I would like to have blogged a bit more in 2011. It’s not like I had any shortage of things to write about, in fact that’s probably the crux of the matter: not enough time to write due to many things going on. No promises about writing more next year though — I can’t imagine I’ll magically have more time for writing next year!

Wherever you are, best wishes for the coming year. Here’s hoping that 2012 brings health and fortune to you and your family.

Happy New Year!

I went to the shopping centre today (Garden City, in Upper Mt Gravatt) with my seven-year-old son. On the way there we were discussing the various things we might do there, foremost among them was eating (he seems to be inordinately interested in food at the moment; I suspect a growth spurt). After finding somewhere to park and finding our way from the car to the shops, we resumed the where-will-we-go conversation. We decided that the main purpose of the shopping trip was to get something for Mummy for Mothers’ Day, but we did agree it was okay to do a little bit of looking at things for ourselves. I was explaining the concept of “window shopping” to him when he suddenly said “or we could go to the library.”

I managed to choke back my reflex response of “The LIBRARY?!?” and instead managed something a little more fatherly. “But Mummy has the library card, I don’t have one,” I had to say, thinking he wanted to borrow.

“That’s okay,” he said, “we can just go and look at the books and maybe read one and then we could have some lunch.”

Which is exactly what we did. My seven-year-old son took me to the library. We looked through the books, found one that he liked which he read aloud, and then left and had sushi for lunch. I was definitely proud but at the same time stunned that a visit to the library was as interesting a prospect as anything else the shopping centre had to offer — especially since the library is immediately next door to a Toys-R-Us!

So what has this to do with Borders?

I was a little disappointed, but not too surprised, when the local Borders franchise announced it had entered administration. All of the Australian Borders stores that have touched me in some way, including the Brisbane City and Mt Gravatt stores, are to be closed. The hammer is even going to fall on the Jam Factory store in South Yarra, the first Borders I ever set foot in (the novelty of visiting that store was part of what kept me entertained when I was working in Melbourne).

Shortly after we’d been to the library, had our lunch, and looked at a couple of other shops, my son and I went into the Borders — it, along with the other stores to be closed, are open while the administrators try to wring every last dollar out of them. There were people everywhere, picking over the remains of the stock. How ironic that the busiest many stores are is their last days of trade.

It was pretty depressing: many shelves were bare, even a couple of complete sections had been abandoned (and were being used as impromptu play areas by kids bored by their parents’ sudden interest in books). Because all the stock was 50% off, people seemed to be treating it as having 50% less value — books were being disdainfully rummaged through, in a similar way to how a pile of laundry gets treated when you’re looking for that one lost sock.

I looked at the remnants of the computer books area, and was quickly reminded why I haven’t bought a tech book from Borders for years. I saw an O’Reilly title, one which I wasn’t sure I had, and the price on it was almost $100. When I got home I checked and I did have it: bought via Amazon at a price, even including shipping (and an exchange rate at the time that was nowhere near as attractive as it is now), that was less than even the Borders administrators 50% discount would have yielded. Nevertheless, I did take a few books to the register — not technical books, rather some light stuff in the vein of Richard Hammond’s “As You Do”.

The final depressing twist came as we left the store. I got a partial smile from the cashier when I placed my purchases on the counter for payment, but by the time she’d handed the bag to me her look was more “enjoy your books and your discount, I’ll be jobless in a few days”.

From the safe and insular confines of a blog, it’s easy to rant about bookstores and big publishing companies that try to ignore the international market and continue pricing domestically as if the Internet doesn’t exist and it really does cost a fortune to ship books to a tiny place like Australia. It’s a different matter when that bookstore you used to love going to can’t afford to keep the lights on any more.

But then, as I was thinking of how to wrap this post, the thought occurred to me… what kind of place would be good for someone who likes looking at books but never buys them…

Sometimes when I’d go to Borders I’d get quietly mad at the people who’d sit themselves in the comfy chairs and read the books for hours and hours. What did they think Borders was… a library? It was a library — the problem was, in their kind of library you had to buy the books instead of borrowing them.

I’ve got a feeling that the initial success of Borders was driven by the same enthusiasm for libraries that my son showed me today. We all remembered this incredible place where there were thousands of books, and we could pick them up, turn their pages… and read a bit of them, then put them back. And to the eventual demise of Borders, that’s what we all did.

So to anyone thinking “now that Borders is going, I’ve got nowhere to read a good book” I say “find your local library!” And to any passing librarians I say “I hear there’s some books hitting the market cheap, might be a chance to build the collection because you never know when traffic might pick up”.

The worst part of this was the fact that the feelings have worsened after I had made what I thought was positive changes in my outlook.  I’ve been more focused on exercise and physical activity, and trying really hard to spend more time with the family.

On the bus on the way home from work on Friday I was looking out the window and thinking about… nothing.  I closed my eyes for a moment, and the feeling of relaxation I had — for just a moment — was blissful.  At that point I realised that my problem was probably little more than the fact that I am completely and utterly burnt-out.

I began to think about the times recently that I’ve been away from work.  We went to the beach for a couple of days in January, but as every parent knows a family holiday (particularly with young kids) is just all the same stuff with some different scenery.  Last September we went to Melbourne, but I was working.  A few days here and there for trips to the beach and so on.  In November 2009 I did my European trip, which is probably the closest thing to a vacation I’ve had in the last two years, but again I was working.

I realised, again like just about every parent does, that I haven’t had a proper “holiday” since before our first child arrived — for me that means 2003 (I’m guessing it was when S and I went to Rotorua while I was working in NZ, but again that was only a couple of days).

So what’s my plan?  After all, a realisation is worthless unless it is acted upon.  Well I do have a holiday in mind, but that won’t be until toward the end of the year (and I’ve probably given away too much already).  In the meantime, I plan to keep up the physical activity (maintaining health in the long term is surely more important than giving in to a bit of moodiness) and will be doing my best to find enjoyment wherever it exists or how trivial it may seem.  I think I’ll also get back into the blogging habit — I find that the time it takes to put a good post together is quite therapeutic!

The process was well organised, except at the location I went to where the buses departed from a nearby bus terminal — mildly inconvenient if you’d transported yourself to the bus terminal and walked to the marshalling site, only to have to walk yourself back to the bus terminal… But honestly, mild inconvenience was probably far from most people’s minds right then.

The registration process was quick and easy, but I missed the briefing entirely because in a crowded high school hall with a couple of hundred (at least) people inside our briefing was delivered by a lady equipped with a librarian’s clipboard and the voice to match.  A couple of people near me managed to pick up Oxley and Chelmer as potential locations, but I heard nothing else.

Council also seemed to have been a bit unprepared for the number of volunteers.  Two shifts — one morning, one afternoon — were planned, and 6000 volunteers were expected across the four sites over the day. By lunchtime it was announced that 7000 people had arrived for the morning shift alone!   There were not enough buses available after I’d been processed, so I and a couple of hundred other volunteers had to wait for transportation.

Part of the queue of volunteers waiting to be bussed to flood-devastated parts of Brisbane. The South-East Freeway is in the left of field -- that's where the horns of encouragement were coming from.

While we were standing in line for buses, the line stretched from the bus stop near Garden City across a bridge over the South East Freeway.  We must have been clearly visible to the freeway traffic below, standing there with our shovels and brooms and buckets, because several cars and trucks blew their horns in encouragement as they passed below.

Eventually we were on a bus, and along the way I got my first view of some of the devastation.  On Riawena Rd, muddy leaves on a roadside shrub near the bank of Stable Swamp Creek while we stood at traffic lights waiting to cross Beaudesert Road.   I looked up to the creek bank and saw a couple of porta-loos that had been unceremoniously dumped on the other side of the creek.   Then the traffic got moving, and we crossed Beaudesert Road to Granard Road, which was badly affected.  Riding in a council bus, I was looking out the window to business that were well higher than the road level, and the water line was a good metre or so up the wall — had my bus been there at the flood peak, it likely would have been submerged.  The front parking areas of the shops along Granard Road were littered with the contents of the various shops.  My breath caught in my throat.

And then, suddenly, everything was normal again as we crested the high ground midway along Granard Road.  I couldn’t help thinking “is that all?”.  I was quickly answered “No”, as the bus turned onto the Ipswich Motorway.

I would find out later we were headed for Oxley Road, but the off-ramp was still under a metre or so of water.   The Harvey Norman store at that off-ramp had a watermark at least a metre up the wall, and there was no-body around.  It was eerie, since the car park of the Good Guys store just up the road was teeming with people…  I later worked out that the HN store was probably still inaccessible.  So because the off-ramp we needed was inundated, we had to go well up the Motorway and backtrack, and since none of us really knew where we were going (other than generalities) we wondered if our driver was lost.  We did turn off onto Oxley Road however, to see a more human side of the tragedy.

I say “more human” now, looking back on my reaction to what I saw.  When it was stores and industry, it wasn’t as personal as seeing those first few houses along Oxley Road and the nearby streets…  Suddenly it was people’s homes, people’s lives, and it seemed somehow more real.  Some of the side streets were full of equipment helping clean up, others just seemed like normal streets (albeit very dirty and messy-looking streets).  Then, suddenly, just like happened on Granard Road, everything was normal again as we got to some high ground.

The roundabout at Oxley Station Road was under police control; they were stopping normal traffic from going any further up Oxley Road.  The roundabout was under a couple of inches of water still.  I realised that I was close to the house where a friend and former colleague used to live with his brother and a few mates.  I couldn’t remember exactly where the house was, but there’s a good chance it would have gone under.

A mud-slick Bridge Street in Chelmer. Walking in vehicle wheel-tracks was essential.

I expected that we would be dropped off at any time, but we kept driving, back into high ground now, through Oxley, then Corinda, then at Sherwood we jockeyed across onto Honour Avenue (our spirits still fairly high, as we cheered the driver through a very tight left turn onto Sherwood Road from Oxley Road).  Still we drove on, leaving Sherwood and on through Graceville…

Just before the crest of the hill to get onto the Indooroopilly Bridge, at the intersection of Bridge Street, the bus stopped and the doors opened.  We were in Chelmer, and the support I was pretty-much expecting to be awaiting us, to direct our efforts and so-on, was non-existent.  We worked out fairly quickly that we simply had to find a place that looked like they needed help, and… help.

I took a couple of photos in that first part of the walk, but it was becoming too difficult to walk on the mud-slick streets and footpaths while looking for photo opportunities.  Besides, I realised that I was turning into a “flood tourist”.

Intersection of Oxley Road and Bridge Street -- starting to get very hazardous here. That mud was really slippery, and thick enough that once you started to slide there was no stopping you.

I was there to work — I put the camera away.

My sense of direction being pretty good, I wandered in the direction where I knew the river to be, expecting that closer to the river would be where most help was needed.  My sense of local geography however being pretty lousy, I didn’t realise that the houses closest to the river in that part of Chelmer (near Gordon Thompson Park) were actually among the highest, and therefore the least in need.  For a little while I actually wondered if I was walking in completely the wrong direction.

I found myself near another small group of volunteers and tagged a long for a little while. We encountered a house which had a lot of activity around it — but they, thanks for asking, were going okay for now.  I turned one corner, then another, and found myself in Campsey Street, in front of a house where a man was pushing mud down the driveway.  I found myself saying something like “you look like you need a hand”, and he replied with something like “I certainly do”.

And I worked at that little house in Campsey Street for the rest of the morning, alongside people I’d never met and likely will never meet again. Shovelling mud, pushing mud, bucketing mud, barrowing mud. There was a couple who lived nearby who just decided to go looking for somewhere to help and, like me, found that house. A young lady who I assume lived nearby, but will soon be going back to Europe where she’s doing overseas study.  An off-duty policeman from Logan who might have known the owner (owners? I don’t even know that much).

There were some light moments.  We had been shovelling and sweeping mud down the driveway for almost an hour when a guy with a bobcat came by.  He’d found a dumped mattress and had pinched it in the bucket of the bobcat and was using it like a big squeegee to clear footpaths and driveways.  In about five minutes work he’d done as much as we had done in that hour.  A couple of us looked at each other, grinned a wry grin and said “we needed him an hour ago”.  That would have been funny enough, but within another hour it happened again — we started clearing the path up the side of the house (where a bobcat wouldn’t be able to go) and another guy came by on a dingo (a kind-of mini bobcat) and did the same thing on that side path.  Same looks, same wry grins…  I make light of them, but the contribution guys like that made was excellent.  They were just riding around the streets on their dingos and bobcats, looking for places that could use them, five minutes here and five minutes there.  Brilliant.

It wasn’t just the ones working that I need to mention.  At about morning tea time a lass came around with a Tupperware tray of slices and biscuits in one hand, and a tray of jam donuts in the other — “Sugar hit?” she asked.  Too right!  Earlier in the morning I’d noticed a van parked in the intersection nearby with signs saying “TEA COFFEE AND MILO, FREE FOR VOLUNTEERS”.  My workmates and I eventually took a break and visited the van, which remarkably was still there, with the signs, and were offered hot tea by a couple from Lismore in NSW (who I hope had other business in Chelmer that day and didn’t, as much as I appreciated the tea, just come up all that way to make refreshing beverages for everyone).

Thankfully the sun didn’t get too strong, as it was the back of my shirt was totally drenched and I kept having to pace myself (of all the times to be out of my heart meds!).

I had taken a bucket with me, but hadn’t used it for anything more than protecting the bag I’d taken.  After we’d had our cuppa the activity moved to the house next door where there was suddenly an absolute army of people (earlier there had been almost no-one) moving mud.  A swarm of wheelbarrows came with them, and people were using shovels to try and get the very viscous mud out of the gutter and into the barrows.  A few small round-edged buckets started to appear, but at that minute I was glad that I’d resisted the temptation to leave that square-edged bucket at home.  The mud was gone from that part of the street in pretty short order with about a dozen people with shovels, small buckets and one big flat-sided bucket and the half-dozen wheelbarrows we were filling!

There was one other man working at that Campsey Street house who had also come on the council bus from Macgregor, and we’d discussed earlier in the day that neither of us knew for sure how to get home when our “shift” was finished.  Between us we decided that we would just make our way back to roughly where the bus dropped us off, and we’d be collected.  Well while I was scooping mud with the bucket, I started thinking about the time and wondering if I’d have to make a move.  Sure enough, it was 11:25 by the time I was able to check what time it was, and my fellow council volunteer seemed to have already left.  I cleaned the broom (a new broom that was definitely coming home), decided to donate the bucket (an old bucket, now covered in mud, that was likely to get much more meaningful use in Chelmer than at my house), and turned to go… but the strangest thing happened.

I didn’t want to go.

If you’ve read this blog before, you’ll have read that I experience a kind of “travellers’ regret” when I visit somewhere that has touched me (the regret part is usually the result of knowing that I may never visit there again). It happens strongest in places that have really moved me — I felt it in Lake Louise, Canada, at the Kennedy Space Center, and in the shadow of the London Eye.  I felt it at Paris Gare du Lyon, and at New York’s Grand Central Terminal.  It was not so strong in Newport, Rhode Island (I visited there because it’s where the Aussie yacht Australia II won the Americas Cup in 1982); very strongly at le Viaduc de Millau.

On Campsey Street, Chelmer, in my own home town, it was as strong as I’ve ever felt it.  Despite the place looking like arse — no: because the place looked like arse — I needed to stay; there was so much more to do…  but it was more than that even.  I felt in some way connected to the other people who were helping there, even though I knew no-one’s name.  I probably would have stayed, had I not arranged with Susan that she would do the afternoon shift.  I tore myself away and headed back toward Honour Avenue.

I had to wait for a while, as the buses were being delayed getting through Toowong and Indooroopilly to pick us up.   Then, we went on a crazy route that seemed to loop through Sherwood and Graceville a couple of times before we headed back via Coronation Drive to Macgregor.  This gave me a chance to see some other things I’d only seen on TV — the Regatta Hotel looked almost normal again, and so too did the Drift restaurant.

It turned out that Susan didn’t get her turn to volunteer.  Thanks to my delayed return, it was almost 1:30 before she got to the marshalling area and by then they already had more than enough people in line and didn’t want any more.

So that was my first volunteering effort.  I was absolutely wrecked by it, and days later I’m still sore.  The best part has been knowing that I’ve actually helped someone (maybe multiple someones) start to get some order back in their life.  The kudos earned from friends and family has been a nice fringe benefit also, I have to admit.  I got a SMS message of appreciation from Lord Mayor Campbell Newman today as well (okay, so it wasn’t the actual Lord Mayor — the giveaway was the words “Stop messages? reply STOP” at the end of the message — but it’s the thought that counts, right?).

I was in the CBD yesterday as the water started to rise. Shops were closed, and normally traffic-choked streets were almost empty, adding to the nervous tension that was building even then, some 24 hours ago. On the bus crossing the Brisbane River via the Victoria Bridge (in fact, if bridges were named so it would be Victoria Bridge the Third, because at least one but I’m pretty sure two previous bridges also called Victoria and in the same spot have been washed away in previous floods) I could see the river having broken its banks at the Queensland Museum and Southbank precincts. Today, as the first of the tidal peaks hits, streets in the CBD are starting to go under — and there’s another metre of water coming with the next peak, due tomorrow morning.

The heavy rain of the last month-or-so that has exacerbated this drama has eased today, but as I type this a sun shower has just started to fall. I guess Mother Nature wants to remind us that she’s still in charge…

Firstly my arrival was disrupted by the Iceland volcano.  About 45 minutes away from Amsterdam I noticed that the little diamond that represented our destination on the flight-map display had jumped somewhere into western Germany, and the plane’s direction had changed — we were now flying almost due south instead of following the gentle arc that traced almost all the way back to Hong Kong.  About 5 minutes later, the captain announced that due to volcanic ash we had been diverted to Frankfurt: “we’re 40 minutes away from Amsterdam, but they’re closing the airport in 20″.  To the credit of Cathay Pacific, however, they had arrangements for our “connection” to Amsterdam underway before we had landed.  Cathay’s airport manager at FRA boarded the plane almost as soon as the door opened, and made an announcement that we would be bussed to Amsterdam and what the process would be.  Once we made it into the Frankfurt terminal we only had a couple of hours wait before we got to shuffle ourselves to some waiting coaches for our unexpected bus tour of north-west Germany and north Holland.

The bus ride was uneventful — except that I don’t ever tire of seeing fine German automobiles at-speed in their natural habitat: the autobahn.  As it turned out, the whole event actually solved a problem for me: how to fill in the nine hours between arrival at Schiphol and being allowed to check in to the hotel (S thought I was being way too positive when I told her that).  It actually was not an unpleasant way to spend a day post-long-haul-flight.

After catching a train from Schiphol to Centraal, finding my hotel, checking in, and cleaning up from the trip, it was time to get a bit of rest before meeting the rest of the Australian contingent to BrainShare for dinner.  We dined at Restaurant d’Vijff Vlieghen, a fine restaurant that (unbeknown to me beforehand) is one of the best in Amsterdam for traditional Dutch cuisine.  I’m amazed I stayed awake through the five courses, but luckily my travel didn’t catch up with me until I made it back to the hotel.

I had Tuesday pretty-much to myself.  I did quite a bit of walking around, trying to push through the jet-lag.  Early afternoon I walked with a couple of colleagues from Novell to the conference venue to register, and had a late lunch afterward. By late afternoon I realised that I wasn’t over the jet-lag and decided to rest up for the start of the conference.

The next couple of days are a bit of a blur.  Keynotes, demos, technical sessions, product launch parties, beer, food, sunsets after 10pm…  It was an incredible week.  As far as the BrainShare content goes, even though Linux is just a part of the Novell “story” I was never really starved for something interesting.  I enjoyed the demos of SUSE Studio, and learned some things about the High Availability extension for SLES and the Subscription Management Tool.

I had a great time.  The crew from Novell that hosted me were fantastic, and every time I go there I fall a little bit more in love with Amsterdam.

Since I’ve been back home now for almost a month, it seems silly to call these posts “travel updates”. 

With the experience of visiting le Viaduc de Millau still buzzing in my head, I pointed my trusty Peugeot back toward Montpellier for the journey to Germany.  The run down the mountain back toward the coast was a really nice drive, but by the time I was back in Montpellier it was back to nasty busy city driving.  I think I made a little bit of an error: instead of following the path that Google found for me to get to the A9 (which was more-or-less back through the middle of town), I followed the first sign I saw that said “A9 NIMES”.  This ended up taking me on a Cooks Tour of bypass roads around the south outskirts of the city, past industrial estates and the consequent heavy workaday traffic.  The city path was very likely to have been quicker and easier.  Oh well.

Once I made it to the A9 for the trip north, I was able to settle in and enjoy the drive again.  The autoroutes in France are excellent, with a great smooth driving surface (in spite of the heavy-vehicle traffic they carry) and plenty of visibility and clearance for cars to be able to carry the 130km/h speed limit (again, in spite of the heavy-vehicle traffic, which is only permitted to do about 90km/h).  Mind you I ended up paying around 50€ in tolls while I was in France!  If it’s a demonstration of how tolling a road can lead to better quality, I don’t mind at all.

The traffic bogged down a bit going through Lyon, but soon opened up again.  I was starting to get a bit worried about the time: I’d left Montpellier three or four hours before, yet seemed to be only a third of the way there!  Night was starting to fall as I turned east onto the A36 — the car was at last actually pointing toward Germany!  A short while after that, I stopped for some dinner before making the last part of the drive.   I was not far from the border by this time, and it looked like I was making good time after all.

I hadn’t planned for my first drive on an autobahn to be at night, but that’s how it worked out.  About the only indication that I’d actually crossed into Germany was the change in the road signage!  The speed limit dropped to 120km/h, but a little while later I saw a sign that showed the 120 crossed-out.  This, I eventually worked out, was the only indication I would get that I was on one of the famous speed-unlimited autobahnen (well, the Mercs and Beemers and Audis rocketing past me were another indication).  Because it took me so long to work out what was going on, I almost didn’t get to go for a rocket myself — I had wound the Peugeot up to about 140-150 and was still getting passed like I was stationary, so I decided to give it a run.  In a few seconds the little Pug was at 195km/h, and seemed like it could have gone a bit higher, but slower traffic ahead meant I had to back off.  As it turned out, I didn’t get another chance to wind it out because we were in and out of roadworks for the last part of the run to Stuttgart.

Eventually I found the last motorway exit I had to take, and I was on the streets of Sindelfingen.  I had made it all the way from Montpellier, without a single wrong turn!  Before congratulating myself too heartily though, I had to find my hotel…  and this was a bigger challenge than I had thought.  I found it, eventually, but not before I’d driven up the same street three times (at least) and done at least one U-turn in front of the place without realising it…

As I was planning my drive from Montpellier to Stuttgart, I suddenly remembered “that stonking-great bridge somewhere in France that those pommie tossers drove those cars over”.  I really had no idea where it was — I couldn’t even remember the name of it.  Somehow, however, I managed to locate it — and found that it was only a bit over an hour’s drive from Montpellier.

So Google Maps told me at least, and my record with that site was not great.  When first I consulted the Googleplex for how to get from Montpellier to Stuttgart, I’m sure it said it would take 3-4 hours.  Just before I’d found le Viaduc de Millau, though, I asked it again and it said more like 8 hours.  More on that later…  but now I was contemplating making my 8-plus hour trip to Stuttgart into at least 11.  I was seriously considering giving up on the tentative plan to see the bridge.  Then I thought: how would I feel if I went home, knowing that I was so close and didn’t bother going?  I made my mind up: I was going to Millau.

I planned my departure the following morning to be a little earlier than originally scheduled, and packed the bags the night before.  The next day I got moving nice and early, right in the middle of Montpellier weekday-peak morning traffic!  It didn’t take long for that to clear, though, and I was on the A750 heading west.  The A750 joined the A75, and then I was heading up into higher altitude.  The diesel Peugeot I was driving ate up the twisting climb with no trouble, and before long the road had levelled- and straightened-out a bit.

I saw a tourist sign saying “Viaduc de Millau”, and realised I was almost there.  Then, I was there!

Darned windscreen wiper! Actually it doesn't matter really, since there's no way a photo from a moving car could do it justice.

You can see the towers of the bridge pylons in the distance: the seventh (and most distant) one is still over two kilometers away! The sign in this photo is for the tourist stop on the north side of the valley, which is three kilometers down the road, and the bridge starts just past the sign…

I tried to take a couple of photos as I was going over the bridge to get a sense of the height and distance involved, but it was a wasted effort.  Not only was the camera unable to focus on anything but the blurring side barrier of the bridge, but the valley floor below was probably too far away for a camera to be able to convey the scene from a car.  So I concentrated on driving the rest of the way over, and trying to enjoy some of the view.

On the north side (as the signpost said) there is an information kiosk and observation area, so I pulled off the road and stopped there.  The observation point turned out to be the peak of a hill accessed by a very steep climb up a bitumen path… but when I made it to the top, the pain of the climb was soon forgotten.

The bridge actually looked to me like it was from another world: it is so big, so high, so amazing and different, that it just doesn’t seem like it could have been made here.  It was truly an amazing thing to see, and it didn’t matter about the lung-bursting climb up the hill or the finger-numbing-face-freezing wind blowing up the Tarn valley or the drizzle of rain that just refused to go away — I could not bear the thought of having to leave there.

Le Viaduc de Millau. I'm surprised I got these photos, I was beginning to wonder about my chances of frostbite thanks to the wind and rain!

I took a stupid number of photos, and stood for a while and just gazed.  I realised it was still (just) daytime in Australia and phoned home, but must have sounded like an idiot just banging on about a bridge.

Eventually I realised that I would have to leave in order to get to Stuttgart in a reasonable time, so reluctantly I set off back down the hill.  I went through the souvenir shop and picked up a trinket or two, along with a brochure or two that N might take an interest in.  Then, with even more reluctance, I got in the car and departed.  I wasn’t able to avoid the toll plaza — 12 euro (6€ each way) in tolls!  It was a small price to pay though — besides, I got to drive over it again!

The Millau Viaduct is a wonder of the modern world, and I am so glad that I didn’t talk myself out of driving up to see it.

I took a few photos then loaded my gear on the train (big bag in the luggage space at the end of the carriage, smaller stuff in the overhead rack), then went back onto the platform to get a few more photos.  I’m sure I was still acting like a stunned mullet as I wandered around the station!

As departure time drew closer, I headed back to my train and got comfortable.  I faintly heard the sound of the doors closing and then, without a sound, the train started moving.  It picked up speed as it started to snake along the lines heading out of Paris: there were a couple of curves where I could see the front of the train as we went.  Even though we were still in the suburbs and the tracks were eight-wide, the TGV was moving at quite a pace as we headed south.

Some breakfast came by, and the next time I looked out I noticed that the other tracks were gone and we were moving a lot faster now.  At no time had I felt any great acceleration, I suppose for comfort’s sake they let the train wind up gradually.

Then we got faster still.  And faster.  And faster.  And faster.

Again I have to reiterate: if you’re not a train-fan, you probably won’t appreciate how exciting, exhilarating and mildly terrifying it was for me.  I realised that I was actually on the ground at 300+km/h, and that if I was in a plane I’d be airborne by then!  In the dark the night before, I hadn’t been able to appreciate going through tunnels or passing under bridges at that speed.  The line ran near a highway at one stage, and I just couldn’t get my head around seeing the cars that I knew were going in the same direction as I was moving backward!

I could see trackside distance markers, and did a rough timing of our travel over one kilometre: “one-onethousand-two-onethousand … 12-onethousand”.  Math it out: that’s 300km/h.

I expected that the train would stop a couple of times, but there was only one stop (Nimes, about 100km from Montpellier).  The remaining run from Nimes down to Montpellier was fast, but not TGV-fast.  As we pulled into Montpellier, I gathered up my gear and got ready to leave the train.  My first TGV journey was over!

When the train did arrive, it was three minutes late.  I was amazed: over all those hundreds of kilometres, we only accrued a delay of three minutes.

I used a map in the Montpellier railway station to find that my hotel was literally a stone’s throw away.  I hauled my bags up the street and into what seemed like a dingy alley to the hotel and checked in.  My room had a dodgy double doorway onto the dingy alley, and I looked out at the street and watched a few cars go by.  I also got my first spectator view of French contact-parallel-parking!  That evening I met up with my residency colleague and a couple of his workmates over a couple of Belgian beers, and went for a stroll through the city after taking a slightly wrong turn when I was dropped off near the station.

The next day, since the plan to go to IBM didn’t work out, I had a chance to look around.  First order of business was to do some planning for the drive to Germany the next day, so I did some internetting before going to pick up my car.  The car was a diesel Peugeot 308, and I went for a bit of a drive to familiarise myself.  Thankfully the streets of Montpellier are a bit more forgiving than metropolitan Paris!  I managed to get lost a couple of times, but did my usual Zen navigation to get back on track (thank-you, Douglas Adams).

After the car adventure, I went for a bit of a walk around the old part of the city and took a couple of photos along Esplanade Charles de Gaulle.  Once again I saw that although large cities around the world are starting to become more and more alike (town square, shopping mall, etc.), European cities still have the charm of the “old town”.  I really like the narrow cobbled streets with people walking along seemingly day or night, and the food stalls and shops every couple of doors — real food shops, like a patisserie or coffee shop, not your chain-of-the-week like Starbucks or McDonalds.  Yes, I could really get the hang of Europe: I need to put more effort into learning more of the local language though.  I found myself too cautious about my inability to order from those patisseries and coffee shops to be able to enjoy them.  Dinner one night in Montpellier was Subway, and as I walked back to the hotel to eat I found myself looking at the local shops and regretting that I wasn’t confident enough to try.

The time came for me to leave Montpellier though, and start my journey to Sindelfingen in Germany.  My research on the route yielded an interesting fact: the Millau Viaduct is only a little over an hour’s drive from Montpellier…

While my Thalys journey to Paris was coming to an end, I got a phone call.  I wasn’t going to answer it for the combined reasons of being in a foreign country, being on a train in a foreign country, and being in a small room not normally associated with telephone communication while on a train in a foreign country.  Something made me answer the damned thing though.

It was someone claiming to be from my bank in Australia, asking me if I’d just used my credit card to buy something from the Apple Store in the US.  Now I did very nearly say yes, and to stop bothering me with such stuff: this was the card that had been associated with my Apple ID, and there was a chance that N had picked up my iPod and stumbled through and found the App Store and bought something.  They’d never contacted me before about App Store purchases however, and then I remembered that card was not on my Apple ID any more.  So I replied non-committally (and very helpfully, in hindsight)…

“Well, maybe.”

“This was only in the last couple of minutes,” said the bank.

“Oh,” said I.  That changed things.  Knowing that the card was not linked to my Apple ID any more, there was very little chance that N might have done something.  It definitely wasn’t me either, given where I had been during the few minutes in question.  ”No, then,” I replied.

At this, the VISA machinery sprang into action.  Within seconds I had been recited the standard dialogue about how my card(s) had now been cancelled and that I would soon receive new card(s) and PIN(s), so on and so on.  Being none too happy about having to re-arrange scheduled charges to the account (the only use that particular card gets, as it turns out) I started to think about how the number had got into the wild.

In spite of knowing that there are card number generators that the bad guys use to generate valid card numbers to try on unsuspecting e-commerce sites, something gave me the thought that it was more likely I had lost the small wallet that card was kept in.  I started thinking about the other cards that were in that case.  Hotel/car loyalty cards: painful, but not a problem.  Unused AMEX: cancellation drama only.  Travel-backup credit card: hmm, that might be a problem.  What else…

Oh, wait a minute…

OH CRAP.

Last I saw that wallet it was wrapped around…

O. M. F. G.

My PASSPORT.

Instantly I understood the feeling described by the term “heart in my mouth”.  There I was, standing on a train pulling into Paris Gare du Nord with my knees buckling contemplating the possibility that my passport was lost.

I started to look through the bags I was carrying, the places where I knew the wallet should have been.  Nothing.  By this time the train had stopped, and I alighted the train with the other passengers and took my frantic search to the Gare du Nord platform.  Still nothing.

My mind was racing.  Do I continue my journey to Montpellier as planned, and sort out the passport later?  Maybe ironically, the thing I was most upset about was having lost all the stamps in my passport!

I decided that I couldn’t think properly standing on a train platform and that I had to get to my hotel and sort it out there.  I managed to find the subway that links the SNCF station to the RER, but halfway through the subway I realised that I couldn’t go any further without having a proper search.  So in the middle of a railway station subway in Paris I started rifling my luggage like a sniffer-dog looking for the stash (and it wasn’t until later that I realised how much trouble that might have got me into).

FOUND.

The wallet, all cards secure and still encasing my passport, had worked its way into the lowest portion of the wheeled laptop bag I use.  I suffered the joyous feeling of my heart returning to its rightful place, combined with the return of my ability to breathe.  As I put stuff back into my bags and resumed my journey, I tried to concentrate on the task of getting the right ticket, the right RER line and the right train to get me to Gare de Lyon (thanks to the signage in the station, this was made very easy).

Once I was on the RER, with other commuters around me and me trying to marshall my luggage, I realised how I could not have done the trip thinking that I had lost my stuff.  I also realised that that was the closest I ever want to come to actually losing my passport while overseas.

Oh, and the credit card?  Like I said, it was in the wallet all along.  The card hasn’t been out of that same wallet for over twelve months, and the regular deductions (and my automatic payment to cover them) have been the only transactions on the account for at least that long, so I guess a card generator just happened to get lucky with my number.

So if you happen to get that phone call from your bank, think seriously about your card’s whereabouts and recent activity… and for heaven’s sake don’t do what I did and jump to the conclusion that the card was lost or stolen — your imagination might just take you someplace you really don’t want to go.

Update: Before I left Australia I had asked the bank to reissue the card for a promotion they were having, but the new one didn’t reach me before I left the country. When I got home, I had a look at the card that had been issued — the one that got hacked.  I think I know now why I got pinged: the CVV number (the three-digit printed number on the back of the card that is supposed to increase security) was the last digit of the card number followed by “00″ — I’d have to think that would be about the weakest CVV number the card could possibly have had! I feel much better now that this was simply a random selection by a card-number generator, facilitated by a stupidly-insecure CVV.

I’m not going to talk about the work stuff in these updates: for one, this is not actually a work blog so I probably shouldn’t anyway.  Secondly, it’s a bit on the boring side of things and I’d rather talk about the travel.  So, with that decided, let’s continue…

So Monday arrived and I did my presentation, then picked up my bags from the hotel and went to Schiphol.  I made use of the NS HiSpeed lounge (a little bit like an airline club lounge, but on a smaller scale) to have a refreshment before heading down to the platform for my train.  My final destination was Montpellier, France, but because of the time I thought I had to be there I had to overnight in Paris: so it was Thalys to Paris on Monday, then TGV to Montpellier on Tuesday morning.

I feel the need here to reiterate what I mentioned in the previous post: I’m a rail-fan.  When TGV was introduced in the 1980s, I made it one of my life’s goals to make a TGV journey one day.  I marked the goal halfway complete when a colleague and I travelled on Thalys in 2006: half-complete because we only went from Amsterdam to Brussels, which is not true high-speed (although I saw that it has been upgraded, and Thalys will run high-speed to Amsterdam from December 2009).

As I boarded Thalys for Paris that Monday night, I realised that my goal was about to become fully-complete.  I settled in as the train departed into the Dutch night, and started to enjoy the comforts of Thalys “Comfort 1″.  I hooked up to the Wi-Fi and made a couple of silly Facebook updates, and saw a nice little map feature they provided on their portal page:

My train was just south of Antwerp at this time... Cool, eh!

Due to the dark outside, it was difficult to get a sense of how fast the train was moving: the only way to know for sure was the occasional lit-up building or car that went by.  As I said, having travelled on Thalys before I knew that the best was yet to come (in other words, after we went through Brussels).

Eventually we pulled into Brussels, and my excitement built a little more.  The wait in Brussels-Midi station was almost unbearable!  Finally though, we got moving again.

I read an article by a UK travel reviewer when the TGV first ran.  He described a dramatic surge of acceleration as the 1k5V standard French pantograph was lowered and the 25kV circuit was activated on the high-speed line to Lyon.  I didn’t experience any such hard surge, but as we picked up speed out of Brussels I just knew that something was different.  I guess I was seeing enough points-of-reference outside to know that we were moving much faster than before, but whatever it was I could tell that now we were really moving.

I sat and enjoyed it all for a while: the surreal feeling of approaching the continuous lights of a stream of traffic on a road or highway impossibly fast, and realising that the train was actually going to pass over it…  and then the lights were gone as the train flashed over the highway.  The thrilling hum and vibration of the train itself: not disturbing at all, just the feeling of being on board a piece of machinery that was working hard.  After a while I checked back on the ThalysNet map, and realised that the map was clickable…  I clicked, and was rewarded with an enlarged view, with a speedometer! I refreshed the view a couple of times to make sure it wasn’t something static…

I did refresh and get one that said 300km/h, but it looked a bit staged

I refreshed each time I felt a large change in speed (and before anyone asks, no at 300km/h you can’t tell a change of 5km/h), and saw enough change in the display to be confident that it was a real representation of the train’s speed.

Unfortunately the journey had to come to an end.  I’ll write a separate post about the terrible experience I had as I arrived in Paris, but once I got over that I worked on the task of getting myself from Gare du Nord (where Thalys operates from) across town to Gare de Lyon (where the southbound TGVs run from, near which I’d booked my room for the night).  I ended up managing very easily to find the way to the RER station, buy my ticket, find the right train — a direct train, where my research had told me I’d need to change trains — and hop off at Gare de Lyon.  After a little mixed-up street navigation (unbeknownst to me I’d left the station from the back entrance, and ended up walking all the way around to the front) I made it to my hotel, checked in, and negotiated an old-style elevator (with a swinging outer door!) to my floor and my room.

The next morning I went for a little walk.  I realised I was quite close to the River Seine, so thought I couldn’t go home without seeing it.  What can I say: yes, it’s a river.  I thought I’d be able to see perhaps just the top of the Eiffel Tower, but there were too many buildings in the way.  Back to the hotel then, to check out and go to the station.

When I got to the plaza in front of the station, I had to pause.  There I was, actually standing in front of Paris Gare de Lyon!  Okay, a railway station… but which railway station!  This is where TGV basically started it’s first passenger services.  I was having another one of those dream-about-to-come-true moments.  Then I went inside and saw a real TGV! If you’ve seen the movie Cars, you’ll know the scene at the end when the Michael-Schumacher-Ferrari drives into Luigi’s Casa Della Tires and Luigi ends up fainting (“a REAL FERRARI!”).  For me, seeing not one but at least five TGVs was much like that.  Okay, they aren’t the old TGV Orange that I knew when I was a kid, and the design is a bit updated, but they’re TGV and they’re where modern high-speed commuter rail began.

Next update I’ll describe more of my TGV experience, as well as my first European drive!

I’d love to break my blogging drought now, as I have about five hours before I board my next flight, but I have a splitting headache which I’m sure you understand is not conducive to effective computer usage (which is a shame, as the Wi-Fi here is excellent).  Maybe later.

By the way, what brings me to Hong Kong?  I’m going to Europe for my remaining ITSO Workshop presentations.  Amsterdam on Monday, then Montpellier (France) on Tuesday.  I make some things up for a few days, then London next Monday followed by Milan on Thursday, then flying home via Rome and HK (again, three fortnights in a row).

I imported all the entries from the old engine (I’m even gradually working through them to categorise and tag them).  I even found some Perl and SQL mojo I never knew I had to make nice redirections from the old blog to the new.

As I said when I first started this blog, none of this coolness is likely to make me write more…  But here’s hoping! 

The post I made here last night was going to be a comment about how ironic it was that we didn’t want to know our baby’s gender and yet the time of the birth was known. Well as fortune would have it, I would have been wrong on both points!

We were due to arrive at hospital at 1:30pm today for a 2pm induction, but our baby had different plans! S went into labour spontaneously at about 1:30am this morning, so we had the dash to the hospital that we never thought we’d have. By 2:30am we were in the birthing suite, and just over one hour after that our baby girl K arrived!

As for the gender thing, although we were obviously going to be happy to have a healthy baby of either gender we’d both been hoping for a girl. This time, something was telling me that it was in fact a girl–I guess you’d say I was very confident. So confident in fact, that S was quite angry at me about a week ago for not committing to a name for a boy.

N met his baby sister this morning… he has a very proud-looking smile on his face whenever he looks at her! He’s a wakeup to our grownup tricks though–we’d bought him a present to take home with him “from the baby”. When given the present, he reportedly (and in his best “hang-on-a-minute-you-can’t-trick-me” voice) said “that’s not from the baby, babies can’t go shopping!”

PS: What’s Clinker? That’s the nickname that S’s work friends gave to her baby-bump!

I’m trying to get over the silly habit I’ve developed of bringing home stacks of coins from overseas, and it looks like I’ve had a bit of success this time. Somehow I’ve managed to come home with almost no coins! I brought a stack of coins I had collected on previous trips, and not only have I got rid of all them I’ve collected hardly any more.

I indulged my gadget addiction to the tune of an Archos 605 Wi-Fi media player. Yes, I know that there is a new series of devices released by Archos, but they are not generally available and may not be for a while (in this geography at least). Besides, the 605 has what I need (especially since the supplier over here includes the key plugins that I need) and is available now. The store recently reduced the price too — admittedly, probably to clear stock in advance of the new models coming in a few months.

Here’s hoping I get some sleep on the plane, as I want to have a good day with N and S before I have to do the Canberra thing all over again.

Some months ago I was in an IRC channel with a group of folks in the team I was working with at the time. The conversation had come around to green electricity, what deals our respective electricity companies were offering, and whether we were “doing the right thing” and selecting green energy.

I was a nay-sayer. “It’s a scam,” I railed. “Why should I pay extra for green power when the electricity companies know they should be doing that anyway?” The conversation turned to subsidies for installing solar power systems, and soon after that we actually got back to work.

Months later I recalled that conversation while listening to a podcast. The presenter was discussing climate change and the need for urgent action, whatever the cost. Which is when it hit me: green energy and it’s friends are like an early-adopter tax for a sustainable future.

In the early 90s, I remember models of the IBM ThinkPad would cost A$12k and more. Twelve THOUSAND dollars! Over time however, the developments in the technology have led to such remarkable improvements that a modern laptop can be had for a fraction of that amount, and projects like OLPC becoming viable. None of it wold have happened, however, if early-adopters had not backed the IBMs, Compaqs, and Toshibas (and the Osbornes before that, bless them) and supported the idea.

In 1978, when Mercedes-Benz first fitted ABS to the S-Class[1], I expect they would have wanted to make it at least an option on all their vehicles. That they didn’t, when the cost of doing so would have been astronomical, ensured that they were able to viably continue research and development on the technology and bring the cost down over time. Together with other car makers who progressively did the same, they ensured that even a modern $10k car can have access to such technology, but again it wouldn’t have happened if not for those S-Class buyers validating the idea and stumping-up the cash.

I’ve realised that businesses don’t have a conscience, and that the current economic model cannot reward a company for “knowing what it should be doing”. In quite a real way, companies need their customers to be their conscience by supporting those products that make a contribution to society, and rejecting products that are damaging or harmful. Longer-term, those companies that “get it” will thrive while those that don’t will fail.

So my consideration on things like green electricity changed to, simply, “can we afford to?”. Knowing that in around three months I’ll be meeting my second child (all going well), and becoming maudlin about the state of the world that a new person is being brought into (as new parents sometimes are wont to do), perhaps the question should be “can we afford NOT to?”…

[1] Other manufacturers fitted ABS systems to cars earlier than 1978, but they seemed to be one-off decisions that were inconsistently implemented or met with commercial failure. Mercedes-Benz, once the decision was made, stuck with it.

I can’t say I’m disappointed about 2007, although I do feel I would like to have “achieved” more. From a work perspective, I did no conferences, and I wrote no papers. I did keep some servers from failing, though, and helped a few folks with some problems they had.

I think it’d be great to understand why folks attach so much significance to the change of the calendar. The symbolism of “turning a new page” happens every day; why do we disregard that and think only of the new Year? It’s no wonder so many folks fail in their New Years Resolutions — the intimidation of having to keep to a promise you make yourself for a whole year is enormous! And we never choose anything simple, do we? Resolutions are always “lose thirty kilos in time for Gracie’s wedding” or “stop smoking” or “try and be a better person”. Achievability is sacrificed in the face of having to make a huge gesture in the face of tons of brightly-coloured explosives going off in the air above us (or on the television in front of us).

So, for me this year, I am making one New Year’s Resolution: to not make any New Year’s Resolutions. I’ll be making New Days Resolutions instead — every day, I will think of something I can do with that day. When I do it, I’ll be able to enjoy a little celebration of having achieved my Resolution. But what to resolve? Well, little things that add up to something big. Fixing my corrupted LDAP database, for example (for Susan to get her address book entries back). Taking myself out of the house and walking (to improve my health). Cooking dinner for the family (without being asked). Ringing family and friends for a chat, without having a reason.

The best part of this plan is that by the end of January, when I’m surrounded by miserable folks bemoaning the demise of their New Years Resolutions, I’ll have celebrated thirty-one Resolutions and be feeling great!

Some of you reading this are saying “hang on, those ‘Resolutions’ are all stuff that people do every day, how can you make Resolutions out of that?”. Well I’m sure many people do these things daily, but they’re not me. Everyone’s life is what they make of it, and many of us (me included) need to realise that a little effort trying to do big things doesn’t work — what’s needed is a big effort on the little things.

The best thing about 2007 for me was feeling signs that I’m getting better — getting my head out of whatever place it’s been in the past few years. Work still sucks, and is actually getting worse, but that’s not the crushingly depressing thing it would have been two years (or even twelve months) ago. If 2008 holds more of the same improvement then that’ll be fine with me.

Happy New Year, readers… Best wishes for prosperity and happiness, wherever you are and whatever you wish for!

I’ll admit, it was helped (but not deliberately).  I had bits of PC case lying all over the floor, and I was rolling around to reach something to one side of me[1]…  The ball pushed onto the corner of a CD-ROM drive bracket, hard enough to pierce the rubber.

Before I talk about what inevitably happened next, I need to mention that the manufacturer of the ball labelled it “anti-burst”.  I actually gave this a bit of thought — not to the point of buying an anti-burst type over one that made no such claim, but more that I was intrigued by the thought of what a large rubber sphere filled with air to a sufficient pressure to keep 100+kg of human off the floor was supposed to do when breached if not burst.

Also, just prior to my deciding to start using a gym ball as an office chair I had listened to This Week In Tech Episode 98, “The Big Bang”, in which the show’s host famously, during the episode, experienced a “catastrophic decompression” of his own swiss ball.  In fact, ironically, that event was my inspiration or motivation to use a gym ball (and if you can figure that out for me, I’d appreciate it).

If you listen to that episode (as one poster to the TWiT forums said, “the magic happens at 47:30″) you hear quite a loud explosion as Leo’s ball gives way, followed by impacts of various objects (including Leo himself).  He described it as “my swiss ball exploded”.

My experience was nothing like that!  As I said I was sitting on the ball and rolled toward what I was working on.  I heard the sound of the ball being pierced, and a slight hiss of air — but I was still sitting.  I realised instantly what had happened, but before I could actually move the ball gave way and dropped me to the floor.  About a third to a half a second elapsed between the sound of the puncture and my assumption of a new lower seating position.

Picking myself up, I inspected the carcass of the ball and found a single tear in the rubber that was nearly half the ball’s circumference — the initial hole travelled as the pressurised air was forced through.

So was the ball “anti-burst”?  I’d have to say yes.  It still failed, but not in the way that Leo’s ball went BANG.  There was virtually no sound (other than me hitting the deck of course) and even though I didn’t have enough time to jump off the ball or otherwise avoid the fall, that might just be because I’m on the heavier end of the scale.  Someone lighter may well have put the hole under less stress and caused it to rip later or slower (or maybe not at all).

So if you’re a gym-equipment-for-office-furniture type of person, having lived through the event I’d say definitely get the “anti-burst”.  Sure, it won’t keep you off the floor if it gives way, but it’ll be a smoother ride down.  You’ve probably got more to worry about from possibly hitting your head on the desk as you go down (I reckon I was perilously close to that this time, as I had my back to the desk), or from landing on the tacks your “friends” put out to find out if your gym ball is the anti-burst kind.

Oh and I’m fine, by the way…  ;)

[1] Anyone who’s used one of these things as fitness equipment or as office furniture will understand the movements you just pick up like second-nature.  Office-chair users: when you need to talk to your buddy at the next desk, you don’t think twice about turning around and pushing yourself backwards across the floor to reach her do you?  Same kind of thing.

He took to the plane amazingly well.  On the trip down we were ahead of the wings on a 767, and the engines didn’t bother him at all (even at landing).  The trip back we were at the back of a 737, and the noise was a bit louder and he was a little worried but quickly got over it.  He also had no trouble with pressurisation, something that couldn’t be said for me on this trip (a bit of sinus blockage from a cold gave me some trouble coming home).

I’d have to say that the highlight of Nicholas’ trip was TRAMS!  At one stage we were near the corner of Bourke and Swanston Streets in the city, where I’d guess the tram frequency during the day is probably 2-3 per minute in every direction.  Every tram he saw on the whole trip was greeted with a yell of “there’s a tram!”, but in the city it was bordering on delirium — “There’s a tram, and there’s another tram, and ANOTHER tram, and ANOTHER TRAM!!! There’s a brown one!  And there’s a green one!  And there’s ANOTHER brown one!  And there’s a blue one!!!  SO MANY TRAMS!!!”

We also rode on Puffing Billy, and had a couple of train trips on the suburban network, so I think he’s definitely had a good helping of Melbourne rail travel!

While it was good to get away, there were some logistical aspects to what was essentially our first ever proper “family holiday” that we’ll need to work on before we tackle the holiday thing again.  I can’t wait to get back to work and have a rest!  :-)

Jokes aside (particularly at the name of the venue, which is actually named after a shipwreck… oh dear, not getting much better is it) we’re on our “summer” holiday.  Caravanning on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.  Beautiful…  well, after the heat in the van’s canvas annexe… and trying to sleep at night amongst the insects in said annexe, since I’m too tall to fit the beds in the van…

Maybe I’m too used to travelling, especially given the places I visited on holiday twelve months ago.  I’m sure that it’ll do me good to rough-it a little for a while.  Caravanning is something I can generally take only in small doses, so we’ll have to see how I go with ten days straight!  We’re about four days down now, so if you see any headlines about psychopathic laptop-wielding Linux admins going postal north of Brisbane, check back here to see if it was me…

Connectivity for this blog posting comes courtesy of Optus 3G data via my Nokia N70 phone.  Didn’t get the Bluetooth link to the phone quite sorted yet so it’s via USB right now, but having got the PPP config right I can now take it into the Bluetooth mode with a little confidence.

Off to the beach in a minute, hopefully to get some photos of Nicholas going absolutely hog-wild in the surf — he’s loving the beach…  Watching him enjoying the beach so much is well-and-truly making up for the insects at night.

I’m hardly going to submit it to Google or anything like that, but it’s something newsworthy in the life of the site anyway.

From a Linux perspective, I’m using Apache VirtualHost directives so that access to the other stuff I host is not changed (at least that’s the plan).  Over time, I’ll upgrade things and integrate the photo gallery, but one step at a time!