Copyright ©
Carey Evans.
Last modified: Wed, 11 February 2004.
I’ve decided to keep track of what I’m doing during these holidays, and put it on the WWW, as a diary so that I can look back later and remember what I did, and so that I can keep friends up to date with what I’m up to. I probably won’t write everything down and put it on the web though.
I figure that if I do this on my computer and use lots of technology such as XML, that might be enough incentive to get me to write something.
(The XML source for this page is hols199901.xml and the DTD is diary.dtd. Its XSLT stylesheet is diary.xsl. For more information, see the page about my pages.)
This doesn’t quite count as part of my holidays, but I did go out after work to the Dux and saw some of the buskers, then continued to the Loaded Hog, which was a good way to start them.
I’d have this day off work anyway, but somehow it’s different when I won’t be back on Monday.
Today started by looking quite grey and depressing. By the time I started walking into work to pick up some stuff I left behind (like my umbrella), etc., it was raining quite hard so that I looked like “a drowned rat” once I got there. I also remembered that my boots aren’t very waterproof at all.
Shortly after I got back home, it stopped raining and has been a nice fine day ever since.
At three p.m. today I watched the penultimate episode of Babylon 5. It started out as a sentimental kind of episode with everyone saying goodbye; then JMS had to go and change everything again. It seemed like a good episode to end the season on though, so I wonder what he’s got planned for next week?! I won’t miss that episode.
Before watching Babylon 5 I bought Iain M. Banks’ ‘The Player of Games’ and I finished reading it this evening. Iain Banks is a very good writer and I’d recommend this book to anyone. It’s not that big. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I’d read it a bit slower though; there’s only so much good science fiction you can appreciate in one day.
For added excitement this evening, I went outside on the balcony to find out where the dog I could hear barking was, and discovered that the police were arresting someone down where my car park is, who had, I assume, probably been trying to get away around the back of the building. Duh, it’s a locked security gate there, and I’m only two blocks from the central police station.
After finishing reading ‘The Player of Games’ I started work on the XML DTD for these diary entries. It’s gotten far enough now that I can use XEmacs’ SGML mode to type in the entries for today; unfortunately, it’s now actually tomorrow and I don’t have time to write the program to produce HTML for my web page. I think I’d better go to bed now. Good night!
Much like the title of this entry, there was nothing remarkable about today. I slept in, I did some washing, I caught up with alt.sysadmin.recovery...
OK, so I did do some other stuff today. I went to the Arts Centre for lunch with my family, where we watched (IIRC) the “Flying Dutchmen”, who were there as part of the Buskers’ festival. They were very impressive; the highlight of the act had one of them on a twelve-foot unicycle, juggling flaming clubs with the other on a six-foot unicycle.
After lunch from the food stalls at the Arts Centre, my parents went to listen to old music at Hagley Park, and Tim and I went shopping for a small, cheap penguin badge or similar for his computer. We eventually decided on a small paua-shell and metal badge from one of the stalls; hopefully the clasp will come off fairly easily for attaching the penguin to the front of his new wooden computer case.
The rest of the afternoon was quite uneventful; I can’t really remember what I did, but I spent most of it at home. I went for a short walk into the city to see what was happening, but it’s rather quiet in town at 6 p.m. on a Sunday evening.
I’ve spent the rest of the evening fiddling with the DTD for this diary, and installing the most recent version of the XEmacs PSGML mode so that it will really work properly with and XML DTD. Maybe tomorrow I’ll see how easy it is to turn it into HTML for the web. It’s not tomorrow yet, but once again, good night.
Woohoo! I slept in today when normally I would have been getting ready to go to work. It’s nice to think of everyone else having to get up early for work or study. Actually, it’s not very nice, but it’s enjoyable.
There’s nothing like a good, hot meal (with minced chilli peppers in it) like the one I just finished to... well, to get the sweat pouring down your face. I don’t really know why I do that to myself.
I spent most of today shopping, which is fun; buying another book (‘Python Pocket Reference’ by Mark Lutz) which is fun too; and buying clothes, which I don’t like doing because I don’t trust myself. I did pick up as couple of t-shirts from Hallensteins, which I really need, but I need to spend more money on myself.
Mum rang up and said that it was about time I invited the family around for dinner here, to thank them for the work they did helping with my renovations several months ago, so I’m going to have to nominate a night in the near future, and work out what I’m going to cook for them. Great.
I guess that’s about all I did today, apart from more fiddling with the code to generate HTML for this diary, and a little bit of gardening. BORING!
Well, despite sleeping in for quite a while today, I seem to have gotten quite a bit done. In fact, I paid some bills (Boo!), I did some grocery shopping (Hiss!), and I did some housework (stop laughing).
On a more positive note, I did some more window shopping (although I think I got a little sunburnt); and Linux 2.2 is out! Yay! It’s a pity it doesn’t compile for some people because of a stupid bug, but my machine now gives me Linux 2.2.0 for uname -sr.
My purchase for today was a 1.6m long poster showing penguins jumping off an ice shelf. This will go above my computer desk once I figure out how to stick it to the wall, and will go a long way (ha ha) to making the study look less plain.
I went out on a limb and cooked myself something different tonight, out of a recipe book! I made a chicken curry with rice, which was very tasty and only so hot that my lips were tingly for a few minutes. Sometime soon I think I’m going to try something in the wok I got for Christmas, with the frozen stir fry veges I bought at the supermarket. Wish me luck.
With that, it’s probably about time I went to bed, since my parents are expecting me for lunch at their cafe tomorrow afternoon.
I guess I actually got a few things done today, and it wasn’t just shopping! It wasn’t in the morning either, though.
As I wrote yesterday, I caught the bus out to Church Corner to have lunch (sandwiches and excellent coffee) with my parents. Talking to them, I sorted out most of my travel plans for next week, although I’ve still go to book everything.
After that, I walked down to the University to have a look at what’s changed since I left two years ago. The most noticeable change is for me is the Computer Science department, which for the last year has had a nice new building over by the Physical Sciences library. I had actually seen this before, but nothing else going on around the University seems to come anywhere close.
I walked around the ‘seven bridges’ puzzle outside the building for a while — I managed to cross all the bridges just once, but only by cheating. Then I went in to find my Tim, who works for the maths department there, doing ground-breaking computer programming. While there, I managed to get his Linux box automatically updating via the University’s proxy server and firewall, install some newer versions of programs that should make the computer reboot cleaner, theoretically got email working on it, and I completely prevented him from getting any work done!
Tonight I’ve finished the Python program to generate the HTML version of these pages, so they can finally go on the web. I also stuck the poster I bought yesterday up on the wall, but it fell off, so I’ll have to move to plan B. However, it’s late and my second Queen CD has just finished playing, so it must be time for me to get some sleep.
I hope today was a good day for doing nothing, because nothing’s all I got done. I think I’m getting the hang of this holiday thing.
It’s not completely true that I did nothing, actually. I did get two things done: I got my penguin poster to stick to the wall, and I cooked myself dinner. The latter was accomplished with the help of the wok I got for Christmas, and the former with some sticky blue dots I bought from Whitcoulls. I don’t think it would have worked very well the other way around.
Mostly staying at home doing nothing probably isn’t very good for me — I think I must have only spoken about a dozen words all day. I should try to get out and touristy things that require interaction with other people. For now, though, I’m going to get some sleep.
As you might guess, the most important thing today is that the last episode of Babylon 5 is on today! In just two hours there will be nothing worth watching on TV. But that’s OK, because in just an hour, I get to watch the final of one of the best television series ever.
Anyway, you might have noticed that there’s no diary entry for yesterday. That’s because I went in to work for a few drinks (even though I’m on holiday) and ended up going out to a pub and losing several games of pool. I felt I had to do something last night, because on Friday morning I woke up feeling awful, with a splitting headache, and having done nothing on Thursday to deserve that I thought I’d better make up for it.
In continuing news, my penguin poster fell off the wall again. I’m going to give up trying to attach it to the wall without leaving any marks and use some drawing pins instead. I guess I’m admitting defeat. At least the framed print in my living room hasn’t fallen off the wall (touch wood).
Finally, after looking at how much my planned trip would cost, I’ve decided I’d be better doing some one-day touristy things around Christchurch. I might have been better off if I’d gotten things organised a bit earlier, but c’est la vie.
Well, I just finished watching ‘Sleeping in Light’, and all I can say is... Wow.
Actually, I suppose I can think of other things to say, but it’s taking a while. That was an excellent, moving, piece of television, and still raised more questions about the Babylon 5 universe than it answered. As the Lurker’s Guide entry asks, NOW what? (And will we ever find out?)
Aagh! No more Babylon 5! I hope my brother taped that episode, because I want to watch it again. I am very glad TVNZ didn’t have a "that was the final episode of Babylon 5" voiceover on the end credits, because they contributed to the feeling of the whole episode. Wow.
Actually, I haven’t been particularly miserable, but the weather has been trying its best. This entry may be slightly incomprehensible for a different reason than the last one, since I’m a little less than sober.
At John’s invitation, I spent the afternoon at the ‘Blues, Brews and Barbecues’ at Hagley Park. The weather gave its best shot at making things cold and wet, so there weren’t as many people there as should have been. I spent most of the time under cover of an umbrella or a tent, and had quite a few beers, so it didn’t really seem to worry me too much.
I don’t think I should actually write too much, because I don’t trust myself not to say particular things about particular people that I’m not sure I want to say. At this stage I think I’d probably be better off if I did say them, but I’m sure I won’t think so tomorrow. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve decided that I won’t change what I’ve written apart from speeling mistakes and adding links, so I won’t even give you twelve hours to see anything.
Actually, I’ll start today with some things from yesterday that, for some reason, I forgot to mention. Before deciding whether to go to the Blues, Brews and Barbecues yesterday, I noticed that the new apartment building across the road was having an open day, so of course, I wandered over to have a look.
The ground floor apartments that they had open to look at are quite small — one fairly small bedroom, living room separated by a bar from the kitchen with laundry in a cupboard beside the kitchen, and toilet in the bathroom. For this they want, as far as I can remember anyway, about $198,000. The top floor apartment they had open was not a lot better — another bedroom and more living space, but with a stairway right in the middle and no balcony! For this they want about $300,000, more than twice what I paid for mine.
Part of my state yesterday after getting home was due to the Ngahere Gold I drank at the Harringtons tent, combined with having only two Weet Bix and a coffee for breakfast. Ngahere Gold barely qualifies as beer, having 7.4% alcohol. It is good, though.
Back to today. The weather didn’t look too great when I first got up this morning, so I went back to bed and slept in some more. Eventually I had to get up, but the weather was looking more hopeful by then.
While I was at Big Fresh buying groceries and other supplies, partly for my parents and brother coming round tonight for dinner, I also browsed the CD store there to see if there are any good new CDs. (There aren’t.) I ended up buying five CDs — a five-pack for $40 with a whole lot of Tchaikovsky’s music on them. There’s some good music here, which you might recognise even if you don’t realise what it is, like bits from Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and the Nutcracker, and some of his other work like (of course) the 1812 Overture. (Boom! Actually, I’ve heard the Naxos CD has better booms than this one.)
I wonder if the neighbours would complain as much about me playing the 1812 Overture really load as they would if I played Hammering In My Head at the same volume?
Anyway... I cooked the same thing for my family tonight as I made in the wok last week. But this time, I didn’t cook the chicken for so long it went rubbery, and the veges for so long the broccoli disintegrated, and the end result was very nice, although the rice was still a little gluggy.
I’m a little short on dining chairs (I have one, and the chair I use at the computer can be used as well) so my parents were going to bring a couple of spares around. Fortunately, they forgot, because I probably would have gotten stuck with them. I will be buying some new dining furniture to complement the lounge suite some time soon anyway.
Finally, thanks to my parents for bringing around the bottle of wine, even if we did have to drink it from normal glasses.
Can you believe this diary has got to 16K in length? I think that’s as good a point as any to quit writing and upload it to my ISP.
I decided today that the reason I gave up on organising going away last week wasn’t because it was too expensive, but because I was creating too much hassle by combining a plane trip, two train trips including a ferry, a rental car to a different place than I started, and staying two nights in different places. Based on that, I booked a return flight to Auckland, to stay at a cheap hotel in the inner city for two nights. I was planning on catching up with people at the PRG (work) head office.
Before actually booking the flights, I wandered back through Whitcoulls, and saw Verity, a friend from high school, working there. I think the last time I talked to her was a few years ago — working in Whitcoulls. I probably hadn’t seen her before today because this time I went along the eastern side where the dictionaries, atlases, etc. are instead of along the western side where the science fiction is; and she didn’t recognise me until I said hello so she wouldn’t have just seen me when I was browsing. Anyway, she reminded me that a couple of other friends are living in Auckland, and gave me their address.
(BTW, I’m listening to Tchaikovsky as I write this. BOOM!)
So I looked Dianne up in the online White Pages, which was easy given her address, and gave her and Philip a call tonight. I spent a bit of time on the phone catching up; and they very nicely offered to let me stay at their place while I’m in Auckland! This is great, because I’ll get a chance to catch up with them, and I’ll save money, and probably get a better opportunity to see Auckland than I would wandering around the city centre looking for touristy things to do.
I really need to keep track of people better though. There’s a few people I knew at University I could probably track down before it’s too late. And I really want to make sure I keep in touch with people I know at work.
Oh, there was a downside to today as well; I went into work to help with the download of some reports from the AS/400 to the PC. Hmmph.
Very little actually happened today, and after writing so much for the last two days, I’m not sure if I’d be writing that much down anyway. So what did I do?
I got some more disposable contact lenses, because my new permanent lenses still aren’t ready after two weeks and I’ll want to wear contacts in Auckland, probably for longer each day than I should, too.
I went shopping and bought myself some new shoes. I organised a couple of little things with my parents. And I typed up some documentation about the firewall I’ve got set up on my computer.
I also did boring everyday things like laundry and cooking, but I think that’s about it.
Much like yesterday, I didn’t have anything planned for today and I didn’t really feel like doing anything, so I slept in then worried about going away on holiday myself. I think this would be the first time I’ve gone away that it hasn’t been with friends or family, or to something organised by someone else. (I think I need one of these ‘life’ things I keep hearing about; maybe there’s some available in Auckland?)
I’m almost completely packed now; if I forget anything, I’ll have to buy it once I get to Auckland. I got a book out of the library that should keep me occupied on the plane trip. It’s called ‘Metamagical Themas’ by Douglas R. Hofstadter, and is a collection of his columns for Scientific American.
(And now that I’ve reminded myself about the plane, I’m getting worried about being high up in the sky in what’s basically a tin can with wings.)
I should have a bit more to write about on Sunday night. I’ll keep notes on my Palm Pilot and let everyone reading this know what happened in time for Monday morning. (There is someone reading this, isn’t there? Hello? Hello? Oh well, good night.)
Well, this is the beginning of my holiday. I’m currently sitting on the plane waiting for everyone to get on board.
I only booked on Tuesday, so I’m pleased to see I got a window seat near the front. It’s got a good view of the wing, so I can look out the window and watch birds getting sucked into the jet engine. That’s what they do, isn’t it?
I hope we get something good to eat. I haven’t had anything since the two Weet Bix I had for breakfast at 5:30. I got up early today so I could get an earlier bus to the airport than I needed. Actually, the alarm went off at 5:00 and I turned it down and nearly went back to sleep, but my watch alarm woke me up again at 5:10.
We’ve been told to turn electronic equipment off now, which includes my Palm Pilot that I’m writing this on.
Here I am on a bus on my way to downtown Auckland. I seem to have a lot of spare time to write while I travel, so next time I think I’ll have to get a cell-modem to upload these to my web page live. With a bit of planning, I could just use email, so I *am* being realistic.
Oops, this bus has commentary for international travellers. And musac. Mmph.
I thought Auckland was supposed to be fine today? The plane descended through cloud, and it’s quite cloudy. I must admit though, that at least it isn’t raining.
After worrying about what I was going to do with my bag today, I took the tourist route and asked at the information desk at the airport, and was told that there are places I can leave it in town. Easy!
I guess it is a fine day, because the commentary says we can see One Tree Hill when it’s fine.
It’s strange to think that I’ve just spent the night in Auckland, after waking up yesterday in Christchurch. But here I am, so I better summarise what I’ve done so far. I’ll work backwards, since that’s how my memory seems to go.
After last night, I can say that I’ve been up the sky tower! It was a good, fine night for looking at the city, picking out the names of buildings and the red line of neon in the distance of the Warehouse head office. Strangely, the best view down was in the gap in the lift door between the lift and the shaft. (“Star Wars.”) That lift goes a long way up in a very short time.
I was surprised to find that three guys from Computer Science at University are working at the same place here. It was good to catch up with them on Friday, as well as getting comprehensively slaughtered by them in Quake II. Why don’t I work in a place like that?
Auckland gets incredibly hot. It’s not so bad today with a cool breeze, and it’s not as bad as a week or so ago when I’m told humidity was at 90%. I’d rather have been wandering around an air-conditioned mall than up and down Queen St.
When I popped into work nearly everyone was out at lunch, but I did get a tour of the office here and caught up with a few people, until Rachel told me to get out of the office and enjoy myself.
It’s a very quiet Sunday morning, so here’s my update for yesterday.
After getting more practice sleeping in yesterday morning, I think I suggested to Dianne and Phil that all I could think of doing was going shopping, so we went in to Newmarket to wander around the mall and shops, including Freedom Furniture (for Mum), and a look around the Sony shop. There are some interesting ‘prototype’ models there of some of the ideas that Sony’s designers have come up with.
Then we went by a slightly round-about route to Real Groovy to look at second hand CDs. With only a little encouragement, I parted with some of my money for Shaking the Tree by Peter Gabriel, and Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. These aren’t anything special, but I like some of the songs on the former and I’d just like to own the latter.
We had to get onto the bridge via Cook St because Fanshawe St was closed due to the accident in the sewers near there.
I checked my phone messages yesterday afternoon. I had one message from Friday: the screensaver had come on on my PC at work and the person borrowing it would lose their work unless I could let them what the password was. I would have been in the Auckland office when they left the message, but I didn’t want to do any work anyway.
For dinner last night we had a barbecue, together with Rob, the flatmate here, and with Duncan. This was followed by two movies, Dr Doolittle and Shooting Fish. They’re quite different, but both quite funny in their own ways. I really recommend the latter as an excellent British comedy.
Well, as the plane climbs out of Auckland, I guess that’s basically the end of my holiday. I’ve got a window seat behind the wing this time, so I can watch as bits of bird and engine fly out the back this time.
That was actually a very nice meal they served. I’m disappointed that they only have complimentary wine or beer from Monday to Friday though.
Everyone else slept in quite late this morning, which didn’t leave much time to do anything. We decided to go out to Henderson for lunch, then proceed on to the zoo for a few hours. As we drove out, though, the weather got worse, so we changed plans and went to the museum instead.
I’m glad we did go there, because it’s almost all changed since the last time I was there. In particular, the second floor is devoted to the wars New Zealand has been involved in, and is very well done and is very moving. I think part that made the biggest impression, though, was an older blank wall in the hall containing lists of New Zealanders killed in the wars, with the inscription ‘Let these panels remain blank.’
...
We got to the airport about five minutes before final check-in, where I got a window seat again. This isn’t surprising, actually, because the plane was less than a third full.
I should see Dianne and Philip again at Christmas, unless I get sent up to Auckland on business and can catch up with them then. I’m nearly back in Christchurch now, so this will be the last ‘live’ diary entry.
OK, so I missed yesterday. Let’s just say I was recovering from my trip to Auckland.
Actually, what I was doing is playing with the various ICQ clients for Linux, especially GtkICQ, which is quite a nice client. I also found some time to work on adding automake support to tn5250, which was actually not that difficult in the end, and makes it a lot nicer.
I also spent some of my day yesterday having dinner with my parents, and relaxing in their spa pool for a couple of hours. The only drawback to this is that Dad cooked the same meal that I was going to cook tonight. However, he probably did it better; and I bought myself a big T-bone steak for tea tonight.
I didn’t get much done today either, except for the grocery shopping. I sat out on my balcony watching people walking past, and a few people moving in across the road. And this afternoon, I got the carpet cleaned by Chem-Dry, which has gotten rid of all the big stains and almost all the smaller stains and other marks, apart from cigarette burns. The carpet even feels better to walk on.
I’m off to work tomorrow, so this is it for my holiday diary. I just might start keeping a diary full-time on my web pages, so keep an eye out for it, although the next thing I do will be to convert everything into XML and automate the page generation, probably creating a few different themes. Until then, bye!
Since writing these entries, I’ve made a few changes. None of the text of the entries has been changed, but the XML source has been reworked slightly, the conversion to HTML is now mostly done by XSL, as the intro now says, and GtkICQ has morphed into GnomeICU, so the URL above was updated.