Hurrah!
Hurrah! Advogato is back up. Oh happy day!

While our favourite mouse has been away, I've been keeping journal at use.perl.org. Now that advogato is back, I'll probably continue to write here, or (heaven forbid) cross-post to both.

Silly Things
I've discovered a rather silly game that contains many of the qualities of expensive MMORPGs, but with the convenience of running in a web-browser, and competely free. The humour isn't half-bad, either.

I've finally got around to improving the navigation and many other nagging fixes on the public mirror of our Temple of Elemental Evil wiki. Yes, you may be a geek when your role-playing games have a wiki for note-taking, and your players may be geeks (or lawyers and software engineers) if they draw up a Dungeoneering Management Plan.

End of Financial Year
Got all of our paperwork out for employees and their tax affairs out today. Now I have only a quarter of personal and company paperwork to catch up on. Hurrah.

Talks
I've got a draft due on Monday for my materials for the SAGE-AU conference to be held this year. Of course, I'm much more interested in hacking Perl code (and Perl guts) than actually writing the material. However, I've found lots of interesting things that I didn't previously expect, and which the people at the conference probably won't expect either. I expect a fun time to be had by all.

Open Source Development Conference
The Open Source Development Conference is happening this year, on the 1st to the 3rd of December. I'm on the organising committee, and the Call For Papers is out. If you'd like to give a talk, we'd love to hear from you. Check the webpage for more details.

Training
Teaching in Melbourne this week, Sydney next week, and Sydney again the week after that. And then there's the final copy of my materails for SAGE-AU, and the end of financial year. Looks like I'm keeping myself busy, as usual.

Training
Currently I'm working full-time on training related activities. I'm writing this from Canberra, where I'm providing training for a government department. Next week I'll be in Manukau, New Zealand, on another government assignment.

During the time when I'm not in front of a class presenting, I'm writing or reviewing coursework, as we have new courses scheduled for release with very inflexible deadlines. It's certainly left me with much less sleep than I would prefer.

However, my efforts are quite small compared to Jacinta's efforts, which have been nothing short of amazing. Jacinta has been working harder, longer, and more effectively than myself. I'm very blessed to have such a talented business partner and wife.

It appears that programming retro hardware is much more impressive than flashy websites and graphics, so we had a steady stream of people wanting to find out more.

28th March - Portsea Pier
Went for a couple of dives off Portsea Pier with Jacinta. This was our first time diving in Victoria, so we were wearing quite a bit of neoprene, and consequently quite a lot of lead.

The first dive involved a lost weight belt upon entry to the water, and a lot of fumbling around to get it back. I swallowed some seawater and when we surfaced I was feeling pretty crook. I now know that ginger tablets before diving are a really good idea.

The second dive went a lot smoother, although we had a bit of a scare when a boat decided to go over the top of us.

On the dives we saw weedy seadragons (very cool), globefish (very cute), a clam, and numerous fish that I didn't recognise. I also discovered that shiny fishing flies work just as well at attracting divers as fish, and there was a moment of concern when a fishing line got snagged (not the hook, thankfully).

I was attacked by a large jellyfish but managed to escape by swimming like crazy.

The staff at Dive Victoria, who helped us out with gear, change rooms, and so on were extremely helpful. Full marks for customer management and satisfaction. We had our gear trollied back and forth to the pier, and almost everything done for us. Very nice.

29th March - Visiting Friends
An old high-school friend is back in Australia having spent some time in France. We caught up for both lunch and dinner, and discovered that Tam was as cool as she's always been. It's a bit strange having someone re-appear after 10 years of hardly seeing each other, only to dissapear back again overseas, but I had a fantastic time nonetheless.

Accountancy
At last, my joy of numbers has returned, a little bit of good techno and I'm making sure everything balances for the quarter...

Actually, I'm peeved at the amount of paper sitting on my desk, and clogging up my wallet, so I'm clearing it all out.