November!!!

I've been absent from here for a few months. Reality setting in! The newness of it all is wearing thin. There has been some internal struggle to keep the momentum going but when you have arrived at a kind of steady state it becomes evident.

There has been progress, but the degree of newness is becoming less and less. Trying to be creative to keep the motivation levels up this can be quite challenging sometimes!

Time for a holiday to break the monotony. Sigh. I am no machine, a proper break is absolutely needed every 6 months no matter how great one feels things are going.

So I am looking forward to the break in Xmas. Go back, see the family. I need a new set of tracks to run on. Things look clearer after you step out and look back from the outside or from a distance.

So whats been happening!!!

• Hit the biking trails on weekends - but that's going to be replaced with swimming pretty soon - better cardio workout and also a changewould be refreshing
  
• Squats have plateaued - trying to break that with deadlifts
• Incline presses have plateaued - trying to break that with more back workouts
• What I really need to do these days however is to put up one or two tech projects on the web --- embedded joke browsing device (mini haha!) , c# modbus sniffer. I need to work on how to present stuff better --- especially online. New widgets to play with to convey information.
  

Been mucking about with a few things recently. Playing about with facebook. Its a good way to hook up with old friends and family. Sharing photos of recent events. Then once you get addicted to it, the time that is spent on it could just get out of hand. Disproportionate to whatever benefit you get from it. Its good for idling away the time, which is probably what I have been doing all this time.

Picked up that book by Eckhart Tolle. A lot of the ideas he described rings true in a timeless sort of way. But how can one be focussed on getting to the future without having to focus and visualize the objective. When one is so deeply rooted in the present moment, it becomes somewhat tricky to motivate towards a future goal. My take on Tolle would be yes - and no. Some ideas are well described, others may not be appropriate to my set of circumstances anyway.

Anyways --- I was out for a break, but I am back. Sidetracked by a few things that keep me amused but it seems that they have little value in propelling me forwards, toward a greater sense of clarity of my future. I am trying to restore the levels of enthusiasm I had for the present or more accurately the future with the time, the place and the opportunities I have before me. After being somewhat sapped of momentum and focus for a few weeks and a few significant events I think I have returned. Surer and more focussed.

New toys in the inventory... USB target board - Windows Device Driver. TCPIP Target Board - AjAX. New Server machine - Apache/PHP/MySQL. Its all good. Getting a few new ideas going on them will be fun. They will be a sort of path forward.

Meanwhile, staying put and consolidating the space I am occupying is something not to be forsaken.

JULY!!!!

Time has been whizzing by...

• Squatting 240lbs
• Hawthorn vs Sydney match last Sunday - getting the hang of it - its entertaining, there's thuggery, plenty of vertical highball action, hands, legs, pushing, shoving, anything goes man...
  
• Gained substantial understanding of the local real estate having spent every Saturday morning to survey a different part of town
• Started the first trade on the ASX today!!!
• Sorted out the QT install problem
• Sorted a way of organising code snippets using eclipse
• There's openings here and there worthy of serious consideration - AR
• First taste of KANGAROO!!! the trick is to cook it well and what you get is a bland tasteless piece of chewy meat. If you want the flavour, cook it medium well. Ain't much flavour to talk about --- its gamey, that about it. I don't like gamey.
• On the other hand --- there was a pack of T-bones that I finished off last weekend, and the "yum" was beyond description. Premium sirloin was almost as good: it cost a bit less. So you get what you pay for.
  

June Instrospection

Half a mind to write about things that suck - but its all in the perception. With enough insights and life experience one can extract wonder and beauty from any situation. Its the toxins accumulated over 10 years in a less than ideal environment that sometimes poison the mind. While going through a detoxification process, one would now and then be haunted by the ghosts. Its all part of the healing process. We know that its all good here. And its only the beginning. How much of the past does one care to salvage? How much work is involved to dust off the dirt from a relic and recondition it for a new life? that remains to be seen.

On the tech front...

This area has seen slow progress. Mainly having screwed up my QT installation a couple of weeks back with eclipse. Managed to recover last weekend and overcome the sticky bits. The rig appears to be nicely setup now ready for some action. Was slow due to the procrastination, --- too much multitasking ain't good. Stumbled into stumbler add-on last night when pondering on whether to upgrade to firefox 3.0... the thing is pretty addictive. Stole from me a few critical hours. Well having unstuck myself I am looking forwards to finally getting down and dirty with making up some new stuff.

What has been said by Roger has rung true all these years - with tools already setup, half the battle is won. Always worthwhile taking the time to set it all up properly (and understand well enough to know how to repeat the process!)

Been itching also to get started on LAMP...

Squats

Pretty much on target having progressed to 220lb quickly. Not too happy with the form, as it does appear that I get sloppier and sloppier as I pile on the weights. Hence I am administering a large dose of high reps training that alternate between testing my limits. Present state is 120lbs x 24 reps x 6 sets. At low intensity, I do feel that I am able to better focus on the form and cardio efficiency. The latter is the one aspect that I perceive as my weakness and needs work. I expect to up the weights within this week.

INFJ

INFJ: Introverted(11%) Intuitive(38%) Feeling(38%) Judging(22%)

Looks like I am pretty consistent. I actually thought that I might come up with a different result. Numbers do seem to indicate I am close to the middle ground in terms of introversion and the judging aspect of my character. But I do believe that in a professional situation, my personality skews towards a more ENTJ. I.e.more extrovert, and more intellectual. That's just my own perception - never checked it with that psychometric test. Perhaps I would like to see myself as being balanced or at least being aware of and seeking to establish that middle ground. That intuition aspect however seems to be a key dominant characteristic that does not shift.

Interesting that one can observe the types on you tube. I am curious to see how I look on video - hence the motivation to go get myself a webcam. Something that has always been considered to be nice to have but not really justified.

The Mailman always delivers, so can you...

Whats new today...

Finally managed to solve the chronic resource problem on my laptop without resorting to digging into the pockets to replace or upgrade anything. Other than that new 7 port USB hub. Great value, and effort. Last night saw the removal of linux dual boot configuration. Allowing me to reclaim 15 gigs of space. Removed junk software from the startup sequence. And the best part - updated the tools. Eclipse CDT installed, downloaded PERL, PHP, C#, MinGW/GCC tools, SQL server, Apache server, coLinux/Fedora 7. A lot done in one stretch. Contrary to feeling stoned this morning, I feel motivated. The first toy to unpack for play would be C#. That will be tonight's program while I sort out some weekend overheads - Kendrick's paperwork, some ASX survey and broker registration. I am at my most comfortable state, multitasking. A few "new things" really help to keep the wheels spinning. That nifty little desk lamp and the 5.1 logitech speakers blaring out the Blue audio MP3 collection. And a good pair of winter bedroom slippers. I just need to remember to eat and exercise, and we should be cruising along just fine. So much to do... and there is so much time to do it. Life down under is good. Look forward to jamming as much as possible onto Eclipse in the coming days while I start building a base of reusable components for upcoming projects. Which one to start on first... not quite sure yet.

Ye ain't nowhere near yet bro!

The squats arrived at 200lbs today, still some ways to go to hit 300lbs.
At 20lb a month, we will get there by the end of the year. Here's to getting rid of the limits all round.

Milestones:
250lbs x 20 by August
--- specialization!!! ---
--- specialization!!! ---
--- specialization!!! ---
300lbs x 20 by December

Australian Rules football

My first lazy attempt to understand Footy: Meatpie is to Footy as Hotdogs are to Baseball in the US.





And this is my adopted team.
Thats an obligation one must have when carrying a stainless steel flask around marked with the swans logo.

Community Service

Having decided that its time to go back into the community service.
Here are two sources for web hosting Godaddy and CrystalTech.
A few ideas:
- a forum for migrants and useful information, also hook up a webcam
- a site for local ethnic businesses
- a forum for good old bayan lepas community
- what else?

It would be a good opportunity to sling some PHP code and MySQL, while doing my lil bit for humanity.

Good link on PHP vs Java

This link answers a question that I had in mind today.

http://raibledesigns.com/rd/entry/php_vs_java_which_is

Looks like both are good. PHP for rapid prototyping, Java for the final works.

Still looking around for a good code snippet manager.

Braveheart speech