kjp

In windows two useful commands are:

netstat -a
Displays all active TCP connections and the TCP and UDP ports that the computer is listening to

tasklist
Displays a list of running tasks. When used with the /svc (service information) option, includes a list of services that are running as part of each image. It's interesting to see what is going on in the svchost.exe process.

This morning I went for my first skydive - a fantastic experience. So here goes:

Got up early (5:10 am or so). Had some food, left at 5:35am ish, and picked up 2 people. There were 6 of us in total. After meeting everyone at the meeting point (where else do you meet? :) at 6.15 am, we drove out to Willowbank / Mutdapilly - south westish of Ipswitch. We jumped with the Brisbane Skydiving Centre. It's pretty pricy (although that's the sport), but definitely worth it for at least 1 jump in a lifetime.

After getting there at about 7am, we filled in a whole lot of forms to say that, yes we know that it is dangerous, and that we may die, and that we won't sue you, and here's the money. Then there was a bit of waiting around. There were three plane trips for the six of us - I was on the last trip up. So I watched everyone go up and down. Got suited up in a jump suit thingy and harness. Then there were some safety things and practices - what to do when getting out of the plane, when landing etc. Then onto the plane. It was fairly small - it took two people along with their "hanger's on" (tandem skydiving instructor) up on each trip. We did a tandem jump - it ends up cheaper than doing a solo skydive course - which takes 9 or so jumps to do and a fair bit more money (ie: only for the serious).

It took a while to get up to the drop altitude. There were some good views of the surrounding hills / mountains. On the ground it looked to be a fine, clear, sunny day. But up there (11 000 feet - ???) it was reasonably hazy & a bit cloudy. First up the other guy left the plane. Then we (the instructor strapped to my back and me) shuffled over to the exit side of the plane. I put my legs dangling out the door, with my arms across my chest, sitting on the edge of the opening. It was very windy and fairly noisy up there. Very windy. The instructor then said (although it was drowned by the wind): 1, 2, 3, go. And then we were out of the plane. Head back and pelvis forward until we were clear. At that stage I didn't know which way was up. An amazing feeling of not being able to do anything except fall.

Then we stabilised and were free falling for about 45 seconds (???). Arms and legs spread falling down. Initially I was pretty darn anxious / scared / tense, but got over it and enjoyed it. There was so much wind in my face. It was amazing. Awesome experience. The ground was far away but rushing towards me. And there was heaps and heaps of adrenaline going through my body. Especially right at the start when I had no idea of what to expect / what it would feel like.

Then the ripcord was pulled, parachute let out, and was pushed upwards. The wind just seemed to stop - and we were floating gently down. Instead of having my body facing the ground, I became more upright. This was good because it was gentler, and bad because it was gentler - my heart slowed down a bit at this stage. Also got to have a look around the place - seeing the other jumper below, all of the surrounding countryside. Did another practice landing in the air - putting my knees together, legs out in front of me, hands under my knees. Then we did some cork-screws in the air. Initially these made me a bit queasy in my stomach, but then became fun. The ground got bigger and bigger, I could then see the first jumper landing safetly. Then we glided down, put my legs up as practiced and landed on my bum and his legs - as expected. Soon enough we were stationary, detached; and I had my goggles off, jumpsuit off, and saying "that was awesome" to everyone. Then got a certificate and tshirt to say that I've done it.

Coming back home we stopped at a shopping mall for some food - my stomach was still upside down, so just had a drink. Dropped off the 2 others, and then got home at around midday. It was over so quickly - but I won't be forgetting the experience anytime soon. What a morning!

I'm feeling tired. Funny that. So nothing is on the agenda for tonight. Except sleep. And anything that doesn't require too much energy...

=========
Also:
I'm unsure of the numbers - they are just from my memory. I'll confirm them sometime or rather.
There might be some before and after photos coming... "Inflight" video was a significant amount of extra $. So maybe just some pictures from the ground.

I've had a car issue recently. Last Monday, after I got back from the art gallery, I went to go back out to the shops (in the afternoon), but my car wouldn't start. Great. At first I thought that the battery had gone flat. Later in the week I checked out the engine. All seemed ok, except the fluid level in the battery was low. So I bought some filtered / demineralised water for the battery, and refilled it. Tried jump starting it from a car that I had been borrowed for the week, but this didn't work. So early this afternoon I got the RACQ to come out. Actually, I'm a member of the NRMA, but they seem to have a reciprocal scheme going.

After a bit of testing, the battery was found to be dead. Not just a low voltage level. Kaput. Apparently car batteries only last a few years: I've had it for a while. The cells within it had shortcircuited and couldn't have any current drawn. Also extreme heat (something there was a lot of last weekend) ain't a good thing for batteries. The car is all good now - yay.

Came across this. Isn't it cute.

Well, I'm on my own two feet and am being detached. What a ride!

Have just touched the ground.

Coming down, approaching land. It's nearly over...

Coming down, nearing the landing site.

Doing corkscrews: round and round and round we go. (Red parachute).

Practicing the plane exit - what happens after I've left it.

Practicing the plane exit - what position to be in.

Landing position - legs together (ish!) and feet in front.

What a great photo of the back of me :). We're just going through the "landing position" rehearsal.

I've just got my jump suit and harness on. Waiting to do the safety bits and pieces.

Just sitting around: waiting for the others to do their jumps.

I've fixed up my comments preview page: it's now in the same format as the rest of this website. There's an issue with movabletype 2.661 - when previewing a comment there is no entry in the main database for that comment. As a result the commentID value is null/empty. Because of that, an error message is displayed if a url was entered in the comment form. Apparently it's only version 2.661 of the program that is affected. There's a discussion about it here, along with a temporary fix - a modification to the context.pm file.

A guy at work happened to have his Fear Factory CD collection at work, and somehow it came up in conversation. I've borrowed the "Obsolete" CD for the night, primarily so I can have a listen to the Resurrection track. Overall the CD is a bit too strong for me but the track "Resurrection" has a melody which I like for some reason: don't know why. It has strings on it - not the most common instrument for heavy metal/rock. I've had it on my list of music to listen to for ages and ages: it's good to be able to listen to it properly (not just on the radio).

I spent a fair bit of this morning at the QAG, otherwise known as the Queensland Art Gallery. I took in almost all of the exhibits; particularily enjoying the sculptures by Ah Xian and the landscape pastels by William Robinson. The main work in the Ah Xian gallery won the inaugural National Sculpture Prize in 2001.

Thankfully, a storm has come through the region, and it has cooled down from today's record temperatures for February. I can now think about putting on a tshirt.

Because I haven't been able to post for the past couple of days - here goes:

Friday was pretty cool. Every month the small bar at work opens up for a happy two hours - $1 per drink if you're a member of the Recreational Club. I met up with the four other people who started work at the same time as me - it was good to catch up with them. I had offed to host a BBQ at my place, but as it turned out everyone had things on or the drinks were enough. We were the last group to leave the courtyard where the drinks were held - after 3 hours or so.

Yesterday morning I went down to the Gold Coast - to the beach just north of Burleigh Heads. It was good to get a swim in, but the waves were pretty poor - they were breaking fairly close to the shore. But I caught a fair few of them. Once I was back at home I slept for a while (being tired from the swimming). In the early afternoon I helped making meat balls. This wasn't that pleasant - there was fat spitting at me and it was already at least in the high 30's (temperature wise). It's very hot today as well - too hot.

Anyhow, after helping out in the kitchen W and I went to W's husband's younger-sister's engagement party. It was held in a church hall a short drive away. It was a pretty good night - I enjoyed myself a fair bit - met a fair few people and caught up with rellies (brother in law's family) I hadn't spoken to I a while. Yeah, I did enjoy myself quite a bit. It was good for me too, considering that I don't know as many people up here as I would like.

We got back around midnight (it started quite early - around 5pm). Overnight I didn't sleep well - funny stuff in my stomach, and it was hot overnight - 27 degrees Celcius I think I've heard. For the rest of today I just been sorting out this website - and getting it back on its feet. I don't know what was going on, but it sure was annoying - none of the cgi scripts were running - meaning no posting, no maintenance, etc. It happens, I suppose. I don'y know what triggered it - which is very annoying. I'll be taking more care to take regular backups from within movabletype. The mysql database backup (from my domain control) didn't work correctly - I was able to get the backup, just not restore it - kind of defeats the purpose.... I may have been doing something wrong??? Not sure about that... hmmm.

I won't be doing too much for the rest of the day today - other than drinking water. Tomorrow I have a rostered day off - I'm still deciding what I will do (it won't be in this house - that's for sure).

(sort of).

Yesterday some time, either movabletype or my cgi path went pear-shaped. I couldn't get my database backup to restore correctly, so I've had to manually put all of the formats, configurations back into the system. At the moment, this is all done, however, all of the previous content is in a text file on my local PC. There will be a bit of copying and pasting ahead to get all of the entries back into the database.

From now on I'll be using movabletype's import/export function!

in my tum.

Since moving up here my eating habits have changed. Taking into account only lunch and dinner, over the past couple of weeks I've probably had 2 or 3 meals that I've cooked/prepared. The rest have been "proper" meals.

At work there are subsidised prices at the cafe. Less than $4 can get a decent plate full of roast/quiche/Mongolian Lamb (today) + rice/chips and veges. It's great!. It's far better than the peanut butter sandwiches and sultanas that I had for a decade or so. (Yup, 6 years of highschool/college + uni).

The other place that is good is the club just down the road. Tuesday night is half priced meals, while Wednesdays is $5 pasta + salad. Plus, and I had better not forget this: a bread role.

The downside to all of this is that it costs more money :(. But it's good from the time / less jobs to do / less effort required perspective.

There's an interesting article about google, searching the web and searching in the future.

on my new QLD licence. It's fairly dark, and it wasn't centred properly. The top of my head got chopped off, while my neck makes a starring role.

Anyhow, the queue at the office was small, bordering on non-existant. Yesterday's annoyance at the system wasn't entirely justified. oops.

...no, not crockery:

I left work a bit earlier today so that I could get to the Queensland Transport office (in Chermside). I changed over my license plates to Queensland. I've got "The Sunshine State" on them - like most Queenslanders??. "The Smart State" sounded too nerdy for me... now that's saying something...

Anyhow, back in December 2000 I was on my P plates and was due to get my full licence. I got my full license a few weeks early with "PROVISIONAL LICENCE EXPIRES ON 10/12/200" marked on it. Yup, back in the year 200. Anyhow, because of the formatting stuff-up back then, the person behind the desk today couldn't be certain that I'm not still on my P's. Great. So they're contacting the ACT registration office to find out if I really have my full licence. And I wait for the fantastic opportunity to go into the transport office again and wait in the queue. Woo hoo.

If, like me, you've got Adobe Acrobat Reader 6 installed, and find that it takes a while to load you can remove some of the plugins that are not usually required. Also, you can turn off the start up splash screen. Here's how to do it. It's a bit of a hack, but hey, it works.

I've just started to use Amputator - a Movable Type plugin that changes any lone & symbols into the correct & html code when my blog is rebuilt. This means that I can just put & symbols straight into text without worrying about html compliance.

Today I downloaded and installed Firefox (web browser). I've been testing it out - and like it. It's interesting how my webpage appears differently in it and my current browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer 6sp2). Some differences / features when testing out my website that I've noticed:
* Rendering of Heading level 2 text. It's supposed to be Arial, 16pt Small caps with 1.5 letter spacing. In IE all of the characters are the same weight, however, in Firefox all but the first are lighter.
* The borders around the four main navigation buttons at the top do not appear in Firefox. As a result, the position of the buttons in Firefox is slightly too high.
* When each of them save my homepage, Firefox leaves the stylesheet as it is, while MS IE expands** and formats the whitespace all of the entries
* When there are anchors in a document of the same name, IE goes to the first, Firefox the last. In my search page there was an anchor called "search" (just above the heading for that section), while the search form input box was also called search. IE picked up the title, while Firefox picked up the text box. This probably was poor HTML to start with(!)
* When jumping to anchors within a web page, IE goes straight to it, but Firefox jumps to a point slightly above the destination of the anchor.
* You can get a list of all of the pages linked by the current site.
* The use of tabs in Ff is nice - keeps the clutter on the taskbar.

I'm running Windows XP, sp1 - and I found that the "removal" of Internet Explorer (or is it just being hidden?) worked well, with no problems (initially). However, it keeps on appearing on my desktop. I think that this has to do with the fact that other programs use part of the IE program. For example: Feedreader (which I use to read feeds - funny that:). Feedreader is a good, small program, however it used to always use Internet Explorer to open web pages. I've installed a non-official release (it's source code is under GPL), which uses the default browser (Ff) so this is better - but I'd prefer an official, fully tested version.

====
*Expanding entries:
Some of my definitions in my stylesheet are the same, and so I just use:
def1, def2 {
style definition
}
Firefox keeps this, while IE expands it to:
def1 {
style definition
}
def2 {
style definition (duplicated)
}

According to a New Scientist article some researchers at the University of Washington - John Gottman, James Murray and Kristin Swanson have developed a (mathematical) model of how a marriage is likely to last.

Unfortunately, the full paper is only available if you pay for it :(

It was interesting to see John Howard neutralise the superannuation issue that Mark Latham brought up a couple of days ago.

A smart move by Latham and a sensible response (both in terms of politicking and policy) by Howard, me thinks. It's a good idea, though. Having tax-payers pay for the equivalent of 69% of the MP's wages into their superannuation is a bit on the rort side of things.

Rod Welford - from the labour party who won the Everton electorate. Seems like he's done a bit in his time - but mostly a politician / lawyer type though.

When I moved up to Brisbane I put in my form with the AEC to say that I had changed address. At that time the election was upcoming. I thought that I had missed the deadline for close of the electoral role - and paid little to no attention to the campaign / debates / issues. When I got my form back from the AEC I found that I had snuck in by a couple of days. I was (and am) a Queenslander(!). There were four candidates in Everton - I put most of them on my ballot.

As part of my move up to Brisbane I have to change over my car registration and driving license from the ACT to QLD. My driving license is no problem - I just need a bit of paper with my new address on it (like a "change of address" receipt from the electoral commission). So that's easy.

For the registration I have to get a "Safety Certificate" for my car. This wouldn't be a problem, except:
- I've been over more than a few dirt roads, and have several chips in my windscreen (none of which significantly impede my view)
- The last time I got it serviced (a while back) I was told "you want to be a bit careful: your tyres are getting thin; you may want to get your wheels aligned". I - of course - decided to action that "later" (at some indeterminate point in the future).

Both of these were picked up in the inspection (done on monday** - a few days ago). My left two tyres where too thin. It took a while to get new tyres. I also got them aligned at the same time. They were a bit cheaper as I am a member of the NRMA - handy. But they're still not cheap though. Tuesday after work I got the chips/cracks repaired; and after work today I when back to the inspector, and got my completed safety forms. It's kind of annoying - running around doing jobs - I'd rather be doing pretty much anything else.

Now I just need to line up at the "Queensland Transport" office. There's one reasonably near by - near Chermside mall. I'll probably do that next week - tomorrow's friday...

**Monday was a day off work. Where I work has a working week of 36.25 hours (or so). However, they're happy if people (like me!) work 9 days a fortnight, each working day being 8 hours and a few minutes. So I spent my first free monday running around doing jobs. Next time I'll be at the beach or up a mountain or something similar (hopefully).

There's a good write-up of the internet:an interesting read.

.... for a while.

I've got almost all of this website to pretty much how I want it (finally). I've deleted most of the testing entries - there shouldn't be any more of them for a while (I hope). The structure of this site should remain fairly static. I've put about as much as I want into tweaking it. I've got other priorities - don't want to give any more time over to the development of this page.

Having said all of that; there are still problems with it - namely the "remember me" (when posting comments). I think that it's broken?? And the invalid data entry page (if someone doesn't enter enough personal details) doesn't have the right format. However, this ain't relevant - as I've just turned that part off. (Easy!) With the number of comments I have I don't really need to make any restrictions on people entering (or not entering) their details.

However, that may change - I've just submitted this site to good old Google. I may even get hits from people I don't know(!).

There will be some changes in the content. The links section will be developed (and I'll probably depreciate my current (personal) links listing - 800 or so). However, first I need to figure out a way of managing them all - within the framework of movabletype.

hmmmm...

Today's orienteering was at Kalinga Park (in Kedron, close - just off my route to work). The cost was subsidized by the Brisbane City Council. Great!. I did a scatter course - it was pretty good; except one control was marked twice on the master map (and I lost a bit of time as a result). I also met a few of the people in the Enoggeroos club (the orienteering club that covers the northern side of Brisbane - which I've joined recently) - which was good.

Earlier today I got Fallen, by Evanescence. The Stafford city shopping mall (or whatever it is called) is a bit of a dump. Of the two "important" types of shops, there is only one CD shop and one book shop... and both of those were on the small side of the scale. I still haven't found the Brisbane equivalent of Impact Records (in Canberra).

Anyhow, the album. Getting it was a bit weird for me. It's the first CD in the top of the charts that I have got in ages (if not forever), my tastes in music have always be either more alternative or jazz or classical from the mainstream music scene.

Anyhow, the album - really. Well it's quite an emotional and in parts spiritual album. The mixture of ballads in the rock (with gothic tinges) combines well. Amy Lee has a great voice. Apparently the band has taken off since "Bring Me to Life" and "My Immortal" were in the Daredevil soundtrack. Although, at the moment, only the former is one of my favourites for this album. While a good song, My Immortal is probably a bit too light/sweet for me. Bring Me to Life, Haunted, Tourniquet and My Last Breath are probably up there in my opinion.

There's an interesting article on virus and worm writers. I'd never thought of the idea of "cryptoviruses" (towards the end of the article) - where a virus encrypts your files, and can only be decrypted if you pay a ransom. Interesting stuff.

Today was notable for various reasons. Work was interesting. In the morning I went out to a site (wearing all my new fancy safety gear - including a pair of pretty cool boots). This was interesting seeing all of the components of the system in the real world, and how my work fits in with it all. In the afternoon I was assigned my first real project (not just assisting/learning). It's pretty small but it will be good fun.

Anyhow, now for the bad part of the day. After getting home at around 5.25pm ish, I did some things. At 6.30 I left to go for a jog (there's orienteering close by on sunday - want to get my legs moving before then). As usual, I split my key-ring into two, so that I was to carry less. After I had locked and closed the door, I found that I had the wrong set of keys, and had successfully locked myself out. Great. Silly me. So I tried to get in through any open windows (there weren't any); couldn't find an outside key (there wasn't one). Went over to the neighbours - they didn't have a key / know where one was. They also didn't have my sisters mobile number (who had gone out for dinner); I couldn't remember her moblie - that's what phone books / phone memories are for.

So at 7.15 I had a bit of a wait on my hands. I walked down to the junction of Stafford Road and Gympie Road, taking slightly less than 1 hour. And then walked back. And then just sat / lay / slept in the entry way until 10:45 ish - getting bitten by several mozzies.

So a good day that turned stupid.

Well, after last nights broadcast email to almost everyone in my address book, the number of unique users has more than doubled.... Swamped. I'm sure that my host is very concerned.

Well, tomorrow is the start of week two of my new job. I should be getting into real work; not just learning about the company / section that I'm in / work that I'll be doing.