Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Bizzare thing

Had a very strange thing happen today.
I had to drive from Emerald to Middlemount - some 150kms - after flying to Emerald.
About 10kms out of Emerald a white commodore came flying up behind me and then sat behind me for about 100kms even though he had plenty of opportunities to pass. I then turned off into a little town to pick up my lunch and he drove on past.
After driving out of the little shopping centre carpark - I saw him sitting in the side street with his phone to his head. I drove out to the highway and took off again. Within 2 minutes he was behind me again. I then passed a road train (very long truck) just before a hill with a blind crest - so he couldn't get past and then wasn't able to pass for about 2-3 kms by which time I was about 2 kms in front of him. After that I never saw him again.
Strange...


Posted by: Jethro | 9:48 PM |

Monday, May 30, 2005

Lots of phone camera photos

I have taken a heap of photos with the new phone.
They aren't real flash but I have uploaded them to the millerfamily website.


Posted by: Jethro | 11:52 PM |

Sunday, May 29, 2005

My new phone is a Sony Ericsson S700i

And its a good one too. Full synchronisation with Outlook for all my contacts, calendar and tasks without using Pocket PC (slow) software.
It has a 1.3 megapixel camera with video onboard and is really easy to use.
Sony Ericsson S700i


Posted by: Jethro | 4:27 PM |

Playing in the park

We have discovered a really good park about 15 minutes walk from our house. It has a full size flying fox, adventure playground, grassy area and kids play area. There are sheltered seats and bbq facilities and the kids love the place.
I took them all down today while Jude was out with her sister at the movies. Counting the dog that was 5 girls to keep an eye on. We had fun!


Posted by: Jethro | 4:21 PM |

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Good News Bad News

Good News - Liverpool beat AC Milan in the UEFA Cup
Bad News - I had to stay up til 2am to watch it
Good News - I went straight to sleep afterward
Bad News - I had to get up 4 hours later to go to work
Good News - I had work to go to
Bad News - the day dragged on
Good News - I got to head to the airport at 3pm
Bad News - I spent most of the trip arguing with hopeless Harris Technology about an order they were not going to fill
Good News - I rang the airport and got on the early flight
Bad News - I had to go into town and get some shorts to go to soccer with
Good News - I found just what I wanted at the first shop
Bad News - my phone is playing up
Good News - we won soccer 5-2 - I scored 2 goals
Bad News - I left my wallet in Ben's car
Good News - I still had my phone
Bad News - I didn't have Ben's mobile number, he wasn't home yet, and no one else in my team who had his number had their mobile turned on
Good News - some kind girls gave me some money for the train
Bad News - my phone refuses to work at all so I cannot ring Judith
Good News - the kind girls lend me their phone
Bad News - I left my phone on the benh at the station
Good News - no one else can use the stupid thing anyway as it wont work!
Bad News - the train ride is long and boring
Good News - Jude and the kids picked me up at 11:30pm
Bad News - we fought like cats and dogs all the way home over inconsequential things
Good News - we made up

Sweet!


Posted by: Jethro | 1:21 AM |

Friday, May 27, 2005

Happy Birthday Judith

Go and wish my gorgeous wife happy birthday!
See you tonight love.


Posted by: Jethro | 1:19 AM |

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Got beaten in squash tonight

There are two guys in my line (first line in this comp) that I should be able to beat. I got flogged by one tonight. I have beaten him before. I hope I beat the other guy next week. I beat him the first time I played him but it wasn't in a comp then.


Posted by: Jethro | 11:10 PM |

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Busy and having fun

Huge weekend!
Came home friday night - got the early plane which meant I had dinner with the family - and then went to play indoor soccer.
We won 3-2 after a very tense second half. We had gone ahead 3-0 and continued to attack, allowing them to score two easy goals. For the remaining 9:47 minutes we defended to maintain the lead.
Saturday we went for a test drive in a Ford Territory. Very nice car and would suit our family well. Stay tuned.
Followed that up by picking up the new PC for Miranda from Computer Alliance. P4 3.4 Ghz, 1 Gb RAM, 160G S-ATA HDD, 6600GT nVidia Video card and a real sweet black and aluminium case with blue LEDs.
Following that we went to my outdoor soccer game where we won 2-1. I played sweeper and did reasonably well, clearing most of the balls I needed to. The goal they scored was probably my fault, though it was during a messy crimmage in the goal mouth after a corner.
Saturday night I went to a 21st party for the soccer club culminating in the FA Cup. What a match! Although Manchester United won on the field, they couldn't convert a goal, and after extra time the score remianed 0-0. For the first time ever an FA Cup was decided by penalty shootout, with Scholes missing a goal (the keeper saved it) giving Arsenal the win.
Today we couldn't go to church as I had to go and get a quote from my fish tank builder for rebuilding the fish tank (insurance claim). After that I finished building the new PC (am using it now) and then Jono came over. We rode the mountain bikes to the park where Jude and the kids were, they walked and biked the easy way. After that we went for a quick blat on the Warrior to go and set up some email accounts on a client's PC.
Jono stayed for Dinner (lamb roast) and then we watched the Eurovision Song Contest (Greece won) and next we will watch the Monaco F1 Grand Prix.


Posted by: Jethro | 10:40 PM |

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Squash and Stargate

I played 4 games of squash tonight and managed to win 1.
I also ate yummy yummy bolognaise mince sandwiches and have got more to take to work for lunch tomorrow.
Watched Stargate Atlantis - its getting interesting now that the Jenni(sp) have taken Atlantis and are holding hostages. Major Shephard will have his work cut out recovering the hostages and disabling the strike force. I hate it when it gets to a good bit and To Be Continued flashes up on the screen.


Posted by: Jethro | 11:22 PM |

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Bowl of Chilli?

A young cowboy walks into a seedy cafe in a small town in West Texas.

As he sits down at the counter he notices an older cowboy with his arms folded, staring blankly at a bowl of chilli. After about 15 minutes of just sitting there watching this guy stare at the bowl of chilli, he bravely asks, "If you ain't gonna eat that, mind if do"?

The older cowboy slowly turns his head toward the young wrangler and drawls "Nah, go ahead son".

Eagerly, the hungry young cowboy reaches over and slides the bowl over to his place and starts chowing down! He's almost at the bottom when he suddenly gags and throws up, filling the chilli bowl

He pushes the bowl away disgusted and manages to get out between dry retches "There's a rotten dead rat in the chilli".
The old cowboy quietly says, "Yep, that's as far as I got too"


Posted by: Jethro | 8:46 PM |

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Travelling again

The weekend was too short - as they always are...
I am back at the coal mine again. At least I managed to score the best room in the guest house with the only ensuite. I staked my claim last week before I left. Well done too because the house was full when I got here tonight and I would have been relegated to the crappiest room. The other stayers are only here for a couple of days where as I am here for 6 weeks or more.
I couldn't play squash tonight because my racquet is being restrung, so I updated www.jonomiller.com for my brother and then bought a new PC from Computer Alliance. Then I added some information about the history of CPU's to my tech blog, and now I am ready to hit the sack.

PS. Wifey posted another picture of the garden that Cathy covets.


Posted by: Jethro | 10:26 PM |

Monday, May 16, 2005

The garden


Posted by: Jethro | 1:37 AM |

Saturday, May 14, 2005

I built a garden today

I spent most of the day building a raised garden bed and a dual bin compost bin. We used timber pegs and fence palings for the border, laid down black plastic after spraying the grass with weed killer, then filled it with 1.5 cubic metres of topsoil.
The first plantings will be strawberry plants in the next week or so.
The bed is 16 metres long by 1.5 metres wide at one end and 800mm wide at the other end. The reason for the odd shape is a retaining wall and a concrete path were the two sides and they were not completely parallel.
Photos to be posted soon.


Posted by: Jethro | 11:11 PM |

Lions beat Crows by 9 points

I just watched my favorite team the Brisbane Lions beat my second favorite team the Adelaide Crows by 9 points in a nail biter. The Lions lead all the way but after getting off to a quick start the Crows slowly gained on them getting as close as two points away inside the last 5 minutes. A goal with 90 seconds to go for Brisbane saw the game to completion with the Lions victorious.
Hopefully this is the start of their return to greatness, as with only winning 3 games so far this season the Lions are definitely not playing to their previous form or expected ability.


Posted by: Jethro | 10:14 PM |

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Busy days

Had a couple of real busy days. It rained for the first time in months up here - they are rejoicing - they got about 2-3 inches of rain.
I have played a bunch of squash. Its excellent cross training for soccer. Im feeling pretty fit and strong right now. I have lost weight also with all my soccer training. Am now a good solid 100kgs. It feels great when other players try and run into me and they bounce off! Its great for challenging for corners. I usually challenge the keeper as I have a pretty good vertical jump.

We have been working on the new software for the business planning for the client I am at. In between times I have been doing lots of other jobs for othe people in the organisation. I daresay I will have this client for years!

Now I am going to relax by watching Stargate Atlantis. Awesome series!


Posted by: Jethro | 10:20 PM |

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

My day

Up at 4am, travel by car 50km, travel by bus 0.5km, travel by plane 1000km, travel by car 150km, work, lunch, work, travel by car 44 km, unpack, travel by car 5km, eat at mess, travel by car 5km, play squash, work and sleep.
This was my day.
I am back at the coal mines, travelling 4 days a week to work. At least I'm not digging the stuff. Just doing business planning.
I have had a busy week since getting back from holiday. Clients to keep happy, website development to do for a new client, (Doug is doing most of that for me - thanks Doug), unpacking, running the LAN on the weekend etc.
I will use this week also to catch up on my reading of a bunch of my firends websites, most of whom are linked in the sidebar. Check them out. Doug is like me in so many ways that when we first met we thought we were each others doppelganger, Cathy his wife, The Blue Sloth and I share a love of writing science fiction and playing soccer, Angie and Krystal both have lots of kids like us and swap presents and postcards, John runs marathons like a crazy man (maybe he should see a shrink!) and Doug is in Vietnam. There are many others, all listed on the sidebar.
Thanks for being friends guys and gals.


Posted by: Jethro | 8:31 PM |

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Stacks of Photos from the Family Reunion

I have added over 200 photos of our family, reunion activities and the beautiful countryside of New Zealand from our holiday in April.
They are on the millerfamily website. Use the image gallery links on the right side to see the thumbnails and then click on pics to see the full size.
Please ask me if you want to use any of the photos.
I will continue to post some of the really great photos to our photo archive site.


Posted by: Jethro | 8:22 AM |

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Working flat out like a lizard drinking

I am back into work and up to my eyeballs. Sometimes I get a feeling of panic before calm myself and prioritise the many calls on my time.
We are in the middle of moving all the websites over to our server again. Moving house sucks big time (and big dollars). Our ex landlords are being right $%^&#$% about the bond and refusing to release it to us. The real estate is frustrated with them and has got all their unreasonable complaints removed bar 2 now. Waiting to see the outome shortly. In the meantime thats $1140 I am waiting for. Some of the stupid complaints included a broken slat in a venetian blind (solution: we removed it and moved all the rest up one slot), a brown water stain in the bottom of a toilet bowl, the stove top (which was brand new when we moved in has been used and therefore isn't brand new anymore (19 months of use). They want it to look like new! It goes on and on. Anyway.

The fish tank broke while we were away. The BIG one. 1000 litres of water onto the grarage floor. Fortunately most of it went out the door and down the drive. However we are into a several thousand dollar insurance claim. At least the fish were all OK. Our house sitter discovered it while there was still a few inches in the bottom and the $500 of uninsurable fish were all transferred to a smaller tank successfully. There was mould over so much stuff in the garage when we returned.

The next 3 months I will be travelling to the mines 4 days a week. Good money, and lots of frequent flyer points. Plenty of time for working outside of client's hours from the motel or accommodation rooms. However it sucks being away from the family. I am seeing huge changes in relationships with all my daughters after spending the last two months either mostly at home or away on holiday. I really am grateful I have the opportunity to work from home. I guess I have to thank a number of mentors for that as with out their guidance I would still be working a job and spending 10-12 hours a day away from the family, making a pittance compared to the money we make now and probably still an alcoholic. Though of course I still am, its just I don't drink now. I have been dry for 5 3/4 years. I would probably never discovered blogging as I first discovered it at a business conference where I heard that the speaker had a blog. Within 3 weeks I had my first and now I have over 20 I am involved with!

Thats a huge catchup on stuff, and once I get back into routine of travelling and work I will post more frequently again.
Photos from the holiday will be done in the next two days on the millerfamily website. I promise. (Another deadline I have created for myself causing more stress!)


Posted by: Jethro | 8:30 AM |

Monday, May 02, 2005

New Zealand described in a nutshell.

Watch this fascinating 2 minute presentation that shows exactly what life in New Zealand is like.
You need to have flash installed.


Posted by: Jethro | 8:55 AM |

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Home!

Home finally, and the ADSL is running so we have quick internet access again.

Pages of pictures will be posted as soon as I get round to uploading them.

If you are busting for more news then read what my wife wrote.


Posted by: Jethro | 2:56 PM |