will be a torrent of advertising that's been organised for the sale of our adorable abode. The first ad on realestate.com went up this afternoon, after a few minor technical difficulties (details which will be revealed in an upcoming list of the joys of selling property). The photographer has done a pretty nice job of capturing the funkiness of the unit and I'm glad that there are a heap of photos up for potential buyers to see. There's nothing I hate more than a real estate listing with hardly any photos.

Photos have also been added to Picasa for posterity. We feel like we're living in a display home right now.



The two things I'd probably have changed were the wedding photos in the bedroom (I think it makes it hard for someone to imagine living in a room with photos of another happy couple on the wall) and the dodgy pendant light in the kitchen (that doesn't work). Both things that I mentioned but were promptly ignored by the real estate agent... grr...

Three more sleeps till the open house. Yay!

Before shot

Here I thought we were busy when trying to buy a house. Freaking hell, we looked bloody catatonic compared to how flat out we've been over the past few days. De-cluttering and cleaning and polishing and scrubbing and filing and packing and hiding and... gwargh!!!

We took some photos on Friday prior to a weekend covered in elbow grease. It was kind of hard getting nice shots at night and it certainly helps me appreciate how hard it is to take a great photo for real estate.



The photographer came by today to the house to take the real photos. Caught an early preview of the shots and I must say (though I'm probably biased) they really do pop. Certainly made spending all weekend with a duster and sponge in hand worth it. Hopefully the ad will be up on realestate.com towards the end of the week. Sign board, letter drops and news paper bits should be following soon after, capped off by the first open house on Saturday. The weather better be nice and sunny.

As for the other end of this whole move, our offer on the house in Oxley went unconditional last week. Past the point of no return!

Greek Ball and De-cluttering

Got a chance to scrub up on Friday for the Flight Centre ball at the Greek Club. Alison left me going stag this year, which was a shame because against all odds it turned out to be a pretty entertaining night. There were a few uncomfortably corny double entendres bandied about by the MCs, though the audience was more than forgiving when the booze started flowing. The food was passable but made sweeter by the pleasant company. It was a great chance to meet everyone's better halves.



Also got a chance to catch up with Don for the first time in months since he left the other company. Thankfully he turned up to this function sans seashell bikini. Was nice to see how he and Lauren have been doing.

I'd like to think that I held up my own on the bottle count, coming in at five beers and a glass of champers by midnight. Safe to say I was feeling a little seedy the next day driving up to Toowoomba. We've been going non stop all weekend clearing out the unit in preparation for house inspections coming up. We also rearranged some of the furniture in the living room to allow us to have the dinner table extended all the time and provide more space.



It's actually a really nice set up, though now we have a DVD cabinet sitting in the middle of the second bedroom. A job for next weekend when John and Sheena help us move more junk with the big car.

Hell hath frozen over

Goes to show how much I've been neglecting my blog reading lately due to house hunting duties. I even managed to miss this predictable but no less orgasmic announcement. Now I just have to hope that my little MacBook can handle it along with Star Craft 2 and Spore.

Oh, we also heard today that the owners have signed the contract on the house so it's full steam ahead. Building and pest inspections have been booked in for Thursday.

Store experience and new homes

Everyone at Flight Centre, regardless of position or department, is obligated to spend one day out at a retail store to see how the travel consultants do it tough. An exercise appropriately entitled "A Day in the Life of a Consultant", the intention is to acquire a deeper understanding of the trials and tribulations that our front line staff have to face on a daily basis. My turn finally came up on Friday and I got to spend a lovely day in Flight Centre West End over hearing the globe trotting travel plans of overtly wealthy new-age socialites.

Sad to say, I didn't actually get to do any work out at the store so I won't be funding my next overseas trip with hard earned commission. Not that I'd ever want to shift career paths to take up travel consultancy, glamorous as that may initially seem. All the staff were in the shop from 7:30 in the morning and would be plodding on till past 9:00 in the evening, with a measly fifteen minute lunch break in between so the work hours definitely don't appeal.

One surprise on the day was discovering that one of the travel consultants in the store was the same lovely girl that booked mum's train trip around Australia over two years ago. She remembered me when I mentioned how we had to buy her a box of chocolates as a thank you for skipping lunch just to plan mum's itinerary. What a small world.

In other news, I've been too busy lately to really post anything of consequence. Most of our online time as of late has been spent on real estate websites looking for a larger home that will last us further down family planning track. As the more astute amongst you may have gathered, we think we might have found the place. I'm hoping to avoid gun jumping of any sort so I'll announce this with a small dose of reservation, but we've signed a contract on what we hope to be a happy abode for years to come.

The contract hasn't actually been counter signed by the owners but we've received verbal agreement on the conditions so we're fairly confident in moving to the next step. Of course the normal obstacles of building inspections, finance and the rest still remain but in truth it's the new addition to our worries that looms menacingly on the horizon. Of course I'm talking about the sale of our current unit, which will certainly introduce us to a whole new level of stress for us to enjoy. I've always been one for new experiences...

Saying all that, this hasn't stopped us from putting a deposit down for a new bed and planning all the improvements we'd like to do to the place. The house is a little older in build but we think it's certainly cute and in good condition. Over time we hope to build a patio/deck out the back and a couple of little extensions but time will tell. For now we're just excited at the prospect of owning land and have been watching Gardening Australia with new interest.

If all goes well we should be settling on the first week of September, actually October. Now we just need to find someone to buy our unit... any takers?

Year of paper

Alison and I have never been ones to pass on an opportunity to celebrate a special occasion. We've copped more than a few knowing looks and sceptical eyebrow gymnastics when confessing our tradition of monthly "going out anniversaries", yearly "going out anniversaries" and engagement "anniversaries" (which coincidentally happens to be Alison's birthday). So far we've been keeping up with all of this (56 months thank you very much), but this weekend we managed to celebrate the real deal. Seems like it wasn't that long ago that we made an appointment to meet at the end of the aisle, but the calendar is quite unambiguous about how much time has passed.

We marked our first wedding anniversary at the Byron at Byron resort... err... at Byron. Our accommodation during our last stay in the area was somewhat secluded and minimal so we thought this trip would be a perfect chance to luxuriate.

The rooms were more than comfortable with plenty of creature comforts, certainly more than enough for the two of us. One shouldn't be surprised by the excess of electronics available given that the owner of the resort is none other than Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman fame.



Dinner on Saturday was a lovely affair which began with half a dozen oysters accompanied by a particularly potent batch of pickled ginger slices. I then dug into a two succulent fillets of beef over a mozzella and potato cake, while Alison was satiated by an impressive cut of Bangalow pork. Alison was wearing the blue ring I gave her at Tin Dog which was for our third "Get Together" anniversary. I figured a wedding anniversary really needed something new to commemorate, which I just so happen to have in my camera bag under the table. I think she likes it. It's the last thing I'll ever get to buy from Michael Hill Jeweller at an attractive price.



We skipped dessert at the restaurant in favour of a special bit of cake that's been saved for the past twelve months. The alcohol was a little stronger but the taste certainly had not suffered in cold storage. The cake was so indulgent that we only managed to choke down a few slices, but every bite reminded us of a rolling fun day we had last June.



Sunday morning was kicked off at a languid pace when we eventually emerged to enjoy our buffet breakfast. The rest of the day was spent lazing around the infinity pool and sweating it out in the sauna. In a solitary spurt of adventurism, we trekked our way to Tallow Beach to observe the waves. It didn't take long for us to then retreat back to the resort and continue our course of relaxation together.



Paper down, on to Cotton next year.

First week

Whoa, that was a busy week. I'd forgotten how tiring it can be to have to actively listen and learn all day rather than switching on cruise control at work. So far I'm really enjoying the work and meeting people, though I must say that I'm glad I have a long weekend to recuperate before starting again on Tuesday.

Highlights of the week:

• All developers have dual monitors and desktops
• Being able to head out into the city to pick up some sushi and a chocolate eclair at lunch
• Weekly discussions on development practices with the team; kicking off with a forum on Test Driven Development and Object Oriented class design
• Actually having a wiki filled with documentation to read and contribute to
• Friday drinks followed by table tennis

The team was pretty busy most of the week so I haven't had a chance to really get my hands dirty, though I've poked around in the code where I could. If anything it seems to be the anti Michael Hill as the main container is based in COM but all new modules are written in dotNet and interopped.

At least I've managed to memorise all the members in the MAD team (Maintenance and Development). There are ten of us in total which makes us one of the biggest in a group of four development teams (most of the others have about 8 developers each). Typically, just as I'm finding my feet we get hit with the announcement at the end of the week that our team is about to be split into two smaller teams. Sheesh.

Still early days yet but I'm certainly enjoying the new challenge. I feel like I have quite a bit to learn from the people here.

Temporarily unemployed

After a month of handover and arthritic thumb twiddling, my three year long period of employment at Michael Hill Jeweller finally came to a bittersweet end on Friday. A large proportion of the saccharine contribution would most definitely have been due to the fresh brownies baked by Felicity as my parting gift. It fills me with great sadness to think that I'll never be able to sample these chewy morsels again.



The rest of the day was filled with glorious gastronomic celebration, as is befitting the farewell of the Glutton of IT. An extended lunch at Liquorish, an unapologetic-ally upmarket restaurant and tapas bar in Bulimba, soon crippled the entertainment budget to feed a ravenous horde of merry-makers. While it was difficult to choose from the luxurious menu, I soon settled on the roast duck, accompanied by creamy mash potatoes atop a black truffle jus, braised cabbage and courted by a pert slice of shiraz baked pear. Suffice to say I was certainly not disappointed.

To round up a beautiful mains, we were left with little choice but to order dessert. I indulged in lemon creme brulee with black glutinous rice and roasted coconut ice-cream. Oh the extravagance!



As if this feast weren't thanks enough for my service with the company, I was eventually presented with a lovely dress watch. I haven't had much Michael Hill branded bling to wear so this was a lovely memento.



By the time I managed to saunter back into the office, I barely had enough time to surrender my security pass indefinitely and say my goodbyes before rushing off to the pub for drinks. I shared a brew or two with close friends that I'll likely not see for a fair while before departing once more for the Norman Hotel to meet the Warehouse staff. A juicy steak and a few more nips and too soon it was time to call it a night.



Wish it could have lasted longer, but I guess I'll need to rejoin the workforce when I report for my first day with Flight Centre tomorrow. Mortgages don't tend to pay themselves after all...

27th year

Tic-toc and another birthday has come and gone. Alison, the darling that she is, put a heap of effort into making it a fun and relaxing weekend. After returning from Toowoomba on Mother's Day she immediately got onto making this year's birthday cake request (Tiramisu) which we sampled after a nice dinner out at Gino's Traditional Italian restaurant. I'd describe dinner but I think that Alison's done well here in her blogging debut.



Alison may have been apprehensive about the outcome of her afternoon's efforts but I think the result was more than satisfactory. Not too much alcohol which I like, though perhaps it might need a little more cream next time.



Birthday morning began with the presentation of many gifts including:

• An antique sextant from John and Sheena
• The Dangerous Book for Boys
• How to be Comfy
• Funky socks

Super cool socks will certainly help jazz up my outfit when I need to start wearing a uniform at Flight Centre. :P

I had yet another surprise waiting for me in the evening at dinner. Rather than a fancy meal out I was treated to a cooking class at the James Street Cooking School. The course for the night was "Seafood BBQ" and we had a blast. Very informative, great food and good company.



Dishes we made on the night were Korean Squid, Mediterranean BBQ Prawns and Moroccan Fish. The school also supplied grilled sweet potatoes and salad (blue cheese, rocket, pear and pine nuts) to compliment out meals. I'm fairly sure we'll be back for another class one day.

Thanks babe for a super birthday. :D

Reading my way to better fitness

I normally let up on my gadget gathering on the lead up to my birthday for fear that I'd accidentally double up on a thoughtful gift that my loving wife had already procured, an event that once experienced should never be repeated. This year however I've managed to thread the line of danger by not purchasing just one new toy but two only a week before the big day. Both expenses were of course cleared with the family accountant...

Ever since my first PDA (An unwieldy Cassiopeia E-100) I've been convinced that I loved reading books on electronic devices. What appealed to me back then was being able to carry hundreds of books in my pocket which I could read at any time, as well as the embarassingly geeky satisfaction that I was reading on a PADD from Star Trek. I've always been a stickler for keeping my books in pristine condition, though try as I might I'd never fully avoid making a slight crease in the spine of a paper back or discolouration of the pages from nasty finger oil. Of course something that would never be an issue with electronic books.

Over the years I've continued to read a library of books on various PDAs and most recently my HTC Touch. Two fairly major drawbacks to reading books on these portable devices sadly.

• The screen
  Most people can't fathom how I can read a full book on such a small computer screen. Given my infatuation with electronics I can only surmise that my retinas have adapted to withstand the barrage of backlit devices I expose them to. The bane of LCD screens however is direct sunlight, as anyone who's tried to use a laptop in the sun will attest to. No point in trying to read a book in the park if I need to build a tent around the screen to huddle under.
  


• Battery life
  I'm by no means a fast reader so there's little chance that I'd be able to finish a short novel in the four hours my PDA is willing to give me. Frantically searching for a socket to plug my book into so I can continue reading has a tendency to spoil the mood somewhat.
  

Predictably, these are precisely the two problems I've addressed with my latest spend-fest... a Sony Reader PRS505. While there's something to be said about wisdom of having a device that only does one thing in an age of convergence, boy does it do that one thing well. The secret is in the new display technology that it uses, E-ink. Rather than using an LCD screen which draws power whenever active, the E-ink screen only needs juice to change a page which it does by rearranging the pigment on the surface. As a result we're talking about weeks of happy reading without recharging, and more importantly - no wash out when reading in the sun.



I've given it a thorough test this week and re-read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Readability is absolutely amazing and photos will never do it justice. You just need to see one of these things in your hands. To my delight the battery indicator is still at full charge as I move to my second book. It's only four battery bars though so there's limited granularity.

If I did have any complaints it would probably be that the technology is still in its infancy, clearly evident by the slow-ish refresh rate of the display. It takes about half a second for the display to rearrange itself to show the next page which you quickly get used to. Sony also made some pretty lame brained decisions with the interface including the lack of a filter on books in the library, something that hamstrings the potential of loading thousands of titles onto memory. The other issue, which I'll be honest I haven't had experience with, is the bundled library software that Sony has developed. Given the weight of negative opinion against the application, I found a fantastic open source alternative prior to ordering the device and started formatting books in anticipation.



All in all I'm super enthused about the reader. It's definitely the way forward though I'd suggest that anyone that isn't an early adopter should probably wait for the technology to mature a little more.

The other purchase, which I won't gush about nearly as much since we haven't used it much, is Wii Fit. We were walking around Indooroopilly the other day after work and on whim I thought I'd check to see if the title had been released. It had, we bought it, we rock.



Well... maybe not so much on the rocking. My disloyal Wii had little issue with telling me what an overweight slob I am. The whole premise of the game is that it comes with a new Nintendo accessory, the Wii Balance Board, which detects pressure as you stand on it. The minigames that it comes with centre around improving your balance as well as exercises designed to catapult you down the path of physical well-being. It's thankfully not the sort of game that one would play for hours straight (in my case for fear of grievous bodily harm) so we probably won't have an accurate impression of what it's like until we've used it for a few weeks. If I don't bring it up again then let's assume the Balance Board is collecting dust under the TV cabinet. :)