This is an artists impression on the design of the house we are building. It is based upon a design from duplex.com.au and have made some alterations to suit our needs and requirements.
There are a few subtle changes to the layout and also the exterior. There are windows on the wall facing towards the front of the house in the back bedrooms. Colour scheme will differ slightly. It will be interesting to see the end product
…and not the Operating System kind. I dropped by this afternoon after work and took a few snap shots. If you go to my gallery (there is a link on my blog for Facebook readers)
It must be close to 12 months since we moved into this house from Chipping Norton, So we must be moving again….Damn it! The owner of this house we pay a lot of rent for, has decided not to renew the lease. So we must move out. I was looking forward to moving, but moving into our newly built house (upon completion). So we are now faced with packing, moving and then possibly not unpacking at the new place as we will only be there for 3 – 4 months (although by my calculation it may be more like 5 – 6).
The thought of having to move one extra time is not appealing to me. Bugger!!!!
I have been to the Firefly a few times now and find myself not wanting to move away from the table, other than to get a round of drinks in, which by comparison to other places I have been is quite cheep. The environment there is superb. You can sit back and enjoy some excellent food and hospitality. It is also good to watch other golfers struggle as much as I do when it comes to putting. The 18th hole is right outside the balcony, which also overlooks the rest of the course. You would be forgiven for thinking you were somewhere else.
The Chef produces some of the nicest food I have eaten. The first meal was Paul’s Birthday a few months back. Sam and I shared an entree and had our own main course. I had Steak! I always have steak, even though my tooth has to work harder than normal, due to my girlie fear of dentists. Anyway, the steak was superb, the salad and sauce were excellent and the extra crunchy fries melted in my mouth. If I continue this, they will have to widen the doors so the chef can get his head out 
After the main course, it was decided to have the apple crumble, with cream and Ice cream. That and the 5 schooners just about pushed me over the limit. I literally ate way too much. I could hardly move. It was official. I was Fat Bastard out of Austin Powers. Nice work Damien, keep it up. Any more meals like that and I will have to play there 5 times a week!
We went to the dog park today with Thor and Loki to let them run off some pent up Collie in them. We got to the park and let them off their leads and headed off to the far side of the park. Loki and Thor as per usual go crazy for the first 5 minutes or so and gradually come back, still running and paying visits to all the other doggies in the park. Thankfully they are well socialised dogs and get on well with other dogs and humans.
Whilst walking over to the agility equipment we must have dodged about 5 piles of dog poo, which under normal circumstances, SHOULD NOT BE THERE. I know that after you have watched your dog arch its back, you know its clean up time and having seen some of the things come out of my dogs would make a Marine Puke. Nevertheless, you should Always pick it up and place it in the bin. How hard is it? Other dogs and People have to use this park, so think about them and not just yourselves. If your Dog craps – Bag it. If you don’t, you are just a lazy good for nothing ass hole.
After the downstairs flooded and ruined a good pair of speakers, these are soon (hopefully)to be their replacements. Fingers Crossed.
For the past couple of weeks I have been going to the Tennis courts with Sam and Karen whilst they play Tennis. The first night I only played for about 15 minutes or so and enjoyed it. So the next time they went we played doubles which was quite enjoyable. Seeing as the girls bought a Tennis Bat each, Sam bought me one too. Paul also bought a Bat and much fun was had.
Last night Adam came to the court and had a session with us as Paul was working. We actually managed to hit the ball more and keep it in play and at one point we even managed a rally where we all played the ball. It has been many years since I played Tennis, in fact the last time was at school and I was 13 or 14. About a billion gallons or more have trickled under that bridge.
Its all about getting fit, nah… really? Yes. And even though the top ranked players in the Tennis world can sleep safely and restfully in their beds at night knowing that we play twice a week, its all about getting out and having a change from crappy Foxtel and sprawling out on the couch or even worse, sitting in front of a computer at home or in the office.
So the day went as planned, Paul picked me up and off we went to play at Sefton Golf Course. The 1st tee has been moved to the lower levels, whilst I assume that they are working on the other two levels. Anyway, I tee off and wind up just on the left side of the fairway, Paul seemed keen to De-branch a few trees. Needless to say the game improved further on, for both of us.
I actually played well, considering I have never really played a full round of golf up until recently. I am happy with my game. It can only improve and by the laws of Golf, also get worse. We played through to the 16th hole and I hit a shot that I could not see where the little white ball had gone. So after wandering down the course I eventually found my ball. All the way to the right. However, during my quest, I was greeted, neigh, attacked by a killer duck, who’s beak had my very name engraved, etched even, onto it. I promptly used my wanna be Jedi Skills and managed to thwart this evil Duck, who’s eyes glowed bright red, with big gnarly teeth and a spear. It was an Uber Duck from the depths of Satan’s lair. But fear not this keen amateur golfer escaped unharmed, I used words of wisdom to calm this savage beast (the words used cannot really be printed)and waved my hand in front of me, ensuring safe passage to my ball.
I realised that this savage creature was in fact guarding a small group of ducklings huddled up near a tree. And for the Duck lovers amongst us, no Peking sauce was used and I managed to play my shot without further issues.
By the time we had finished at the 18th, it was time to head home. Thankfully the rain held off whilst playing, so it could pour down for the drive back.
Ah yes the wonderful feeling of not having to do anything. Having said that, I am supposed to be playing golf again today. As always no time was set and chances are it will rain. Looking at the weather this morning, it is not looking favorable for what should be a good casual round of golf.
Home alone and enjoying the quiet. No radio going on about crap and single minded opinions from 2GB. Some good news arrived via e-mail this morning, relating to my water damaged speakers. Not sure if I posted that here? Anyway, a few weeks back during the biblical floods brought on by lots of rain here in good old Sydney. The downstairs part of this house, decided to let water in. There were a number of casualties, An old Server and my beloved B&W DM330′s. The base of these speakers is splayed out and absorbed a fair amount of water. Upshot of which, they cannot be used for the purpose they were designed for. Digital Monitors. As the sound from these speakers will differ greatly from what they used to be, that and they will go mouldy.
I managed to find an Audio Shop who specializes in these kind of speakers. So a quick e-mail to them and today I have a quote for 2 pair of speakers. One pair is the optimal replacement and the second pair is there for a second quote option, naturally the second quote will be rejected by me if the insurance won’t go for the first pair. It will be interesting to see if the ‘New for Old’ policy really does do as it says on the tin…..?
I have been busy with work and with busy designing my new look web site. So far all has gone reasonably well. I had a few issues uploading my images of the House Build last night, it seems that my hosting company had a few issues, as tonight the images have gone up without issue.
I will start with the new look site. I have been toying with a number of ideas, but none of them really appealed to me, they also caused me a few dramas with the design. Dreamweaver CS4 has some strange quirks with templates. I have had these problems before on previous versions. Thankfully I have powered on and worked through them, although, I have to say that I am still not 100% happy. Lets say it is down to the end user more than the program. My new site will be based on Photography, Video, Music and design. It will also feature the Mac and a little mention here and there on the PC. The site is still being worked on and toyed with, so don’t hold your breath, as I have yet to finish a web site of my own.
The House build. So far it is going well. There are a few hiccups, as to be expected with builders, plumbers and sparkies. They will always find an excuse to not be there when they are supposed to. It seems that the plumbing has taken a bit of a hammering from the major cleanup today. They have completed the task of putting storm water drains in and in this task have managed to damage 4 of the pipes used for water and sewer. I could understand this if they were just white, but they were sprayed yellow so they would stand out from the grey/white slab. The slab has now been cleared off and all the dirt moved off to fill in the drainage channels dug out to accommodate the pipes. Now residing on the slab is a selection of wooden frames, RSJ’s and other items. Hopefully this week the building will actually look like a house, or at least the makings of a house.
Work. I had to replace the switches in the small rack as one had given up the ghost and the other was old and only 100Mb connection. So off to the shop and 2 x 16 port switches and some new cat6 patch leads. So a complete rewire of the rack and finally get everyone and everything on the network connecting at 1Gb. Some would argue that there is no difference. At this point I would agree as the main link from the small rack is only cat5 cable and is double backing from outlet to rack then back to the main rack. Hopefully soon to be rewired correctly – Don’t ask, my predecessor had no idea.
The Mac…It works and works well. Need I say more?
