• Yesterday at 06:51pm: Rain rain rain. At least it cooled down to a liveable temperature. And with that the three day weekend comes to a close ...
• Yesterday at 07:12pm: Potatoes and lamb chops for tea. Happy Australia day aussies :)
• Today at 12:17pm: I just dodged several enormous man sized spider webs in the graveyard.

twitter.com/plicease

Bit out of date, but here are some photos from Australia Day this year.

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They had these crazy old busses giving people free rides around the city.

Inside they still had some old postings around and about. This one shows which area of the city that you can ride around in for only 10¢.

Old advertising amuses me in its direct quaitness. This one reads “100% of the people who travel by bus wear clothes. The bus is therefore a good place to advertise outerwear, underwear, summerwear, winterwear, sportswear, town, country, and everywhere wear.” and in script at the bottom: “P.S. Bet you read this!”

“100% of the people who travel by bus eat. The bus therefore is an exceptionally good place to advertise fruit, vegitables, meat, poultry, dairy produce, chocolates, sweets, chewing tobacco and indigestion tablets.” — emphasis mine.

Sailing ships and the Manly ferry

A month or so ago I told my mum (that is Australian for mother, Happy Australia Day) that I thought the project that I was working on might just be impossible, and that I should have told my manager and team leader up front about my estimate of the tractability of the assignment. Suffice it to say I got a really big test case not produce errors today for the first time ever. So I was on the phone with my mum and I told her "It's only going to be a month late. I think that is pretty good for something which is impossible huh?" The whole situation sort of reminds me of the Stan Bush song "Never Surrender" although my favorite of his is still Dare!

Anyway, it occurs to me that my entries of late have been very work centric and more than a little jargon filled. Sorry about that folks. The good news is that I'm having my Australia Day party on Saturday which will be 100% fun and after that I am off to Australia, so I am sure in future entries you will be able to hear what a fun folks are having in the Hudson Valley; hopefully to the point that you wonder if we get anything done ever. Beacon is, after all, the Party Capital of the Universe. I spill over the brim with irony.

So anyway, after talking to mum on the phone about the unmentionable, I got to work baking myself a meat pie to celebrate Australia Day. Yay Australia Day! Hooray, it's Australia Day. Meat pies are very Australian. Anyway, actually it is sort of a dry run for the party on Saturday. I thought it would be good to make sure that I knew how to make it before I started making them en mass. When I extracted a slice it sort of fell apart, but it tasted super good. I attribute this to the indestructibility of the recipe, because I think I did just about everything wrong.

Brad says that he likes meat, and that he likes pies, and that he is looking forward to having the combination of those two good things. Joanna on the other hand will not be missing out, although we are missing her. We miss you Joanna!

Oh I had a discussion with my father last night where I explained, once again, that I am not interested in being an academic. I don't understand why I have to explain this to him every time that I talk to him. It's like fish. He probably still doesn't remember that I don't like fish. I wish he would listen to me.

Somebody tried to hack my web page today. Actually I would say that it was more of a probe that an out right hack. He was trying to insert java script into one of my comment thingies on my web site. Oops sorry, that was computer jargon wasn't it. Ok. Never mind. Suffice it to say Simon Belmont repelled the intruders with his trusty whip. It is a good thing he is a tough mother. I realize that doesn't make any more sense than the jargon, unless you are Tyler. Oh well.

I would just like to state, for the record, today for the first time ever ls_slbd_dtop_pmac timed and abstracted to completion in parallel (12 processors) without core dumping, or producing errors. This is the best Australia Day ever!!!!

Oh, I almost forgot! Happy Austrlia Day everyone! Though I am sure most reading this are Americans, so you guys can wish me a Happy Australia Day :)

I'm having an Australia Day party on the 29th. Visit the Invite page for more information:

http://www.wdlabs.com/australiaday

I went to a friend's house warming party tonight (technically yesterday night). I am really tired and do not currently have the capacity to go into too much detail. I did want to mention that the meditation room smells much like what I imagine a room for smoking pot in would smell like. Probably a coincidence though. Overall I had a good time, but I wish that I had felt more comfortable with the crowd. Such is life. In two weeks I have my Australia Day party. I will be able to drink up for that one because I won't be driving home.

What was 2004? It was a year of stolen and disputed elections in Georgia and the Ukraine, the rise and fall of Howard Dean and John Kerry, the first private space flight and the end of the "X-Prize," disaster in Darfur, prisoner abuse in Iraq, expansion of the European Union, the death of Ronald Regan and a month of flags at half mast, the return of Greek Olympics and a very smug presidential victory. In less political but tragic terms, the worst natural disaster in my memory has occurred in Asia as Tsunami death tolls top 135,000 according to CNN.com.

For me, the year started out as a bleak one in the coldest New York winter I have ever experienced. My mother came to visit me for her birthday. We stayed in Manhattan and it was bitterly cold.

Lowel and Johanna

I took a lighting class at Dutchess which was a blast. Some of my friends from Black and White II were taking the class and I met some other cool people. It was so much fun working with those people, including the teacher, Lowel Handler.

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In Short, 2004 was A Great Year and I have high hopes that 2005 will be even better.