kjp

This went around work the other day. In Ise Bay - Japan (about 270 km SW of Tokyo), they needed to build a new airport. So, instead of taking over a patch of land and using that, they built an island in the bay (land reclaimation), and built the airport on that. Pretty amazing stuff.

The airport is called the Cental Japan International Airport (Centrair). There's a write up of it here. There's cool photos of the construction here.

This morning: Thinking about the previous post - who cares. I'll (probably) be happy anywhere I go, but happier if I'm with decent people. Got to action this.

15 minutes later: ooh bugger. My options are open, but I'm an idiot. A problem of mine is this: if I decide to do something it will get done. But when faced with an important descision I'm stupid about it because I'm afraid(?) (or something like it) of making a wrong desiscion - need to make the right desiscion. And yet I can't spell descision correctly. Who cares.

Afternoon: had a BBQ at lunch - was cool fun. That group of people is really cool - but my relationship to (most of) them is only through W & L. sigh. Anyhow, as of a little while ago, it's decided and confirmed - I'm moving into McDowall tomorrow (after work). In the coming week I'll be slowly moving stuff out of here and into over there. So from tomorrow who knows where my computer will be and what kind of internet connection I'll have - ie: potentially few to none postings to here. Rest of today = cleaning up my stuff here, doing jobs, organising other stuff - the moving things, etc, etc, etc. Will take a load of stuff over 6 / 7 pm tomorrow night after work (and sleep there tomorrow night).

For most of the morning and (early) afternoon I was doing the flat hunting thing. There's several good options - in Alderley, Mitchelton, and Newmarket. These are all 2 bedroom places, at around $200 / week. There's also and option of living in a share house in McDowall - in the opposite direction from the other three (I'm currently in Everton Park). Don't know what to do.

If I go McDowall - with it's stupid naming of streets (!) - it will take longer to go anywhere citywise. It will be the same distance to work, but will add about 20 minutes (10 mins there and back) when going into the city and down south (Gold Coast). There's no train station nearby - at all. The closest is Mitchelton - the same train station that I use now - except it will be 10 - 15 minutes drive to there in peak times. That's the major disadvantage to the place - the location. The other downside is that it's a suburb - decent houses on small blocks, no trees, etc. Also, I'd be dependant on my car to go anywhere. There is an advantage to it's location - it's near Bunyaville State Forest - this would let me do more forest jogging - which I should be doing more of. Other advantages - potentially cheaper than the other options, decent people.

For the other places, they all have a better location. But - I'd potentially have to get a lot of stuff - I could (probably?) share at McDowall - which costs $$. Then there is getting someone (vaguely normal) in to share the place... etc

Why isn't life simple??!!......

This post was going to be longer / more detailed (esp. in regards to the renting of a 2 bedroom flat option) - but I'm a wee bit tired!

Tired tired.

Useless trivia - in case you care. I was cruising the radio earlier today - came across the new Nova station (a la Nova 969) - on 106.9 FM here in Brisbane. Ho hum. Seems like it is still doing test transmissions - not advertising yet, etc.

We went and saw I, Robot earlier this evening. It was pretty good. A review is here.

Yesterday I cruised around the Clayfield area a bit looking for places to rent. It seems that there's a bit - but not heaps - available. The places that I did look at were either dodgy or too fancy (expensive). Sigh. Next weekend I'll look around the Mitchelton / Everton Park area (where I currently live) for places to stay. After that there will be just one weekend to move out: but I'd prefer to move out before then - ie: next weekend.

Also, I have to get up earlier - doing the searching thing at 11 am when several offices close at 1 / 2 pm doesn't leave much time... The other thing is to take a digital camera - especially if you plan to share with someone else - as they can check out the place later without going there.

The Residential Tenancies Authority governs the rules by which people rent out their places (within Queensland, at least). Their website is very informative.

Well, it seems - shock horror - that someone has actually printed off bits of this website...

I've never really thought about how it looks on paper. When I tried printing it out (the current design), there's a few iffy bits:

• When the background is white, the banner image looks stupid by itself - this is removed
• You can't post a comment when you're reading a printoff of this website - so the input boxes have been removed from the print version
• You can't navigate when reading a printoff - so the 5 navigation buttons at the top have been removed.

These have now been fixed up. This was done by the creation of a new style sheet for print specific formatting. The main style sheet is included in the print formating.

Enjoy.

I've just been reading an article about Go Seigen (also Wu Qingyuan). Pretty cool guy.

Is it just me, or is it really windy out there?

From my jaunt down to Canberra, it seems that Internet Explorer (4.0) isn't capable of correctly rendering this website. Compare for yourself:

A snapshot of this website, taken the other day, in Internet Explorer 4:

A snapshot of this website, taken earlier today, in Firefox:

The past five days have pretty very much out of the ordinary. Bits of this post were written at different times, so it may not read smoothly!

Saturday morning
I caught a cab to the (domestic) airport, and got on a plane to Canberra. It was my first flight on Virgin Blue. They seemed pretty good: but they don't have free food on board. Do'h. Well, I knew this before hand, so it wasn't a surprise… The flight was boring - just read and slept a bit. Looking at Canberra from the air it was fairly dry, but nice, pretty and well laid out - the usual. My little sister C picked me up from the airport: we got home a bit after J did: he had gotten the rest of the day out on a day pass.

It was great to come back to the family home. It's probably the most significant place in my life so far. Minus a few bits here and there, I've lived there from mid 1985 until the start of this year - 2004 - ie: 18.5 years or so. Wow. I was feeling a little anxious but very happy to return. It was weird how I noticed bits and pieces:

Things haven't changed at all:

• The mailbox still doesn't open easily / properly
• The front ""garden"" (yes - that is double double quotes...) still looks weird / stupid
• The same stairs and floor-boards downstairs still creak
• The shower head in the bathroom is still a bit iffy - keeps falling / put too low
• The white round table is still centre stage in the family room
• The house still needs to be heated in winter a fair bit
• There's still not enough ventilation in the upstairs toilet...

Then some things are completely different:

• There's a funny musty / old person / book smell throughout the entire place
• A new roof is being put on the house
• There's a new fancy schmancy BBQ out on the back deck
• There's some art at the end of the upstairs hallway
• I'm now a guest at my home! This was a daunting / strange feeling - I was in the guest room, not "my" room. This was very understandable, but emphasised to me the fact that I was - in some ways at least - a guest. The other thing it indicated to me is that I should be "grown up" - which I'm not: I long for my childhood, I think. But I'll sort that out later...

Saturday lunch
Was spent with family: me, J, S, W, L, C and an old family friend D. It was great to see J, S, C and D again. Especially (although unfortunately) J. It was just like old times - everyone around the table. It was easy to be really happy with the situation - I was with all my family again. But then all of a sudden I'd realise why I was there: dodgy.

Afterwards we just sat around, talked, etc. Then everyone went back to the hospital while J ate his dinner. I drove S home.

Sunday morning
Drove to the hospital with S, picked up J at brought him back - he was on another day pass. He went to church. I went with S and C for a walk up along the backtrack. Again, like when I first arrived home, there were some things that were the same, some things that had obviously changed: it was easy to pick out which houses had been done up, etc.

A BBQ lunch (cooked on the new fancy cooker) followed. I can't remember what happened in the afternoon - probably more talking etc. In the late afternoon / early evening I dropped J back at the hospital, and stayed with him for a while. A doctor took 3 goes to get a cannula in - vaguely worrying.

Sunday night
Driving back on the way home was the first time that I had to myself: alone. Instead of focussing on making sure other people were struggling along ok, I allowed myself to think about the situation. And then I realised then how upset I was (and am) at the whole situation. The potential severity of the worse case scenario hit me - and I lost it. I was just completely sad - nothing else.

After dinner at home, the 4 youngins went out to Civic - to the Pancake Parlour for dessert. Remarkably enough(!) there was hardly anyone around, being a Sunday night in the middle of winter in Canberra.

Monday
First went to Belconnen Mall. We didn't have time to cruise around the mall - just got my hair cut and we got a few other small jobs done. You now have to pay for parking at Belco! Yikes. (Although they were introducing it when I left…). Then to the hospital. Most of the day was spent waiting around: waiting for tests, waiting for test results. The results of today should come tomorrow, with more tests tomorrow. Hopefully all of the news will be good. Fingers crossed - thinking positive thoughts, etc. It's hard not to worry. I just want everything to be ok - everything to be how it was before Thursday.

It's amazing how tiring a day can be, when you're not doing anything physically or mentally strenuous: just emotionally.

Tuesday
In the morning went to ANU with C. I gate crashed a lecture on Psychology of Health: was vaguely interesting. Prior to that we cruised around the ANU for a bit - was good to reminisce about my 5 years here. They've made the union building pretty dodgy by partitioning up the main eating hall. Oh well. Then onto the hospital. More waiting and waiting. J had an MRI scan in the morning. Waiting around all day (boring). Talked to a guy in the bed next to J - an engineer - interesting. In the evening - news from the main doctor who looked over the MRI results. They were not as good as we hoped. And this is very worrying, sad, and hurts a lot. There will be a full body MRI scan in the next few days which will help determine the extent of the situation. Then there maybe some surgery… I'm pretty upset at the whole situation.

Wednesday
Did some jobs in the morning, packed up, went over to the hospital. Had a coffee with me, J, S, W and L. Then C picked us up and took us to the airport. The flight was pretty boring. Train back to home from the airport. Didn't get the best train connections (just missed the train at the airport and the connection at Bowen Hills).

There maybe some photos of Canberra up on this site if I get around to it in the next few days.

OK, overall, a few effects from the events of the past couple of days:

• It hurts
• I'll probably become a frequent flier on the Brisbane / Canberra flight route.
• Housing will be an issue for me. It seems that the place I'm in will be taken from under me in a couple of weeks. There's almost certainly not enough time to buy a place. So it looks like I'll be renting somewhere. I worry about this: I've really enjoyed the company of W since the start of the year (and L when he has been around). Living with them was, in some ways, dangerous: it's meant that there has been less of a driver on me to meet new people in Brisbane... And this means that I'm probably going to be (initially at least) lonely. Sigh.

I remember reading a quote / phrase / part of a poem somewhere that basically said something along the lines of "love changes life - it makes life fantastic when it is good; the problem is when things go badly, it makes you hurt even more". Of course, it was a tad more eloquent than that, but that was the general gist.

I just want life to be like it was last Wednesday: life was better back then.

There's a few things I should do:

• Live life to the full - now

Actually, that's just one thing... Probably should work on that. But I think it's a good start.

I've just got home for work: 8am to 9pm - the longest day so far. It was my choice. I've taken next Tuesday off. Wednesday is a public holiday here in QLD, while Monday is an RDO for me. This means that I can go down to Canberra: flight leaves tomorrow morning. I needed to either work next Monday, Tuesday or Friday night - to finish off a project - just sorting out the handover docos / deliverables for an upgrade.

It's all a bit of a rush: the reasons for going down came about unexpectedly yesterday.

I just hope that everyone is well at the end of it: it's not the best situation to be in at the moment.

Fingers crossed.

Yes, I've taken a "step up". Yes, I've stepped up to the plate. Har har.

And they said it couldn't last...