I hear gunfire

Sitting in my nice quiet little country town on a Sunday morning I hear gunfire. Not just one or two shots from the riffle range, but a sortie of bullets flying around the high school shot from fully automatic weapons. There are road blocks in town, manned by armed guards and army trucks. There are soldiers wandering the streets on patrol, guns at the ready. It's a very surreal experience, like all of a sudden we are at war. We are not at war. At least not on home soil. The Army Reserve is in town practicing for urban warfare. They are using our quiet little town as a training ground to hone their skills. In the middle of town is a display set up with information for townspeople and recruitment forms for people to join up. One weekend a month, two weeks a year.

My biggest achievement

I am just filling out a graduate application form and I got to a question that says "What is your biggest achievement outside of study?" I'm at a loss. I know the biggest achievement of my life so far is graduating university, but apart from that I have no idea off the top of my head. The first thing that pops into my head is my relationship with Stacey. In this day and age, having a commited relationship for over six years is not something to be taken lightly. We got together just after high school, shared the university experience together, done the whole long-distance relationship thin and now we are successfully managing to live together. I'm just not sure whether you class this as an achievement or not. I guess it is. I have been able to achieve happiness and love where so many other people have missed out or haven't quite got there yet. To be able to say, at this point in my life, that I know that I am going to be with the same person until the day I die no matter what happens. It's not just something to say, but something I know in the depths of my heart. I also know that I am a very different person that the one I was before I met Stacey. Back in high school I was drifting, some days my spirits would be really low that I just wouldn't want to do anything. It seems a world away from where I am now. I guess now I just have to work out how to say this in a job application. Any ideas?

The Eatonites aren't coming

Sara has been sick all week, so they aren't coming out this weekend. It's a shame because I was looking forward to it. Dad said they may be able to make it out 2 weeks from now, just before they head off on their holiday. Let's hope that nothing stops them then.

The Eatonites are coming

Dad, Carmel, Sara and Rohan are all coming over for a visit this weekend. It is the first time that all of them have come and stayed the night. They are coming over on Saturday morning, hopefully getting here just before 12pm so they can see where I work. The drive over should be nice, as all the farms are looking really green after all the rain we have had in the last couple of months.

Car Trouble

It sounds to me like the bearings in my front wheels have lost some grease in the water over the weekend. So now my car is not only making a funny noise from the engine (which I think is just a fan belt), it's making bad noises from the wheels. I think it may be time to take the car to a professional mechanic and get it sorted. I'll see what dad says when he comes over this weekend.

Perth Trip

We just got back from our trip up to Perth for the weekend. It was good to get out of town and back to our friends. On Saturday night we went out for dinner to Krayaharn Thai Restaraunt with Greg, David, Daniel and Yvette and Stacey's sister Shelley. On the way up to Perth on Friday night we ran into a little water on the road near Albany Hwy about 25km south of Arthur River. The water was accross the road in two places about 100m wide and up to about 30cm deep. My little Festiva only just got through the water (not helped by someone coming in the other direction creating waves) and we made the rest of the journey without a hitch. The hitch came this morning when we got in the car to go to the movies. We had been driving around to the shops all yesterday without any problems, but today there was a sound of scraping metal, it's pitch keeping in tune with the revs of the engine. So instead of going to the movies we decided to call Stacey's dad and ask him to take a look at it. It was a good thing we did, as one of the pullies that drive the belts was stuffed. Kevin took it out and managed to replace the bearing in it (Thank you so much, we really appreciate it). Kevin is great like that, he has a great assortment of goodies in his shed and will help out whenever he can. I'll have to make sure I make it up to him next time we are up in Perth. After Kevin fixed the car we had no problems on the way home. We took a different route home of course!

Kylie Concert Cancelled

It's a shame, as Stacey and I were both looking forward to this. Fair enough, she has breast cancer and of course shouldn't be doing anything but fighting to get well and spending time with the people that she loves. Double bad for my sister and her husband, as they also had tickets to her show in Sydney, for which they had already purchased airplane tickets for. So I guess that they will be going to Sydney anyway, and speding their time a little differently. The promoter is saying to hold on to your tickets, as there should be new dates announced "at some point in the future". I think this translates into "Please don't ask for your money back, as we don't have the cash to do that for everyone". Anyway, I'm sure everyone wishes Kylie all the best and hopes she beats this thing quickly and completely.

Wild Weather

There was some wild weather that came through the state today. I drove across to Kojonup today to deliver a fridge, and the rain just got worse the closer I got. When I arrived at the house the rain wasn't too bad, but just as I was about to lower the hydrolic lift the rain started to absolutely piss down. I used the fridge as a bit of a shelter and waited for the rain to ease. On the way back to Katanning the highway was blocked by four trees across the road. There was a car in front of me on their way to Katanning who knew a way around through the back dirt roads. So I followed them back to town. The ute was nice and dirty when I got back to the store. It's a shame that the boss only washed the ute yesterday. Stacey said that the school was flooded again today. That's three times in the last two months. There has been a lot of water around this year. Anyway, being called for dinner. I better go before it gets cold.

The longest time

Stacey and I have been together for over 6 years and 2 months now, which makes the relationship the longest I have ever done anything. It beats out the 6 years and 2 months I worked at Coles, the 5 years I spent at the one high school, 5 years at uni. Not that 6 years is very long, as we plan on spending the rest of our lives together.

Weekend in Perth

I have next weekend off work, so we have decided to take a trip to Perth to catch up with a few people. I'm thinking about the idea of dinner out somewhere with as many of our friends as possible. If anyone knows of a good place to eat (that we all haven't been to 100 times) then let me know so we can organise something.

Testing out Flickr

This is a test of the auto posting facility of Flickr. One day I may
even be able to do this from my phone.

I love my XBox

Ever since I got my XBox modded I've hardly watched 'normal' TV. I have installed XBMC on it, allowing me to watch all the shows and movies that I have downloaded off the internet on the TV in my lounge room. All I do is turn on the Xbox and go sit on the couch with the remote and navigate through the menus to find the show that I want to watch, and press play. I might mention that the machine is hooked up to my network through a wireless access bridge, so I didn't have to lay any cables or crawl through any roof space. Not only can I watch videos from the large hard drive in my main computer in the study, but I can also listen to music and podcasts, play a slideshow of my photos and even check the weather on my TV.

It's in

Ok, so after the last post I decided that it was time I got off my arse and just put the drive in. Not too long later I have a clean 80GB partition ready to be filled with media. I'll probably put all my music, photos, videos and podcasts on this drive. The other thing I am contemplating doing is reinstalling Windows, but I think that can wait for another night.

Finding the time

At some point in the near future I need to clean up my computer. It is getting really full and I am constantly in search of somewhere to save a download. I have an 80GB hard drive sitting around, but I don't have the room to put it into my machine yet. I'm thinking about removing my DVD drive (I have that and a DVD Burner) and using that connection for the bigger hard drive. Lately I have been downloading about 50% of my total disk capacity every month from the internet. Mostly TV shows from the US which don't air in Australia for another 3-6 months. Since I started working away from home full time again, I find that I have hardly any time for anything. By the time I get home it is dark, and dinner usually needs to get started. Then if I actually want to watch anything that I have downloaded, I'll sit down for an hour or two. Before you know it, it's late and time for bed. I used to have so much more time to do the things that interest me, but these days I struggle to get to everything. I guess it goes with the territory of growing older and having more responsibilities.

Omogod look at that hair 

The birthday boy, all partied out. 

Happy Birthday to Greg

24 Today! Happy Birthday and best wishes mate.

Grandpa's here

My grandpa is here for the week. He just bought a computer from my work, and is spending the week learning how to use it. It's the first time he has visited Katanning. Last weekend I went over to see Dad. I took him my spare VOIP ATA and set him up with the same provider as me, so now we can call each other for free using normal telephones. He also get the added advantage of being able to call Perth for the cost of a local call.