Real Work
Spending this week and next week working for a client on a systems intergration project. It's real work, that involves waking up early, commute times, and sitting at a desk writing code. None of this sleeping in, long breakfasts, hanging out on #perl6, maybe writing a talk, maybe working on course notes, maybe chasing invoices or maybe going to the beach. It's not teaching either, with all the joys of continuous social interaction, subtle wit, and tricky questions. It's sitting down and writing code that is important, but dull.

Real work sucks.

The client doesn't suck. In fact, the client is quite nice, as evidenced by the number of their employees who read my journal. They pay their bills, are technically clueful, and form the basis of my 'good client' model in my talk on Starting an Open Source Business. I'm actually hoping they'll give me more work.

The plus side is that I've got an excellent excuse to go cycling twice per day, the work lands in the middle of our traditional 'quiet time' for training, and it helps pay the bills.

Racism
My feelings of patriotism has reached an all-time low. Racism in Australia has been getting steadily worse. No longer am I just having to put up with racism from taxi drivers, but it seems to have now reached a point where racial violence in Sydney regularly makes the front-page of newspapers. It even makes the front page of wikipedia for crying out loud!

I am ashamed and appalled at recent events.