..idle writings from an idle mind..

last weekend saw me back up in BNE for two reasons: my sisters birthday, and to get my grandmother online. (!!)

my sister picked me up from the airport, and we ended up at the casino for a few celebratory drinks and card games. i played some poker, taught my sister how to play blackjack – and we both won!

the following day i went to see my grandmother – with new computer in tow. i got her a shiny new mac mini, a nice big monitor and a wireless router. i’d been given an estimated install date for the broadband connection of that day, and i was somewhat relieved to see a solid adsl light on the modem – everything actually went to plan (stuff that involves telstra often doesn’t, as previously noted).

my grandmother was previously using windows xp, so moving to a mac was a pretty big deal. it’s probably too early to tell, but i think she’ll work it all out – and i can log in remotely if there are any problems. no phone calls as yet.

on the saturday my sister and i retrieved my parents from their new zealand holiday, then we all went and did the family lunch thing. even though it was my sisters birthday, i managed to score a present .. a bottle of absolut raspberri. god bless duty free! my collection is nearly complete now.

saturday evening i went to a modern dance show at the brisbane powerhouse with a friend, which i thought was going to be self-indulgent wank but was actually pretty good. bmx rider + skateboarder + large potential for disaster involving several people = fun!

sunday evening i flew back home – flight delayed (surprise, surprise), however my upgrade cleared and i spent the flight back enjoying several glasses of a very nice shiraz viognier. i forgot to write down which label it was unfortunately.

hopefully next trip i’ll have an opportunity to see friends … this visit was mostly for family, and i knew i wasn’t going to have the time to see many people. oh well, one of the downsides of moving interstate. :-/

- zac.

been what seems like ages since i’ve posted – a month or so between drinks. heck, there’s a new version of wordpress for me to install, so i know it’s been a while.

a few things:

i was up in brisbane last month for an awesome weekend with friends on stradbroke island, some of whom i hadn’t seen since i moved to melbourne. the weather was nice, the booze was nicer. i played uno for the first time since forever. the return flight saw two of us on the same flight at the same time – something that has never happened before. no odu’s or row 4 goodness, but at least there was exit row seating to be had.

i attempted to install mac osx server on my mac mini, with the intention of using it as a little web and mail server. verdict? fail. it’s slow, and server admin makes a complete mess of configuring postfix and apache. some of the config methodology makes no sense at all (i expect to find all the e-mail server settings in the one place). some of the config options (hi, smtp over ssl) simply didn’t work. no particularly good reason. others worked when they felt like it (hello, certificate configuration). sometimes server admin died and took the entire server down with it.

i figured if i had to configure it by hand i was going to do so with linux, so i got nerdy and installed the ppc version of debian lenny. server configured and now doing everything i want it to. my only complaint is that the linux drivers for the wireless chip are non-functional – but seeing as i only needed ethernet anyway, no big deal.

the easter long weekend was completely unexciting – i had the place to myself, and i did absolutely nothing. i ate hot cross buns though. on the easter monday i helped pin together a quilt, which i guess isn’t something you do every day..

yesterday sir richard branson launched his latest airline foray, v australia, intended to introduce some competition in to the australia – united states space. qantas basically holds a complete monopoly as it currently stands; united fly between australia and the us (however their service is crap), as do air new zealand (but via AKL – making an already long flight even longer). the first route for v australia is SYD-LAX, and i gots me a ticket on the inaugural flight. plane geek? probably, but i’m also not paying very much. $1200 return, inc taxes, from MEL.

so yeah, now i need to find cash to survive a few weeks in the states. :-/

- zac.