I've been without an internet feed at our new home for three weeks, a lack in my life which was gloriously rectified yesterday, when the
Telstra linesman attended to hook up our moved
ADSL service. Needless to say, several administrative and technical
fsck-ups had been in the pipeline, quietly and patiently awaiting their
opportunity to wreak havoc on our longing for bandwidth. A happy resolution, however, by early afternoon the pipe had been opened and the internet once again was gushing into our home and lives.
Having a connection at work, when combined with my pretty straight-laced work ethic, meant that my participation in E2 has been limited to all-too-brief snatches of peeking at /msgs and the odd 5 minute voting session. It's been odd, having an enforced time-out from this place. Having dinner with a good noder friend a couple of weeks ago in Sydney I was amazed to hear of Professor Pi's research on noder stats, and the proposed Honour Roll. As an information addict and a deep supporter of E2, that I was so out of touch came as a shock.
Anyways, ADSL yesterday meant a really cool night last night. I rushed to finish my work and was home by 18:30, and after giving Gemma's spunky new white iBook a little techsports, settled into the sofa, a maltese dog on either side of my laptop, and hit E2. Was most chuffed to recieve some welcome back messages (being a complete leonine attention seeker), and also to see the long-absent --OutpostMir-- back online.
#everything was like a warm bath last night. I love those folks. Was stoked to see a picture of break's new classic drum machine (which I had ignorantly presumed to be a synth slap!), to hear from flamingweasel that the Weekend Sound Track project is now set-complete, to learn that Kenata is actually not a washed up 46 year old divorcee, and that graceness loves caramel. Yeah, all trivia, but being a (small) part of these cool folk's lives is just so rewarding to me. I wish more nodists would come to #everything...
In other news, the new house is still really enjoyable, and we're settling in pretty well. The kitchen is totally sorted, except that Gemma is demanding a section of the big pantry for her stuff (hehe) and wants me to completely reorganise all of the contents of all of the cupboards (not much to ask really...). The office is okay, but still stinking of the horrible stuff in the wood from my over-zealous use of the hole saw last weekend. The dogs are loving the back garden, 'cause it's nice and grassy and there are lots of interesting places to hide.
Work has been okay, but the lack of resources is starting to really get to me. We lack much of the most basic office and IT equipment (I work with a non-profit now), and while this was an interesting challenge in resourcefulness for the first couple of months, it's getting to be a drag now. The project challenges are pretty fulfilling though. Basically I'm here to re-engineer every process and procedure from the ground up. As Visio is my witness, I do solemnly swear to shake shit up before the next adventure...
Thoughts go out to the innocent victims on all sides of the troubles in Afghanistan. Our government committed troops yesterday.