kjp

Taken at Easter a month back.

I'm getting into gear to buy some sort of house / flat (not sure which, see below, but it's called property from now on) for myself this year (hopefully within the next 6 months or so).

I've been thinking about this for a bit, but it now seems to click in my head as being the right thing to do.

Thoughts / comments are welcome, especially from people who have bought their own place and who have the same surname as me and live in Canberra :) Hi mum!

Anyhow,

No doubt there'll be more on this later. If you've got your head screwed on, comments / emails are welcome! (I'm on the nervous side - it's a big commitment - for the next 25 years or so...).

Went for a walk this morning - 2hr 20 min for 14.3 km out towards Nudgee Beach. I probably could have walked a bit faster, but not much - it's pretty much near the point where it's easier to jog. Had to stop for 5 mins to put some Leukosilk on (trying it for the first time) - had got some as per a recommendation for taping over potential blister sites. It seemed to work well - I had put it on a blister that was forming, but it did not get any worse, and was pretty comfy. So, it will be in my cool pack next trip (next Sunday). Next weekend is my second rogaine - a 3 hour event - in the daytime at Bunyaville. Hopefully will go well.

I've just created this new category - housing.

Stay tuned for a big post sometime today (or in the next couple of days).

I've just found a cool website: Gmap-Pedometer.com/. It uses google maps, you give it a route, and it figures out the total distance... great for figuring out jogging routes to work tomorrow.

At morning tea, the Bridge To Brisbane run came up in conversation. I was thinking about it last year, but didn't prepare enough for it. Hmmm, so maybe this year?

I've got a possible rogaine the previous weekend, so that may be an issue...

For the record, for a distance of 12 km, at the specified speeds, gives a total time of:
km/hr - 13.3; 12; 10.9; 10; 9.2
min/km - 4.5; 5; 5.5; 6; 6.5
mins - 54; 60; 66; 72; 78

Probably aim for the 5 / 5.5 mins per km mark.

The other day I got $200 from the QLD Government - water rebate for my washing machine... Took a while (4 months+), apparently they've been swamped with applications... But a good idea, considering the water situation.

I'm on the happier side of things (sort of**): earlier this evening I got my ticket to the upcoming AoF gig (one of my more favourite bands). They'll be in Brissy next month. New album and all... Also ordered their first two EPs that have been re-released. Should be in my hot little hand in a few days time :)

**This is all a bit of 'retail therapy' (??) - I'm on the grumpy pants side of things - last Friday I had to fork out a whole bunch of $$$ for a new clutch (plate) in my car... Anyhow.

On my weekend (plus Friday afternoon) trip to Sydney, I picked up a pumpkin. Nice. An offload from mum's garden. Will find a use for it sometime... Just have a few months to wait for halloween... (hehe - yes, a joke - I will cook it up :) ). Although I had to take it on my hand luggage (wouldn't fit in main bag)... it took a while to get through the airport scanner though... I'm not sure how much vegetable matter is in most people's bags...

The trip itself was good. Good to catch up with a good friend and his fiance. Had some yummy seafood at an Italian place in Leichardt. Saturday was mum's birthday - at a nice restaurant at Cronulla. Yummy seafood again. Talked to a cool guy on the plane back to Brisbane. And now I'm sorting the books that also came back to Brisbane with me and sorting out other stuff...

Yesterday I bought a hydration pack - a Camelbak Rim Runner. I’ve wanted one for a while: it will come in hand when I do a few rogaines this year (did my first back in March). It’s also my birthday present to myself...

So, why did I get the Rim Runner? It’s got 3L reservoir, and 25 L cargo space. This is on the upper end of capacities, but that’s ok - can fit more stuff in if required, and if I only need to take a small amount of stuff, then it packs down pretty well. Has several sections for sorting stuff, and also has external pockets on the side that are accessible while the pack is still on - great for food on the go.

I went for a walk / jog last night for a bit less than 3 hours to test it out. Went well, except that I had put the reservoir up the wrong way (silly silly), and had “difficulty” getting water out after the first 1 ½ hours or so. It’s a pretty comfortable on my back (although not a full on harness that transfers the weight to your hips - obviously given the size).

So, all in all, I’m happy with it.

(Looking forward to the next rogaine - albeit just a short one - in early May).

I've just finished a couple of changes to this website.

For a while the "life" category page hasn't worked - it's been returning a "zero sized reply". This was because I'd run over my quota of space on the server where kjp is hosted, and the temporary file could not be created. The space issue has been fairly severe: I wasn't able to change passwords, do admin, etc, as these require you to write to files (which I couldn't). Great. Part of the problem was the presence of an email account that was being sent email from old abandoned email accounts of mine. There was ~ 7 MB of unread junk mail sitting on the server. Top work.

I changed the category pages to just list the entries by date. It's a bit stupid. Also fixed up the main archive listing page to not show the last 10 entries per category. That was a bit silly as wel.

Also changed back the front page to show the 5 latest posts, not the posts in the last 2 weeks. The date based method doesn't work for my sporadic posting.

The next update of this website (don't hold your breath) might see me finally fix up the search results page.