Budget Day
I never thought it would be this bad. I am a relatively young person to be in a management role. At just 22, I am already at the level where I am putting together a budget for the Australian Technology Park - an organisation that deals at state and federal level - and here's me, a small little network engineer, about to ask a Minister for $150,000. Eeek.
It's harder than it looks. I have to JUSTIFY what I am to spend money on. Dates of installation of hardware. Number of software licences, and their uses. It is a lot of work. But at least it will be better to have access to money, instead of the zero dollar budget I had previously - any expenditure I had was to be made up from income from the tenants on the Park. The bottom line? Prices go up. And being in I.T., I can't just raise outgoing expenditure like Matthew the property manager can. He adds 5 cents per square meter to their rent, and over 40,000m2 that adds up to a lot of added revenue for him to spend! Previously all my revenue came from the tiny margin I place on wholesale selling of Internet access to the tenants. Luckily, we do over 120Gb of data transfer per month. So the 1% I make is actually worth a pretty penny.
I went and saw
Skunkhour last night at the
Unibar - they are a local modern
rock commentary band. They were great - but the most amusing moment was when they started - everyone had packed the floor, and they started playing - any self respecting
Australian knows that they aren't too hard, they arent too dancy, so people were just kind of, well,
confused. All they could do was kind of
move a bit,
sway a bit. It was very cool.
While I was there I ran in to Celeste, a great friend of mine from uni who I haven't seen in ages. Kind of because she went to Africa for a year to travel! Celeste is cool, she is absolutely gorgeous - about 5'6", slim and small frame, pixie features and quite large breasts for such a small frame - and totally bisexual. The relationship is totally platonic and we enjoy the banter that goes on between us in regards to relationships - my lovely long-term girlfriend and her choices in partners. She hooked up with a cute girl Michelle - 5'3", cute and slim, and they had fun - sitting in the Quiet Bar and kissing solidly for 1/2 an hour, while every guy in the bar was staring - Celeste likes that - a bit of power to her. So I was there, drinking my B&C and listening to the lewd comments, fending off drunken offers to the girls and elevating my position as "luckiest guy there" - the times when Celeste had unlocked herself from Michelle's lips she talked to me, and always ended it with a big kiss on my cheek for looking after them so well - much to the chagrin of the guys watching.
I ended up driving home after sobering up for a good three hours - I never ever drink and drive - people who do that are bloody idiots. One drink always needs two hours minimum of non-alcoholic drinks to allow people to drive in my eyes. I dropped Celeste off at the railway station and all in all it was a great night out.
It didn't start that way though. This girl Celeste knew only briefly (think two weeks) turned up out of the blue, already a bit
sloshed. She had a
hip flask of
bourbon and kept adding it to the
Cokes she got from the
bar. At about 9pm she was "in trouble" - 9pm for gods sake! - and ended up threatening to kill herself because all she could do to forget her life was drink - *sigh* - another
suicide averted by me talking to them. I used to be known as "
Father K" because of my
good nature and always-available ear. I helped her, but unfortunately all I could hear were my
friends saying "leave her - she brought it on herself, she's a big girl
blah blah blah..." But I am not that sort of guy. I helped her, calmed her down, got her
sober, and bundled her in to a
taxi. Just in time for Skunkhour - and the night got steadily better!
People have often said "Why do you do it?" As in hang around and not participate. I love helping. I also have no problem with my own
sexuality and thus no
insecurities about it. So what? If Celeste was
going hammer and tongs with a guy, noone would think twice. But obviously Michelle was no guy, so people stared.
GROW UP! They are both nice people, both good people, but they don't dig guys - they like them, but not physically - I have recognised that and can live with it.
All in all a successful evening!