This post about my life is accompanied by pictures of seagulls and boats. There is no reason for this, I just want to seem artsy.


As previously mentioned, we're currently in the process of finding somewhere new to live. After this weekend we've looked at nine properties for sale around Highgate and Mt Lawley. At least one of them seems like a place we could offer on. A number of them have potential, but you'd need to completely rennovate them first, we really don't have time. We're going to look at some more next weekend.

The idea of buying is a little daunting. It's affordable (as long as we're both employed), but it's certainly a lot of liability. I suppose it doesn't really reduce our flexibility any more than a fixed-term lease, we could always sell or rent the place out if our futures take us away from Perth (indeed Tom and Max did this). It seems like such an adult thing though, owning property, like being married.


Knowing that we have to leave has left me in a bit of a funk. This flat has really become our home in the last three and a half years. And it sounds silly, but there are things in the neighbourhood that we'll miss: like crazy postoffice guy and the kebab shop. For somewhere around a quarter of my life I've lived within 200m of the same supermarket (it's had 2 name changes and renovations during that time).

But there are some things to feel excited about, like being able to hang up all of the art that we've got tucked away (and indeed purchase additional, awesome art because we know we'll have somewhere to hang it) and possibly obtaining a balcony or courtyard. I think my problem is that where we live no longer feels like our space and that house hunting cannot be turned into a 24x7 exercise, so maybe things will seem happier once we have somewhere new.


It's possibly related, but I've been feeling very bored lately. I have zero motivation to work on anything that involves computers or programming (feels too much like work). Actually, I'm feeling demotivated in general. I guess this is why people just come home and watch TV all night. I currently have no academic pursuits; I thought about picking one up, but I'm actually enjoying not having the stress. I think I just need to rediscover hobbies that don't require daylight or a partner (when Steph is studying). Friends always seem to be busy.

I finally got around to replacing the audio cables in the fit-PC I bought a while back, meaning that the sound now works. I originally bought this thinking it had a PC-card socket inside (it does not), and was going to turn it into a wireless AP/media box, but we'll probably get ADSL2 when we move which means we'll need a new modem anyway (so we'll probably get some integrated do-whatsit) and the thing has some pretty serious sound/video sync issues with multimedia. Thus I'm not actually sure what to do with it.


Renovations for our half the floor at work start tomorrow, so Programming has been temporarily moved downstairs. Going open-plan again hasn't actually been too bad. The renovation is taking 8 weeks, so I'm not sure whether or not to actually unpack my box of stuff from upstairs. I did sit my penguins on a shelf and put up my poster of Richard Feynman though.

I've also heard that Cowie and I are speaking at GUADEC. Both Matt and I are meant to be going from FSI this year. Should be fun times. I just have to hope that house-related stuff doesn't throw a spanner in the works (especially after missing last year).


Umm, what else. I went to IEAust to receive my certificate for joining since it's literally around the corner from work. I've also joined IEEE (although this seems to mostly be a way to sign up for conference spam). I wasted a large amount of time rewatching the Hornblower mini-series because boats are cool and people acting affronted are funny. Steph and I also finished watching Carnivale. The beginning was very shaky. It seemed like each writer was pushing his/her OTP during their episode, but it was actually quite awesome once it got going. Of course now I can't help but think that the Methodist church is creepy and sinister. Clearly they were expecting to be allowed to make more chapters in the future, because it leaves you hanging. Speaking of such things, we still haven't finished chapter 2 of Heroes.

Oh, and apparently it's ok for a politician to sexually harass one of their staff, "because there are worse people in Parliament". I like this reasoning, it's like a get out of jail free card (literally) for a whole bunch of crimes I might like to commit one day, because at least they're not as bad as beating someone half to death with an iron bar.