Life is so good, it gets better every day

Just Another Manic Monday

Had a pretty awesome weekend with lots of climbing in Britten crag, while the weather was sweet. Climbed 2 21’s which the guidebook says is about French 6c – didn’t get them clean, although really felt I should have. They felt easy enough though once I worked out the moves, so looking forward to pushing 7a when I get back from Christmas vacation.

Noticed that GNOME 2.5.1 had been released so started to kick arse on porting JDS to the new tarballs. Went well, although some of the patches were a pain, since there were patches patching patches – lots of effing and blinding. Think I’ve managed to get past the more troublesome modules, and into the home straight with the applications. 31 down, 40 odd to go. Think an unstable JDS might make a good Christmas present 😉

The windscreen guy came to fix the cracks in the car. It was pretty awesome to see him at work – almost like keyhole surgery as he drilled through the glass and filled it with reisin. Hopefully it’ll be enough for the car to pass, providing we get the breaks checked out.

Booked a nice little appointment with the medical center to get my vaacinations for India. Arvind pointed me at Linux Asia 2004, a conference in Dehli happening while I’m out in Bangalore. Thinking about getting a flight up [or down] there and perhaps giving a talk. That’s if there isn’t already a group of Indian GNOME hackers running the show! Let me know your plans.

Lord of the Rings on Thursday. Should be entertaining, although really less hype than I was expecting over here.

Panel Applets

Mark wrote a nifty little script to add new applets to a given panel from the command line. Although it’s not hugely useful from a usability point of view, it might encourage a small project for something better –

  gman@slipstream:~> gnome-panel-applet --list         	clock         	dictionary         	battery_monitor         	.... gman@slipstream:~> gnome-panel-applet --add --panel=bottom --applet=clock gman@slipstream:~> gnome-panel-applet --remove clock  

Some food for thought.

The Corona Strikes Back

So, the mechanics didn’t turn off the lights when they were testing the car, and since I drove back in daylight I failed to notice. The next morning we had a nice flat battery. Fortunately we were able to find a nice couple, Greg and Astrid, to help us jump start the car, and everything was okay after that.

Had a pretty productive day at Britten crag – mostly still climbing 18s, 19s and now 20s. The grades are definitely easier than Wanaka, and it’s really hard to get a feel for what the standard grade is.

We bought a bottle of wine to bring over to our new helpful neighbours, who were going to refuse it unless we sat down with them to share it. We stayed, and got fed some nice lamb mignons from the bbq, some excellent dessert and a glass or two of red wine. What kind people.

Stupid WOF

So, the car didn’t pass, and they failed us on the crack on the windscreen which is minute, and a crack in the left rear break block or something. So we have 30 days to get that all fixed up before the next test. Hopefully the work won’t cost too much.

La Bella Vita

Until it is gone. Ettore, you will be missed. The Ximan guys have been through tough times, and no one should have to deal with this.

On The Move Again

I felt sorry for the travel agent girl. She had been out on the piss the previous night and was feeling a little delicate when in I walked asking about flights to Bangaore, again. 2 hours later we finally managed to come up with the right combination of flights and I think the farsical nature of the whole process had cured her hangover. I will soon be on the move again, heading over on 5th February to see my Wipro friends for 10 days. I’ve never been to India before, so very much looking forward to it, and taking my first stop over in Singapore as well. If it wasn’t immediately obvious, I love my job and my motivation and enthusiasm soars with these kinds of rewards.

With trips to Sydney, Adelaide, Bangalore and Auckland, it is going to be a busy start for the year and that doesn’t include a possible trip over to Malaysia. Rock on!

I Am Going Mental

I think I just had one of those days when I went completely mental and talked to myself a hell of a lot more than usual, which probably isn’t saying much. JDS seems to be rocking along these days, but I still get the willies wondering how the fuck we’re going to be able to handle all these huge deployments. I’m sure it will all come clear a few months down the line.

Just when I thought I was making good progress on the VPN thing, I seem to have run into issues with g_spawn_async_with_pipes and trying to read and write to the vpn client connetion commandline. The fun of developing against proprietary software.

Met up with an Israeli guy at the climbing wall last night. He climbs more or less the same grade as me, although not a self confessed boulderer. I’m getting tired of pushing myself on the overhangs, and look forward to seeing what problems he comes up with. Thinking about a trip up to Kaikoura this weekend. Unbelievable to think that I’ll be in Sydney the week after that for possibly the strangest Christmas so far.

This Is Why I Am Here

Wanaka has a slight Aspen feel to it – amazingly chilled out with stunning scenery all around you, without the superiority complex. Plain and simple, this place is just cool, and I felt bad leaving it at the end of the weekend. It’s about a 5 or 6 hour journey from Christchuch, sitting just north of Queenstown by about 100km. The weather was pretty ugly heading down with strong winds and driving rain trying its best to squander us, but stubborness gave way to incredible weather for the rest of the weekend, and a good share of climbing.

Having bought the Wanaka guidebook, we headed to the Roadside crag for some warm up routes – all bolt clipping on schist. I’ve never climbed on schist before, and it involves a large deal of thought, with a number of thin moves of small crimps and slopers. We started off working up from about 14 – Wanaka 14, there seems to be a large difference, and eventually worked out way up to 16, which felt about French 6a. Most of the routes were relatively short, requiring anything between 3 and 6 bolts, with the first bolt being quite high – there were some routes I wanted to try, but didn’t have the balls to start due to a pretty highball start. The following day, after a good night of Thai, beer and wine, we hit the Hospital Flat boulders. Lots and lots of potential problems, including an awesome arete/overhang traverse with heelhooking. Started my project to have a short bouldering/climbing film by the end of my year here. Will almost certainly have to take a lot more footage than I did last weekend.

So with some regret we left Wanaka vowing to ourselves that we’d all be back soon, and left the mountains behind to head towards the Canterbury plains again. It was a small taste of the adventures to come, with the constant fear in the back of our minds that there is so much to see, and so little time to see it.

Those are hardcore vibes.

Wanaka Weekend

We’re planning on heading down to Wanaka to climb on the rock there. Being in a new country, and free to see all these new places is really awesome, and it’s a good motivator to try and get a hard week’s work done before it. Haven’t been climbing enough outdoors though, and need to convince the others a little – while monkeying around in the indoor wall is good for building up strength, it’s no use if you don’t have balls.

I got so frustrated with work in general that I decided to ignore it. For the most part, it seems to be working, and I’m currently hacking away at a frontend to the Cisco VPN 5000 client. At least it will take my mind off things even if I don’t get the chance to finish it. It’ll also be a nice [if at times frustrating] opportunity of learning some of the newer GTK+ widgets.

And For My Next Trick

And to finish off a pretty awful week, I got shat on by a bird. No doubt this will amuse many people out there. Thank you very much.