Author: awmalloyadmin

Okay, anybody up for a little exercise? Most specifically on January 4th 2009, ‘cause that’s the day we’ll be moving. Hopefully it will be the last time for a very long time that we ever call upon the help of friends to lug our stuff to a new suburb.

We did our final inspection today and, save for a few minor bits and pieces that need attention, our house is complete. We will hopefully collect the keys late next week so we can have time do other things that need to be done before the move. We’ve already got a new PO Box, our new phone number and have booked in the carpet layer. The to do list is still incredibly long and our bank balance is shrinking by the hour but it’s so worth it now we know when the house will be ours.

So, if you’re not doing anything on Sunday the 4th and want to earn some pizza, beer and undying gratitude just let us know.

I was listening to 6 Music yesterday and My Mate Chris played some old school hip hop. Normally I’d just ignore a song like this, hip hop ain’t my thing, but one lyric jumped out, “you won’t find me on AltaVista”. This, of course got me thinking about search engines of old.

Back in the Netscape Navigator 2 days I started off with the Yahoo directory. Then, when the net began to grow I made the move to AltaVista and stayed there for a couple of years. You could generally find what you were looking for in the first couple of pages and it didn’t take too many weeks, or months, to update their index. I flirted with Lycos and Excite too, Rae even has an excite.com.au t-shirt that she uses as a sleeping t-shirt to this day, just one of the reasons I married her.

Then about midway through ‘99 I heard about this new search engine Gogle, or oogle, or Google or something like that. It was simple, quick and provided what I needed straight up every time. I don’t think I’ve seriously used another search engine since.

I now use Google products for search, email, documents, monitoring web sites, maps, news, calendars, chatting, taking notes, translating, as a global clock, converting currencies, earning money, working with digital cameras, hosting video, keeping lists and hopefully next year they will be powering my phone. I wonder what it would take for some other company to wrestle all these things away?

No sleep, screaming non-sleeping kids, flaky net connection, work slipping towards overdue, a keyboard and mouse that seem to be operating on a five second delay and a dodgy eye. There are some days where the only thing that gets you through is a good home made shot of web developer fuel.

Oh no, Bert has learned The Word. It’s slowly driving me mad, every second word seems to be The Word. I’ve no idea where it came from, but for the last couple of days all I’ve heard is “Why?”. “But why Dadda?”. “Why is that Dadda?”. “Dadda, why?”.

This morning we’ve covered why we wipe his bottom, why the babies are having a nap, why we won’t be playing in the rain, why we have to turn the television off after Play School, why we are sticking the paper to the cardboard, why we have to press down on the glue, why we put the stickers there, why the dish and the spoon aren’t on the paper, why we we are having sausage rolls for lunch, why mumma is at work, why we have a shower, why mumma and dadda had an unintended sleep in, why dadda needs a coffee, why you shouldn’t pick your nose, why it smells like coffee outside, why we hung the clothes out and about a million other things I’ve since forgotten.

I always hoped I’d have a curious, inquisitive and knowledge seeking son. Just goes to show that you should be careful what you pray for…

Ren and Steve’s wedding, 28th November 2008. More wedding photos on Flickr.

Mr Henry, after months of promising, has finally decided that the best way to get around is walking.

And please, don’t look at the mess. We’re moving.

What a weekend, one devoted almost entirely to the new house. While we don’t have a date yet we know when things will really start moving. The builders will be finished by very early December, they then make an appointment with us to go through the house, we come up with a list of things we aren’t happy with, rinse & repeat, the bank inspects, the bank pays and then we get the keys. We’re hoping that process won’t take too long. I know, I know, but we can hope.

With the house almost done we’re organising the other bits and pieces.I was out there yesterday morning getting quotes for the driveway and then again in the afternoon for quotes for some decking we are want out the back. Nine o’clock last night we were standing in the freezing rain unloading new furniture for the theatre room (thanks Gina!). Today it was driving in to the city early to collect mum who babysat the kids all day while Rae and I got stuck in to clearing the shed out; getting the large stuff stored there ready, throwing out or Freecycling a mountain of stuff, moving a few boxes in to the shed and generally laying the groundwork for the move ahead. With six people to move it’s no longer a case of a small van and load up the cars. Ah, those were the days.

So from now until the new year it’s pretty much work, pack, move. There is a pile of boxes ready to be made up and filled. The pantry will be wound down, freezer slowly emptied. It is my least favourite part of the house cycle but when its over this time we’ll no longer be at the mercy of a landlord, and that time can’t come quickly enough.