From Whence We Came

Day 4 (morning). Words remaining: 46,389

2011-11-04T11:57:00.001+11:00

After a slow start the words flowed reasonably well last night, resulting in around 1400 words. Still below quota for the day, but getting better. Tonight I'd better be able to get 2k words or more because I can't see a lot coming out over the weekend.

Day 3 (morning). Words remaining: 47,886

2011-11-03T09:17:00.001+11:00

More words written yesterday than day 1, so that's a positive. Scene 1 is done, now back to the office. Body count: 3 flunkies + 1 main character. No exploding sharks so far.

Day 2 (morning). Words remaining: 49,178

2011-11-02T11:13:00.002+11:00

So I made a start last night, getting just over 900 words down. That's under the target of 1667, but better than nothing. I'm going to just pound out as many words as I can come up with for the first week and see where that gets me. Saturday is going to be a write-off (see what I did there?), with sport and parties, but I expected that.

Day 1 (morning) Words Remaining: 50,000

2011-11-01T10:19:00.000+11:00

And so it begins, the mad manic run towards the end of November and 50,000 words. Time to dive into the world of Albert/Alfred/Pyotr/whateverhisnameis and the eerie underworld of a spy. Good luck...

October 31 - and that means...

2011-10-31T11:15:00.002+11:00

Two things, really. Firstly, Halloween. In Australia this isn't a big tradition like it is in the States, but it seems to be growing. The kids are certainly excited, mostly about the dressing up and lollies. Trick or treating is certainly not done in the manner of the USA, but occasionally a few other people get into the swing of it.

The second thing is that there are now less that 24 hours to go before the 2011 edition of NanoWriMo kicks off. 30 days, 50,000 words. I'm going to give it another go, and this year I won't have to worry about study for exams. The only other time I've "won" in the last 4 years was when I had taken a year of from study, so I'm hopeful that I'll get over the line. Of course, my planning has been virtually non-existent again, but I'm hoping to get there! I'll be chasing Alex this year, so let the word battle commence!

Time marches on

2011-06-15T12:02:00.000+10:00

As it has a nasty tendency to do. Exams have started here, and for the first time in a very, very long time I have none to sit. Glee!

Of course, being June exams, it reminds me of the time a couple of years ago when a girl tried to park her car in my office. I was ceremonially late in order to properly remember the occasion.

Been a bit

2011-06-07T11:57:00.000+10:00

Busy/lazy, you know the drill.

My reading theory was somewhat delayed by losing my book somewhere in the dining room. Luckily enough I found it on the weekend during a cleanup, so I can get back into it again. It's a bit of an interesting read, in that it is set in the 15th century but also written in a style that is much older than our current, more conversational type. It takes a bit of getting used to and getting into, but I'm getting there.

That took a while

2011-04-24T16:56:00.000+10:00

I finally finished "Man and Boy". It took me a surprisingly long time considering it is a relatively short book that is a pretty easy read. I just took ages to get into it until I decided to sit down the other night and finish off the last fifty pages. An interesting story of a bloke who stuffs up his marriage and the fallout from that.

Next up is "Princes of Sandastre" by by Antony Swithin, a semi-historical novel set around 1405.

Marching On

2011-03-01T11:19:00.000+11:00

Terrible way to start the new month, sorry about that.

The floggings at the ICC World Cup continue. I was hoping that the Netherlands would put up more of a fight, after their game against England, but the Windies gave them a right flogging. As did Zimbabwe over Canada. 42 games in the preliminary stage to get down to the final eight, and I think everyone can already pick at least seven out of those eight already. This is going to be monumentally dull outside of the games that feature two of the test playing nations.

February disappeared without me writing anything creative at all. Not that Jan was a particularly eloquent month, but at least I wrote a couple of sentences. I'm going to have to pick things up dramatically if I want to going again creatively.

A Long Engagement

2011-02-22T21:25:00.000+11:00

For some unknown reason (well, actually, probably a well known reason, known as money), the ICC Cricket World Cup has only scheduled a single game per day at the start of the round games. With two pools of 7 teams you are looking at a total of 49 games or so before you get to the final eight. It's going to take forever, and when you have teams rolled for 70 or chasing down 370 it really makes you wonder whether some teams are just there to make up the numbers. Perhaps the ICC have realised that as well, since the next World Cup will have only 10 teams rather than 14.

Nostalgia

2011-02-14T22:31:00.000+11:00

I realised the other day that Babylon 5 first went to air in 1994. Considering the leap that special effects have taken in the intervening years the series still holds up well. Why? The narrative is driven by plot and characterisation, not the flash-bang effects. It's the story that engrosses, the diversity of the characters and the lack of the ST:TNG Everyone Loves Everyone (Mostly) syndrome. I'm working my way from Season 1 through, though I need to track down the pilot ep and the movies that go with it. Well worth it.

My first shower in three days

2011-02-13T21:21:00.000+11:00

The lad and I have just come back from a weekend camping trip to West Kunderang. We had a great time, even if we had to dodge a storm and persistent rain on Saturday afternoon. The shower tonight was much appreciated, I must admit!

I finished "Forever Peace", the last of my 'read it already' books for the time being. It's quite good, a number of interesting ideas pushed together and set in the near future.

I've now started "Man and Boy", by Tony Parsons. It's sat unread for nearly 10 years, which is a bit embarrassing. The story follows a bloke turning 30 (my age when it was given to me) who throws away everything in his life except his son after a one night stand. Should be an interesting read.

Roughing it

2011-02-11T11:24:00.000+11:00

The Lad and I are off camping this weekend down at West Kunderang with the other blokes from Chapel.. Should be a good weekend of doing very little and catching up with the other guys. They'll be things like canooing, bush walking and a bonfire, but it's all at whatever pace you want to take. Considering I'm recovering from a strained quad at the moment the pace will be quite relaxed I think. Time to take a book or two and continue my reading adventures for the year.

Clutter

2011-02-09T21:43:00.000+11:00

Some time ago I read an article about a group of people who decided to de-clutter their lives. Not by merely having a garage sale to get rid of a few unwanted items, but to get rid of virtually everything they owned, leaving them with the absolute bare essentials. Having spent some time lately reorganising things in the house I can well understand why you would want to do that - it is so easy in our society to fill up the house with stuff, even without trying. It's a bit like your computer - sometimes you just need to format the hard drive and start again from scratch. Unfortunately the OS included with the house didn't come with a "format c:\" command.

Back into the swing - maybe

2011-02-07T11:12:00.000+11:00

A great number of people spend their time at the end of December coming up with a series of New Year resolutions, such as "lose weight", "get fit", "stop using apostrophies in the wrong place's", that sort of thing. Generally they last until Jan 3 at the best, at which time the whole concept is forgotten about until the next December rolls around.

I hadn't bothered at all, mostly as I find it rather pointless. However, come the end of January, I figured out a resolution that is well worth keeping, particularly now that I don't have to spend all evening studying. I've decided to work my way through all the books we have at home that I've simply never bothered to read. Some I've been given and just stuck on the shelf, some were Ang's that now form part of our joint collection. Some Ang picked up when part of the local book review club. In any case, it's time to get into them and get them read, forcing me to read genres that I've simply not bothered with in the past.

So, what have I read so far? Well, I've taken the soft option at the beginning, with a couple of books that I've read, but not for ages, followed by one that I think I've read, but can't recall. So here they are so far:

Read:
The Forever War (Joe Haldeman)
Forever Free (Joe Haldeman)

Next:
Forever Peace (Joe Haldeman)

After that, I'll grab something off the shelf and see how I go.

As for the first two read, I would highly recommend them. More so the first over the second, but both are very good. The Forever War has won multiple awards, include the Hugo Award. Good sci-fi about a war that spans centuries. Grab it if you can.

NoNanoWrimoNo

2010-11-17T11:58:00.000+11:00

Looks like my efforts at Nano this year will come to nothing. Ever since finishing my exam I have had just about zero desire to sit in front of the computer and exercise the brain. I think it wants a bit of a rest, and I guess I can't blame it for that.

So what happened to days 7-10?

2010-11-11T14:58:00.000+11:00

You may have been asking yourselves the question posed in this post's title. Even if you haven't, it's now stuck in your head so I will answer it for you. Exams happened. Well, to be specific, a single exam, otherwise know as the LAST ONE FOR MY DEGREE! So I figured I should probably have a bit of a red-hot go at doing well.

And I think I did. So I am finished. 10.5 years after I started, I will get another piece of paper to hang on the wall.

On April 1st. How appropriate.

Day 6: 8078 words

2010-11-06T23:27:00.001+11:00

Whoops. Falling further behind. Scary to think that some people are over the 50k word limit already. Oh well, the naked woman is awake in the Earl's house, now to keep the philandering son away!

Day 5: 7225 words

2010-11-05T23:51:00.001+11:00

Study and work continue apace. Tonight's total was entirely written after some ADR work, so that's not too bad. I'm about 1100 behind the daily average, but am writing something each day. The buck has been killed and the naked woman has appeared.

Day 4: 5959 words

2010-11-04T23:35:00.002+11:00

A good day. Still behind about 700 words, but I made up a little bit of ground. Fire and circles.

Day 3: 4255 words

2010-11-03T23:30:00.000+11:00

Again, under the par word count, but at least I'm still writing! With any luck I'll sneak out tomorrow lunchtime and bang out a few extra words so I can get flying tomorrow night and regain some ground. Maybe.

Day 2: 3223 words

2010-11-02T23:34:00.002+11:00

A bit behind, but manageable. The witch is dead, battle of Hastings lost, and the solar probe should take off tomorrow.

Day 1: 1740 words

2010-11-01T23:47:00.000+11:00

Made a start and even beat the word count for the day. The storm has stopped, the pyre is built and the mob is approaching.

Remember, remember, Nano November

2010-10-22T13:31:00.000+11:00

It's been a rather stressful couple of months, but I'm finally on top of it. My second-last Law unit is out of the way, so I've got one exam on the 9th November and I am DONE. Cue choirs of angels...

I've also resigned up for NanoWriMo again this month. http://www.nanowrimo.org for those who may be interested. Just like last year I have no idea of what I will write, but something will come, I'm sure. Just as long as I can get down more words than Alex or Angus, I'll be happy. Then again, they are both professional wordsmiths, so I could be in trouble.

For a lack of any other content, here is a joke.

2010-08-02T15:10:00.000+10:00

On Judgement Day, all the conspiracy theorists are resurrected, and after discussing matters among themselves they send a representative to talk to the Lord. The representative goes to the Lord and asks: “Lord, we’d really like to know: who killed JFK?”
And the Lord replies: “Oh, really. It was Lee Harvey Oswald. He was acting alone. There was no conspiracy.”
The representative goes back to the crowd and they ask: “Well, what did the Lord say?”
He looks around carefully, leans forward, and whispers: “This is bigger than we thought … ”

I write like who??

2010-07-16T11:29:00.001+10:00

I don't know how accurate this is, but I found a link to a nifty little site that analyses your writing style and compares you to other authors. In my case my first drafts are like Dan Brown (eek!) while a more polished entry was like Harry Harrison. Yet another piece that I tried a rather more different, future-slang styled piece came out as David Foster Wallace (?)

So does that mean that Dan Brown doesn't edit any of his work?

Here's the site: http://iwl.me/

EDIT: Just tried another one and I came out as Mario Puzo. Me like!

...andavagoodweekend

2010-07-11T20:52:00.000+10:00

No study or sport this weekend, yet we've managed to fill it rather successfully. Joerg and the family came up for a few days so we decided to do a few combined family things on the weekend. Saturday afternoon saw us all out at Blue Hole, following a walking track that wound its way up and around the gorge, following the old hydro-electric scheme that was in place around 1900 or so. It was around a 5.5km trek but the 5 munchkins (ages 10 to 5) all managed the walk without complaint or needing to be carried.

Sunday Joerg and I took the kids down to the bike track for a ride (though Marcus was on his rollerblades). Phoebe is still on training wheels but Heather was giving it a go without trainers. She was a bit wobbly at first but got the idea after a bit and was thrilled to be off and riding with help. She only had one buster but after a bit of chocolate chai tea she was off again.

The evening saw us out by the fire in the back yard enjoying toasted marshmallows and a few bevvies for the adults. Altogether a highly satisfactory weekend.

Charging...clear!

2010-06-29T14:58:00.000+10:00

For the last six years or so I've been one of the first aid officers here at work. My first aid certificate is due for renewal, and the boss has asked if I and the other first aid person would be interested in being trained to use a defribulator unit that the department just next to ours is going to purchase. There is only one other unit on campus, and since we are way over on the western side it would take time to get here in the advent of someone sufferring a cardiac event. So I said, hey why not! So next week I spend a day updating my credentials to include "official chest-zapper". I wonder if I could work that into a resume or business card?

It's been a while

2010-06-24T14:38:00.000+10:00

Thankfully, my exams are done. It has been a few years since I've tried two subjects in a semester, along with full time work and a family. Unsurprisingly it turned out to be rather hard and stressfull, but they're now done. If the results go my way I will be down to two units to finish my degree, both next semester.

Unsurprisingly, since I haven't managed even a blog entry in months I've not written anything creative (unless essays count). I've got around 4 weeks until the start of next semester so there is always a chance that I can get something down in that time. If nothing else I may be able to get a plan for this year's NanoWriMo shaped up. Last year I had no real ideas until I sat down on Nov 1, and as a result petered out rather badly around the 11k word mark.

This is getting silly

2010-04-13T10:16:00.000+10:00

The various spam comments on my blog are getting out of hand, so I've added comment moderation as a requirement. That'll stop them appearing automatically and I can joyously hit the "bugger off, spammer!" button rather than trying to find the crap buried in the mire of my old posts. Let's see how that goes for a while.

Marching merrily along

2010-03-12T13:46:00.002+11:00

My overseas fan base continues to increase, unfortunately my linguistic skills haven't kept pace so I've simply been deleting them as they appear. One of these days Kristen Stewart or Claudia Christian will pop by to share words of wisdom, but until then I shall just plug along merrily in the void. Or perhaps Pauly Perrett?

Cricket season is just about over (and there was much rejoicing, say the womenfolk) unless we can pull out an outright win this weekend. I can't say we really deserve it, our performances have been pretty dreadful all season, yours truly included. I guess that'll give me a few weekends to get some assignments (and housework) out of the way before I go back to chasing an inflated pig stomach around a lime-encrusted turf field again.

International fans

2010-02-25T15:00:00.003+11:00

I seem to have acquired some international fans on my blog. For some odd reason I've been deluged (slightly) by comments that appear to be in Chinese. While it's all well and good to get international recognition for my efforts it makes me a little suspicious. There is no English in any of the comments and they appear to be a web link as well. Methinks I shall avoid clicking, just to be on the safe side.

The opposite of up

2010-02-02T21:16:00.000+11:00

That would rather adequately describe the last few days. First was an utter spanking at cricket on Saturday, and not in the kinky-but-good sense either. Then today it turns out our network suffered yet another major failure around 1am in the morning, which lead to huge amounts of scurrying around as we tried to get things working again. We've decided to tow ourselves outside the five mile limit (10 points if you get the reference) so that was a large part of today. The network came up again eventually, but only in fits and starts. Printing and scanning was an issue, the web and other services kept dropping out and to top it all off a rogue script misbehaved thanks to the lack of a network and deleted large chunks of rather important data from our servers. Thankfully our (my!) backups functioned as desired and I was able to start restoring what was lost.

Oh, and tonight I can't get access to my units on line. Not a good start for the academic year.

It's hot - but you knew that already, didn't you?

2010-01-27T13:48:00.002+11:00

Australia Day wouldn't be the same if it wasn't so stiflingly hot that you are bathed in sweat for even thinking about unsticking yourself from your chair and staggering in the direction of the fridge. We had a backyard camp out at a friend's place which the kids thought was pretty neat. The neighbours were having a party as well so we didn't have to provide any music for ourselves. The only problem was that their party kept going well after we'd all hit the sack :-)

Get me out of the cheap B movie

2010-01-20T10:56:00.000+11:00

Our network issues have turned into network "quirks". I'm sure some time in the future we will all be down at the bar, drinking martinis and laughing at how much of a nightmare it all was, but that's a long way and a lot of therapy into the future. Today we simply grip our coffee cups a little tighter and soldier on.

Yesterday and this morning was The Case of the Mysterious NFS Mount Failure, a twisted mystery that was only solved by realising that one of the servers had popped down to the magistrate's office and changed its name via Deed Poll without telling anyone. A quick public cry of "Oi! The oik's name has changed!" fixed everything right up just in time for the closing credits. It would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for those nosey kids.

An outdoors weekend

2010-01-17T21:15:00.002+11:00

With two munchkins having birthdays within one week this was always going to be a busy time. With visitors up for a few days that made the weekend really busy as we decided to fit in a couple of birthdays so that everyone could make it to the parties. Add to that another friend's birthday and you get three parties in four days. Chaos! But in a good way.

Particularly today which started with a couple of hours bashing around the pine forest on trail bikes with Joerg. The Saturday night storms promised mud mud and more mud, but once we got out there it was mostly dry. We still managed to hunt down some some nice puddles to slog through, including one that almost buried Joerg's WR up to the top of his wheels. I decided to miss that one. Contrary to some previous trips I managed to keep the wheels on the ground and the handlebars upright.

The afternoon saw us off to the pool for Miss 7's (or will be 7 on Thursday) pool party. I spent a good chunck of time tossing a bunch of 10, 9 and 8 year old boys around the water as they attempted to dump myself and Joerg under. Good luck with that one boys! Heather enjoyed it as well though she kept a good grip on her pool noodle.

Rather unsurprisingly the munchkins all hit the sack pretty quickly tonight. A couple of nice B&C's will finish the evening rather nicely.

Good grief, is this the internet?

2010-01-14T15:51:00.002+11:00

Our woes continued with a complete lack of network access for the entirety of yesterday, right up until around 10:30am or so today. To say that the bosses were ropeable would be a understatement. If the spin around this place gets any worse we're all going to acheive escape velocity and be hurled off into space by centripetal force alone.

Day of Rest? Who are you kidding?

2010-01-11T11:07:00.002+11:00

I painted the walls and ceiling of the en suite for the last time, started on the door frame, did multiple loads of washing, rehung the door, lintel and cabinet, made three trips into town, took said washing off the line, did a bunch of ironing then fell into bed. While the other half watched tv :-)

Oh, and made dinner, which was rather scrummy.

According to research men who do more housework get laid more often. I think I'd like to find that researcher and shove a duster down their throat...

Missing, presumed fed.

2010-01-10T14:35:00.002+11:00

It's not that nothing has happened for the last few days. Indeed, quite a lot has happened. The earth has spun around on its axis a couple of times, we've travelled a few thousand more kilometres on our pilgrimage around the sun and global warming has failed to kill us all off since Tuesday. All in all, not a bad effort.

I, on the other hand, have done some orbiting of my own. Specifically, a grand total of five orbits around the en suite, paint brush and roller in hand. It is now a lovely pristine white. All it requires is a bit more touching up here and there and all shall be complete. At least until the middle of next week when we pick up the feature colours for one wall and the window frame.

Busy

2010-01-05T22:25:00.002+11:00

Another day of rampant domesticity, which included prepping the ensuite for painting tomorrow. You wouldn't think that such a small room would take all day to prepare, but it did. Of course, there were other important things to do, such as keep an eye on the cricket, drink coffee, eat bacon and egg sandwiches, that kind of thing. But all is in readiness for the application of paint tomorrow.

I also got another call from work, but at least I could answer that one with a simple "no, we don't have one that long" response.

Why on earth did I say that?

2010-01-04T23:25:00.001+11:00

My thousands of avid readers will have noted that I tempted fate yesterday by stating that I was going to enjoy this week off due to the fact I wouldn't have to solve any computer issues at work for the next 7 days. Well, a phone call just after 9am put paid to that. The uni had a major network issue which meant that our servers lost the plot and refused to connect to the network at all. At least it was a relatively easy fix, apart from the one machine that didn't want to reboot with a USB drive connected.

Oh, and after a week of solid rain, our chook run stinks. Poor little blighters. It didn't help that we were away for that week so we had someone coming around to check on the animals, rather than us being here to clean them out between downpours. Still, no rain today means that they've dried out a bit and we've put down some extra straw to absorb some of the moisture and smell. They're still dutifully laying eggs, so it's not all bad.

I might (might) get into wall cleaning/stripping etc tomorrow. Either that or attack the massive pile of washing. We'll see.

Grateful

2010-01-03T22:13:00.002+11:00

I'm rather grateful that I do not have to go into work next week. Why? Well, it appears that the uni's web page and mail is down, and all of our dept's servers are off line. It would appear that some time on Saturday some major gremlin has hit the works, probably a storm, and smashed everything on the network. Of course, with the uni shut over the Christmas/new year break, everyone is away. Joys of joys. I shall be attacking mould and sanding walls tomorrow with the greatest of glee.

Woah

2010-01-02T15:52:00.002+11:00

It would appear to be, once again, a considerable amount of time since I last dumped a few spare electrons in the general direction of this blog. Since September 2nd, in fact. You would think that I'd spent the last four months in a cave up on a hillside somewhere, but the truth is more apathy and lack of blogging desire. I've not been sitting idle, however, having passed my law unit as well as the usual plethora of sport and family activities.

This year sees me no longer an academic. Due to the fact that the nature of my job means I do not teach, research or publish I had no chance of progression out of my current academic level. So I've been transferred to general staff instead, with the ability to go up through the levels and get a nice little pay increase.

I'm also having a bit go at finishing my law degree this year. It's going to take a fair bit of effort but I've decided that it is time to get it out of the way before I turn 40. Wish me luck.

What a week

2009-09-02T23:27:00.002+10:00

Joerg flew back to Inverell today. He's going to spend a couple of more days in hospital before going home, but he's got to go back to Newcastle in a month to get facial surgery after all. So a full recovery is still a while off, but he's getting there. Kathy is here now, so will head back to Inverell herself in a day or so.

Not too much excitement otherwise. No cars have tried to visit my office, which is rather nice. All I'm hanging out for now is my new computer. I had to back up and stop using my 6 year old machine as it had become just unuseably slow. So I'm using an almost new machine - it's only 4!

Relief

2009-08-31T10:45:00.002+10:00

I spoke to Joerg last night, which was a great relief in and of itself. He's going to be fine, it'll just take a fair while for him to fully heal. It doesn't look like they'll need to operate on his face after all, though he still has the drain in his lung that was damaged in the accident.

Kathy was sounding much, much better last night. She's got a friend who is visiting the hospital each day for her mother's dialysis, and our friend is also visiting to take Kathy shopping. So that support network has been wonderful for them all.

Saturday roundabout

2009-08-29T12:44:00.001+10:00

Just an update from Thursday first. My mate Joerg is being airlifted to John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle today. He'll be ok, it's just that the hospital has specialist cranial teams available, as he has a facial fracture from ear to ear, across the bridge of his nose. His punctured lung isn't so great either, but he will get better.

We've gotten through the morning soccer roundabout, which is a good trick as I was running solo today. Ang is at a conference at Chapel all day, so I've got the three until just after 2 when I drop them off there before I head to Uralla for my game. They've survived so far, so that's a win!

Prayer

2009-08-27T23:05:00.002+10:00

Thoughts and prayers needed for a good mate who I've just heard had a motorbike accident this evening. He's in hospital, cracked ribs and the docs are checking for any internal injuries. His wife didn't sound too bad, obviously pretty shaken, but it didn't sound like it was life threatening. Never a good thing though.

Take care everyone.

Half-way day

2009-08-26T16:40:00.002+10:00

As a wanna-be writer, the most difficult thing I find at the moment is finding time to write. There are a few ideas lurking around, but to actually sit down and commit something to a concrete form is proving easier said than done. Even this blog has been evidence of that, as I conscientiously avoided adding anything to it for months previously.

Even now it is tricky to come up with something that isn't just trite "lol, I ated a donut!" kind of entries. To articulate oneself when it sounds like there is nothing more than blowflies buzzing between my ears is an effort.

NanoWriMo is rapidly approaching, and I am determined to give it another go. Last year I made it over the 50k word target, though the novel still lurks unfinished on the computer. I know how I want to end it, but getting it there has been beyond me for a while. And I have no real ideas for this one, either.

What's worse than a whinging Pom?

2009-08-25T12:15:00.001+10:00

A manically grinning one, one that will be dining out on the Ashes victory for months to come. Thanks heavens I've moved out of the office next to him :-)

Does 7:15am count as a sleep in?

2009-08-23T23:43:00.003+10:00

I'm sure it doesn't, somewhere around 8 to 8:30 would have been much preferable, but alas that was not to be. At least we had no definite plans for the day so it was a nice, unrushed kind of Sunday, a far cry from last weekend's soccer carnival. Plus the weather was lovely again. It looks like we are in for a long hot summer.

It looks like we're going to lose the Ashes again. Clarke and Ponting were just run out within an over of each other, both to very good and somewhat lucky fielding efforts. Craig, one of our resident Poms and a cricket tragic, is going to be insufferable at work for months.

Since when were they so fast?

2009-08-22T22:33:00.003+10:00

Or perhaps, more pertinently, since when was I so slow and unfit? We had to play against a bunch of teenagers and uni students in soccer today, and considering our youngest player logged in at around 34 or so, we were somewhat overmatched. All things considered we did all right, holding them to 0-0 in the first have before going down 0-4 in the end. We had a few chances, including myself, but couldn't finish any of them. My legs *ache*.

With any luck the munchkins will sleep in tomorrow. We had some friends over tonight so they didn't get into bed until 9:30. The odds are that Marcus will happily sleep in but the girls will wake us up far too early. Oh well.

Late Friday

2009-08-21T22:34:00.002+10:00

It's Friday, the kids are in bed, Ang is out having a girls' karaoke night, so I've got the house pretty much to myself. A rare event indeed. While I have been watching the cricket I've also had to read the next chapter in my Civil Procedure law text, which is rather dry. Lots of pieces of legislation and not a lot of juicy cases, unfortunately.

Ah well, the things we do to ourselves. Lunch (in England) is nearly over, so it's back to the Ashes for me.

Airborne

2009-08-21T13:52:00.002+10:00

It looks like I hit the hump on Wednesday so fast that I completely overshot Thursday and landed here on Friday. Must have been an exciting day yesterday, eh wot?

Admittedly, yesterday did mark my return to my old office. Mostly I was transferring all my junk back in and working out where everything was going to go, but the locksmiths reverted the lock back to my key so I was able to lock up and come straight on in. As I speak workmen are attaching the last of the new tin to the outside of the wall, which will just leave a new set of downpipes to finish the job. It's nice to be back in, if a little daunting considering the reason I had to move out in the first place. I'm a little nervous, which surprised me a bit. Knowing the odds of it happening again are fairly microscopic is not much good against an active imagination.

I think I'll take some leave during the next set of exams.

Hump Day

2009-08-19T23:33:00.002+10:00

Middle of the week, so it's all down hill to the weekend. My office is indeed finished so I've started to move stuff back in. I figured that this would be a good time to weed out some of the redundant paperwork I've had filed away for the last few years and so start somewhat afresh. Apart from the six year old code printouts, Y2K preparation documentation and installation instructions for Red Hat 6, I also found a number of old Dell bits and pieces (booklets on machines, drivers for old 17'' CRTs) and even some NT software on 3.5'' floppies. Virtually all of the machines they referred to failed and were thrown out years ago. So now all the other crud has followed suit.

In another major win, I've talked my boss into finally allowing me to get a new office machine. I'll be able, at last, to retire the 6 year old desktop that I inherited from someone who left a few years ago. In fact, as far as I can remember, all of the machines I've used at work have been hand-me-downs. This will be my first new machine. Very nice.

Blue Moon

2009-08-18T23:12:00.001+10:00

Yup, that rare creature known as a second daily update. The carpet in my office is in, the outside has just about been re-tinned and the blinds should go up tomorrow. A bit of dusting and I'll be right to move back in. Excellent.

Slacker, slacker, slacker

2009-08-18T14:22:00.002+10:00

Yup, missed another one. Perhaps if you are all extra good I'll update you again tonight on the wonderful goings-on in my universe. No promises, you've got to be sooo good to deserve a second update...

And now, for something completely different. HERRINGS!

No, sorry, wrong channel.

We won our B-grade darts grand final last night, beating the random 6-5. It was close all the way to the second last singles match, where we 5-4 up. I won my match, giving us a 6-4 lead. The boys were pretty chuffed to win the comp.

In other news, I should be back in my old office either this afternoon or tomorrow. The carpet is going down now, as is the last of the metal siding on the outside. That just leaves the blinds which are being supplied by the same people that are doing the carpet, so should go in today as well. Excellent. Now all I need to do is build the tank traps and anti-vehicle mortar launchers and I'll be all ready to move back in.

So I lied. Sue me.

2009-08-16T23:14:00.003+10:00

About updating twice yesterday, that is. We didn't get back from the wedding reception until 11:30 so there was no way I was going to turn on the computer just to post a blog update. Crashed out instead.

The wedding was, as they generally are, pretty special. Michael and Vernie obviously dote on each other completely, and they have great support from their families and their friends. Good luck and best wishes to them both.

Today was a rampant soccer-fest. Both Marcus and Heather were playing in the carnival today, and of course they were scheduled to be on two fields as far apart as possible. Five games each later and all of us were worn out and slightly sunburnt. They all had a great time and played some really great soccer even though they didn't win. They were all asleep in record time tonight!

Whoopsie

2009-08-15T13:10:00.001+10:00

Well, as it's now midday on Saturday I won't even pretend that I wrote this entry yesterday. So I'll have to update twice today. Aren't you all in for a treat?

I managed to spend the entirety of work yesterday without editing or writing a single line of code. Instead I was installing and updating some nice shiny new computers that I unfortunately have to hand off to their new owners once I'm done. My poor 6 year old desktop is feeling a little inadequate of late.

Marcus and Heather both won their soccer games this morning. Marcus's win was particularly impressive as they played the team at the top of the ladder and came away with a 5-2 victory. Well done boys, you played a fine example of the beautiful game. Great sportsmanship at the end, too, you made all the parents proud.

A blog a day...

2009-08-13T23:20:00.001+10:00

...is harder than it looks, without descending into complete inanity. I've had to back date a couple of entries that I've made the morning after they were supposed to go up, but at least they are only a couple of hours behind. Not that I've had any great revelations on life, the universe an everything.

There are even groups out there that are dedicated to those who fill blogs and more recently facebook and twitter updates with minute details of their family, relationships, etc. These are the "STFU" groups. Of course, not all blogs can be filled with revelations on the human condition, and with sites such as these offering free access to anyone you are bound to get the odd "hey, my dog did this today!" kind of entries. That's the joy of this mess known as the internet.

No other great revelations from me today, so I guess this entry gets filed under the "STFU" category. Too bad, not gonna!

Men

2009-08-12T23:17:00.000+10:00

We had a great men's fellowship last night, the past few weeks have been very encouraging. Looking at 1 Peter and the hope we have.

Rainy storm

2009-08-11T23:35:00.000+10:00

Strange aqueous matter fell from the skies today, a phenomenon not really seen often enough of late. Not a lot during the day, though a bit of thunder and lightning tonight holds some promise of a decent amount of rain. As long as it clears up for Saturday, when we will be at Michael and Vernie's wedding. It can bucket down all it likes after than.

Another week under way

2009-08-10T23:21:00.001+10:00

Another week, another round of getting two out of three off to school. Despite them being incredibly tired last night the two girls still managed to wander into our bed at some unknown but definitely dark hour of the night/morning. I think we need to put a time lock on our door so we can manage a night of uninterrupted sleep. With a cat door as well so the furry ones don't wake us up wanting to leave in the middle of the night as well. I can dream, I guess.

Our darts team won tonight, so we are in to the b-grade final next Monday. Go us!

It was rather satisfying to see the look on the face of the Englishman in the office next to mine this morning, he was most distraught at the effort put in by the English cricketers. We'll see how well he goes through the next 10 days before the fifth test. We're a cruel lot, we are...

In other office news my original office has finally got its new heater. Now all it needs is some window glass, blinds and carpet before I can move back in. Hopefully they've put some titanium reinforcing into the rebuilt wall to keep errant cars out in the future.

There and back again

2009-08-09T23:46:00.000+10:00

We got back from Inverell this evening with a bunch of rather overtired and asleep children in the back. Heather decided to have an emotional tizz over dinner, at which point we figured she was just worn out from a whole day of play with Riley and Skye. Much tears preceeded falling asleep in the back of the car about 10 minutes down the road.

Joerg and I had a really good talk Saturday night around the fire bucket in their back yard. Ang had gone up to see Kathy so I made some pizzas for us and we got the kids into bed at a decent hour before we retired outside to a beautiful clear night and a warm fire. It was just the sort of thing he needed to get himself unwound.

Kathy came home Sunday. She and Ang had had a good talk together as well so here's hoping and praying for them that they've started to turn the corner.

Trip

2009-08-08T14:01:00.000+10:00

We're off to Inverell this afternoon to catch up with some friends. We'd planned the trip before K got sick, but the kids have all been looking forwards to catching up. I'll update everyone when we get back.

Thoughts

2009-08-07T23:14:00.000+10:00

Thoughts go out to friends in Inverell. Kath just got out of hospital and is suddenly back in again. Thinking and praying for her, hubby and the kids.

Thursday already

2009-08-06T21:34:00.002+10:00

And just about the end of it, too. This is a bit of a recap in a way of yesterday as I really don't know where today disappeared to, it was gone in a flash. Though I did manage to get some stuff achieved, which is always nice. Even solved a couple of problems as well, which turned out to be both a bit of our fault along with some cruddy data. Here's hoping tomorrow the last of the current crop of problems can be solved so we can get on with v6 of the software. Here's hoping...

As the days go by

2009-08-05T22:39:00.002+10:00

Far to fast, most of the time. You'd think that with the Earth gradually orbiting the sun slower and slower you'd find that there was more time in the day to get things done, but that's never the case, is it? There always seems to be something not done, or done in a hurry, by the time that your mind shuts down for the night and demands sleep. Of course, it's all a furphy, I just need to stop wasting time and get into what needs to be done. The trick is to stop said procrastination and get moving.

Perhaps tomorrow.

Whoopsie

2009-08-04T20:17:00.001+10:00

You know it's going to be a good day when the first thing you see at work is a sign on your door that says "the network is broke". Turns out most of the western campus was off the air which made doing anything somewhat difficult. Fortunately things were back live by 10:30am, but that still meant that some servers didn't reconnect so I had to get in and do them manually.

That wasn't a problem. The problem for the day was a certain user who, thinking that they could restart certain services on their linux box to get the network going again, managed to completely disable their mouse and keyboard once their machine had finished booting. They would work in BIOS, would work at the boot screen, but when the X server came up, nothing.

He eventually reinstalled is OS.

Another day, another dollar (plus GST)

2009-08-03T17:02:00.002+10:00

Mondays around here aren't too bad. Since the uni put in a new spam filter I no longer have to spend a chunk of time teaching Thunderbird about the dozen new variants that it has to remember to filter out. Now there is usually only one or two, which is a rather pleasant change. There was even a general lack of annoying questions/problems to be solved, which meant I managed to get something positive achieved for the day. A win all around.

Darts tonight, assuming something doesn't come up between now and around 7:30pm. It's the semis, so I really should have done some practice over the weekend, but I didn't even think of it. The weather was far too nice to be inside anyway, and there was plenty of other things to keep me occupied.

Sunday, day of rest?

2009-08-02T17:49:00.002+10:00

That depends, of course, on your definition of "rest". A relatively lazy start to the day eventually turned into a "let's clean out the car" middle of the day, with a trip to Kids Zone in the afternoon for Phoebe's party. With any luck tonight will involve kicking back with a glass of wine, the second Ashes test and a copy of my Civil Procedure textbook. Thrilling times ahead!

Saturday, it's a Saturday

2009-08-01T20:29:00.002+10:00

A busy sporting Saturday as per usual. Marcus and Heather both played this morning and both had a win. Mind you, there are no official scores kept in Heather's division, but you can guarantee that the players keep a running total.

Unfortunately my team in the afternoon couldn't finish the trifecta and lost 3-1 to the KD Dads. A couple of our blokes need to work out when to keep their traps shut and that ragging on the 15 year old in our team really doesn't do any good at all, particularly when you make plenty of mistakes yourself. The rest of the blokes are pretty good about it all though.

And I just about wore Nathan out as he had to chase me down for most of the match, so it wasn't all bad :-)

Chapel tonight was good, I was rostered on for kid's club so got to help out teaching a pretty large group of primary aged kids. I'd forgotten how my energy and volume a bunch of boys can have when all put together!

Paint Fumes

2009-07-31T14:10:00.002+10:00

Contractors are currently repainting my office, after a student attempted to redecorate it with her car. Unfortunately, they seem to be using the cheap, high-fume variant, so the stink is all through the building. So it's door shut and windows open time before I end up with a splitting headache.

Friday is here at last, but it won't be a late one for me. On top of the rampant display of sporting prowess from the family tomorrow, Chapel's men's brekky is on tomorrow, so I need to be in town before 7:30am. I'd better set the alarm.

Back on two wheels

2009-07-30T16:04:00.002+10:00

Got the VFR back from the shop today after getting the front brakes sorted. Very nice now, they feel like they'll actually stop me in a hurry, rather than the old ones that felt way too spongy. I'll have to take it easy for a bit to make sure the pads are properly bedded in, but it's all good so far.

Phoebe enjoyed her birthday yesterday, particularly since Grandma and Grandpa came up for a visit. This morning she asked when she was turning 5, and sounded a little unsure when we told her 364 more sleeps :-)

Was it really four years ago already?

2009-07-29T10:49:00.001+10:00

Our youngest, Phoebe, turns 4 today. That means she could be going to school next year - yikes! Getting two ready of a morning is a hassle enough, I'm not sure if I'm ready for three.

A thought on sporadic updates

2009-07-28T12:06:00.003+10:00

Those very few of you who do peruse this blog would have noted that for quite some time I have been particularly slack about updates. I could attempt to trot out my usual sequence of excuses, namely having no time, away, sick, nothing exciting happening, and plain old forgetting, but ultimately it comes down to laziness. Effectively I haven't been updating as I simple haven't been bothered to sit down for ten minutes and write something. For someone who has vague pretenses of writing for fun and profit, that's fairly inexcusable.

Dave, over at Blogography, made a few comments a while ago about bloggers he had been following who have simply dropped off the radar with no indication of their intentions to leave. That got me thinking of this rather neglected corner of the internet, and how I too have simply gone silent for a while. So I decided to fix that.

It's nearly the end of July, second semester has just started and our youngest is turning 4 tomorrow. So I'm going to work on posting something, even if it's a twitter-like single sentence, to this blog each day during August. With 24 hours (approximately) in each day there has to be something about which I can make some manner of comment. With August 1st being a Saturday I can think of at least five different things that will be happening during the day so I will have no excuse.

Who's with me?

Sunshine, lollypops and car impacts

2009-06-29T11:58:00.002+10:00

Once again I have had to brush away the cobwebs and dust from this blog. It's not that I've deliberately ignored it, it's more that there has been very little of great excitement going on and I didn't feel any real need to blog on the minutiae of my life. So it just disappeared into the background while I got on with things in general.

Just after Easter we headed off to Sawtell to meet up with the Cavs for a combined holiday at the coast. The best laid plans are often thwarted, with most of us being sick at some point during the week. Even so we all had a pretty good time, finally getting to catch up without all the wedding/christening/whatever that usually goes with our visits.

I finished my study for the semester last Wednesday. The exam was pretty tough, but I should be getting through it. I can now have my evenings back! To celebrate I've been working my way through the Indy movies and am looking forward to #4 probably tomorrow night.

Last Saturday was interesting, combining a flat tyre, my second goal for the season and a strained hamstring. Quite an interesting day indeed.

Of course, the Friday before last was the really interesting one, when a young lady decided to try to park her Chrysler inside my office. She lost control on a slippery bend, skidded across the road and smashed head first into the wall of my office. Luckily I wasn't inside, but was walking up the hill to work and instead watched the whole thing unfold. No one was hurt, fortunately. If you want to see some pictures, check out this link.

That just about sums up the last few months. Vale Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, as well as the truck driver in Sydney who couldn't have been more unlucky if he tried. Rest in peace to them all.

Vroom

2009-03-09T18:23:00.002+11:00

Did about 100km or so on Sunday on the bike, taking the back way to Uralla via the Bundarra road then back along the highway. Joerg had borrowed a mate's CB250 so we gave both bikes a good highway run. Excellent.

Of course, when I got home I had to mow the lawns, but there are always trade offs.

A Blue Ribbon Day

2009-03-07T18:13:00.002+11:00

The Armidale Show was on this weekend, and Heather entered some needle craft in the show. Low and behold she won first place! She was very proud and happy.

In these tough times, investors turn to...

2009-03-04T09:04:00.002+11:00

Iranian pickled goat skins. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the latest groundswell of investment opportunities involves this particular delicacy. Act now before it's too late!

I love spam email, don't you? Having run out of viagra, Russian brides and Nigerian billionaires they are now turning to more traditional fare in an effort to lure the unwary. Remember, you have been warned!

I'm confused - is this what they call media bias?

2009-02-24T16:39:00.002+11:00

SMH website: "Stealing the show: US critics give Hugh the thumbs up."

NEWS website: "Critics Hate Hugh: Hugh Jackman's performance at Oscars panned by US media."

I'll just go sit in a corner and wait for the nice men with the white jackets.

A busy weekend

2009-02-23T10:59:00.002+11:00

800 or so km will do that. We headed north to Toowoomba for the weekend to catch up with Ang's family and celebrate a couple of birthdays. Due to our usual "let's do a couple of things on the last day" we didn't leave until around 5pm local time, which to us daylight savers was really 6pm, resulting in us getting home last night around 11:30.

For some reason we were all a bit slow off the mark this morning.

Oh, and in news from a week ago, we've acquired 4 chickens. No eggs yet, but the kids love them. Particularly when bbq'd...

Know what I hate?

2009-02-18T09:13:00.002+11:00

Waterproof pants that aren't.

Being bowled out for 56 to lose outright by an innings.

black eyes, fat knees and beatings: aka why we love cricket

2009-01-27T10:52:00.002+11:00

Another weekend, another heavy defeat at cricket. We are seriously in need of our student players returning, as well as the 3-4 other regulars who were out for the last couple of games. When your batting order goes 1-2-3-4-5-6-11-11-11-11-11, you know you are in trouble.

Hillgrove made 240 batting first, smashing us all around the park. I had to bowl this week, taking 1-56 of 8 overs, which was the first time I've bowled in 1st grade in around 14 years. Things were looking good in the first couple of overs until Brad King decided to smash us everywhere on his way to 108.

It looked like I was going to have to score 80% of the runs in the chase as we were desperately short of batsmen in form. With Gus away and Buckets injured, I was the only player with more than 100 runs for the season in our lineup. Not good.

The black eye in the title came in the third over when I top edged a pull shot into my helmet. Thankfully I was wearing it and contact lenses, otherwise things would have been rather messy indeed. I managed to get away with a nice lump and some multicoloured bruising.

In the end I made 52, Skinner made 25 - and we were bowled out for 106. I'll let you all do the math to calculate the contribution of the other 9 players. Here's a hint - the not out player made 6. Answers on my desk by the final bell today.

That night my right knee decided that I had been doing far too much exercise and swelled up. Way to finish the day.

Oh, and on Sunday the washing machine packed it in.

Mostly Quiet

2009-01-22T11:02:00.002+11:00

Obviously nothing particularly earth-shattering has been going on around here of late, evidenced by my lack of blogging since Jan 5. Work has been busy enough without being overly interesting, and sporting wise we've managed two games of cricket in a row, unfortunately with two rather heavy losses. As it is raining outside currently I'm expecting a weekend off coming up.

Of course, there have been some fairly important events in the last week, namely birthdays for Marcus (9) and Heather (6). Both involved sleepovers that resulted in rather less sleep than normal, as well as much cake, nibblies and more battery operated toys. I think we've depleted the world's Nickel and Cadmium stores rather effectively over the last three weeks or so.

Our darts team has made it into the B-grade final. We've been playing a 4 person comp - team 801, 4 doubles 601 and 4 single 501. On Monday after all but the last singles game we were tied at 4-4. Guess who had to play the last game? No pressure. Tied at 1 leg apiece we went into the decider, and I ended up with 50 to finish. Busted on the first go (single 1, triple 17) I figured I might as well have a lash at the centre bull finish. Low and behold, one dart later we were in to the finals! I was right chuffed at making that throw, I can tell you.

There will be blood.

2009-01-05T20:17:00.002+11:00

I bled for the cause today. Not an overly charitable cause, admittedly. I managed to cut or scrape myself in six different locations on my hands while installing two UPSs and two more sets of rack mount rails for some new servers we had delivered at the end of last year. I was ready to pack it all in by 4:30, I can tell you. At least I had cricket training to look forward to after work.

First one for the year!

2009-01-02T13:45:00.002+11:00

Rejection notice, that is. I'd forgotten that I'd submitted that particular story and was unsurprised it didn't make it. It had been rejected a couple of times already, and on re-reading it could be better (what author doesn't think that?). Chalk it down to experience and a writing exercise.

And so it begins

2009-01-01T12:34:00.002+11:00

Jan 1 has rolled around with rather disturbing rapidity. Particularly December, which disappeared in a blur of post-nano apathy, Christmas preparations and celebrations and visitors. Now we've hit '09 and I can only imagine that the pace will continue to increase.

I don't like making resolutions, preferring to come up with a series of targets that are, in theory, achievable. This year they include:

* Finishing the '08 nano novel into a form that might be reasonably considered to be 'finished' and ready for review.
* Be prepared for nano '09, with a word count target of 60,000.
* Get a good start on being aerobically fit before the start of soccer training this year. I'm discovering that it takes much longer now than it used to to get and maintain fitness. Darn getting older!
* Hit the gym. Hard. See previous point.

Rejection

2008-12-31T16:40:00.000+11:00

"Silent Guns" was given the big thumbs down again. Looks like I might have to file that one under "good, but not good enough" and give something else a go.

The End

2008-12-05T10:44:00.003+11:00

Often when I write I get a flash of how I want the story to end, the hard part being getting the characters to that point. It may be a sentence or a whole scene, but I know how I want to wrap things up.

This year's Nano was different. Right up to Nov 1 I had no real idea what story I was going to write, so it progressed a little slowly. I would get an idea, write it, then go "now what?" for the next day.

Yesterday I had a flash of exactly how I want to finish the novel. It even came as a couple of different scenes, as the end required a scene previous. Interestingly the final parts are based on something I had come up with about half way through the month, an almost throwaway scene to pad out the word count that will now turn out to be rather vital to the whole shebang. An interesting development.

The view from orbit

2008-12-01T15:31:00.002+11:00

After a couple of languid nights of typing on the weekend I finished with a word count of 51,714. The official Nano count is probably a bit higher as when I submitted on Saturday it upped my word count from 50,025 to 50,076. But that's close enough for me.

It's been a fun month. I managed to stay ahead of the curve each day and only had a couple of really poor word counts that were nicely balanced by some big days. There's a novel buried somewhere amongst all that wordage, so I'll have to find it one of these days.

What I need to do the next time, or whenever I write again, is to try to find a less distracting place to type than the office or lounge room. Too many distractions like TV or the internet that really slow down the writing process. I had a couple of good writing days when I headed out of the office to a lab on campus and just sat and wrote. Definitely the way to go.

What next? Some short stories, I think, work a bit on this and last year's efforts, then plan out Nano09 with a target of 60k words. Only twelve months to go, after all...

Liftoff, we have liftoff! T minus 2 days, -76 words

2008-11-29T22:27:00.002+11:00

Yeehaw! Snuck over the line late Friday night and I have now officially won Nano 2008. I'll write a bit more in the next two days to give me a final total for the month somewhere around the 51.5k mark I'd say. There's still more to write and a huge amount of editing to go, but the main task is complete.

SRBs are go: T minus 3 days, 1819 words

2008-11-28T12:12:00.001+11:00

Final checks have been completed, all lights in the green, ready to go for launch. Tonight we shall see victory!

Main engine ignition: T minus 4 days, 3712 words

2008-11-27T13:33:00.002+11:00

So close I can almost smell it! With an official 4 days to go I should get over the 50k barrier on Friday night sometime. That'll give me the weekend to get well over the count so any discrepancies between the way MS Word and NanoWriMo count words will not have an effect on my victory status. Here's hoping!

The Final Countdown: 5 Days, T minus 5538 words

2008-11-26T09:48:00.001+11:00

A bare minimum of writing done last night. I need to get some action happening soon to get the words flowing again. Right now I've got the MC in the bar (AGAIN! What's the story with all the booze?), the good guys en route and the bad guy(s) about to do the same. Let's see where they all end up.

The Final Countdown: 6 Days, T minus 7208 words

2008-11-25T10:44:00.002+11:00

A quick 1680 words last night which is right on the average requirement per day. At this rate I'll reach the 50k barrier with a couple of days to spare and quite probably a fair bit of story left to go.

Of course, the question is what do do with it next. Should I attempt to edit it and make it (possibly) worth publication? That will wait for a month or so after November, just to give myself some breathing space. I've still got the 22k I did last year that needs to be finished somehow as well.

The Final Countdown: 7 Days, T minus 8888 words

2008-11-24T09:26:00.002+11:00

With one week to go I've broken the 40k barrier. This morning I realised that with my current count of 41,112 words I am precisely 8,888 words from the finish line. A nice bit of symmetry there. So I'll switch to a countdown tally for the run to the end of the month.

We spent the weekend at Emerald Beach. Despite it being very windy the weather was lovely, 30 on Saturday and mid 20s on Sunday. Much better than Armidale where it almost snowed on the weekend.

Day 20: 36,886 words

2008-11-20T23:56:00.001+11:00

I just scraped in above the daily count tonight. It was a tough one, words took a fair while to get going, but I managed. The next few days will be interesting.

More rain and storms! Just what I need when riding home on a bike.

Day 19: 35,158 words

2008-11-19T23:49:00.001+11:00

A nearly 3k day, excellent!

Rain, rain rain this week. And we're off to the coast this weekend, here's hoping it clears up by then.

Day 18: 32,275 words

2008-11-18T23:30:00.001+11:00

Reporters, you can't trust them. Particularly when you suspect they aren't really reporters. And when you are spot on in your suspicions. The plot thickens!

Day 17: 30,422

2008-11-17T23:07:00.001+11:00

w00t, over the 60% mark! The story is progressing, more or less. Happy gangsters, unhappy directors of mysterious temporal agencies, and a MC who's decided he's tired of being clueless. Of course, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing...