Protected: 2008

Another one over

I spent this Christmas at home.  The last one I had back home was three years ago.

It feels so good to be here.

We kept it fairly simple.  Just the old Xmas tree and a few presents this year.

I bought mum a watch.   She likes it

We had a party boxing day.  Here are a few of my friends:

And also spent most of Boxing Day out on the road bike with my best buddy.  Here are a few posy shots:

He totally wasted me on the climb to the Wind Turbine:

But I’m not jumping up and down over it:

And I even saw an Emu:

Is that a good sign or something?

I love Christmas!

Current Mood:

WordPress 2.7

Well, those of you who have been visiting my blog for the last couple of days would have noticed that it looked somewhat fucked up. That’s because it was, more or less, somewhat fucked up.

It all started innnocently when I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, set up a gallery (a work in progress), and inadvertently did something rather stupid. I won’t tell you what it is, because many of you who read this blog are unicyclists, and we all know that 90% of unicyclists are computer programmers or IT geeks. So you’d laugh at me. But trust me, it was way ’sthupid’.

I’ve just spent the last few hours digging around php code, yelling at my computer, on the WordPress forums, stamping up and down, ftping this and that, and finally it’s up and running again. One of these days when I quit my day job I’ll actually learn how to do this properly.

The golden rule: back up your work

Followed closely by: make sure you computer has enough grunt to unzip the file.

Unfortunately I had neither.

*******
And on a brighter note, it’s almost that time of year again.

That big red fulla is due to climb down my chimney any minute now.

And I’ve been a very good boy this year (insert boyish glee emote).

Goodnight!

Current Mood: &

Venting my Spleen

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some days it pays to let it all out.

ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGAGAGGAGAGAGAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

As you were.

Current Mood:

Plumbers

I feel vindicated.

A few days ago, I added the plumbing profession to my “Note to self #1, Things I Dislike” list. Today I found out why.

I received a text from a furious woman this morning.  A very angry text about workmen who had dug up her garden.   She had just planted the seasons annuals and mulched the flowerbeds too!  That woman was my mother.  Ever seen my mother in a foul mood?  Trust me, it’s just as well I’m out of the country.

So how did this happen?  I have a house I rent out.  It is across the road from mum’s place.  The invoices get sent to her when I am away.

Now my house apparently needed to have a Buchan trap removed.  Don’t ask me what a Buchan trap is, but my plumber says that I don’t need one, and that I should pay him $1500 to have it removed.

So here’s where the two holes come in.  They saw the address on the invoice, and instead of going to my rental property, they went to mums’ place.  And dug it up.  Our exchange student was home and said that some workmen had been around yesterday to do some work.

It wasn’t until this morning that mum went outside, looked under the house and found two very large holes there.

She put two and two together and called the Police.  Apparently there is a gang of hole-digging vandals dressed up as tradesmen digging up the neighbourhood.

I explained this to my plumber.

They will go around to mums place tomorrow and fill up the holes.

God help them.

Current Mood: &

Snakes and Unicycles

Australia is home to some of the mos venomous snakes in the world.

How do I know this?  I work in a hospital Emergency Dept.  We see the odd snake bite. Luckily, only a few of those who get bitten are actually envenomated.  That only happens to stupid people who walk barefoot in long grass right?

Wrong.  Take yesterday for instance.  I went for a unicycle ride to the Zoo.  There I was, hammering down the trail, minding my own business, and guess what?  An Australian Brown Snake wriggles it’s way in front of me.  A fully grown, 1m long, Australian Brown Snake.  If there’s one thing that makes you yank on your unicycle so hard your knuckles go white, it’s decelerating your unicycle from 30km/hr to a stop in less than 1m, just inches away from a deadly serpent.

Now, this is not the first time I’ve run over a snake.  I ran over something that looked like a dead baby snake in Austria a few years ago, quite by accident.  But this was one of the most poisonous snakes in the world, alive and wriggling.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against snakes.  They are part of the ecosystem, and humans were never meant to intrude into their environment, just to run them over with unicycles.  So I felt for the poor snake.  She was as petrified of that giant round thing barreling towards her as I was of those vicious fangs.

Did this story have a happy ending?  Yes, it did, because I skidded to a halt just as madame serpent slithered her way back into the undergrowth.  But others aren’t so lucky.

Today, some guy was bitten by a snake and came in to the Emergency Dept.

He was fine, but he shot the snake.

What a asshole.

Current Mood:

Protected: Snerk

Current Mood:

Note to Self #1

Things I find annoying/irritating:

-People who moult and leave their hair all over the place

-The credit crunch

-spending every waking hour either: working, doing unicycle stuff, doing more unicycle stuff, working, doing more unicycle stuff and did I mention doing unicycle stuff?

-Japanese kids who dye their hair blonde

-Poor Hygiene (I deal with this alot…people really should shower before going to see their doctor)

-Driving

-Accountants, Lawyers and Plumbers

-People who borrow stuff and don’t return them

Things that relax me:

-Drinking coffee

-Riding my BICYCLE (yes, that’s TWO wheels!)

-Baking

-Little furry animals

-Rock pooling

-Dodgem Cars

-Blogging

Current Mood:

Protected: Christmas