January, 2006

Monday 30th January 2006, 7:03pm BCT

Melanies Aunty Doris and Uncle Tim came and picked me up on the weekend and we went to the Winchester Mystery House

It was awesome!

In a nut shell its the mansion of the late Sarah L. Winchester, heiress of the Winchester Rifle company that she started building back in 1884. She was an eccentric lady who hired builders to live on site and build 24/7 until she died. Its a pretty amazing story, she received $1000 a day from the Winchester Rifle company back in the day when $1.50 was the standard days pay rate. She paid her employees and servants $3 which was very good.

The house has all sorts of cool and weird things. Stairs that lead to the roof and go nowhere, doors that open onto walls, doors that open to sheer steep drops, windows that look onto walls, a switchback staircase that has seven flights of stairs but only rise about nine feet and include 44 steps only 2″ high, $3000 front doors that were never used, a cabinet that is only 1/2″ deep, etc, etc, etc.

Its a very cool place, and a lot of fun to walk around. The guild took us though a lot of the story and was pretty good, even though she talked really fast

Mrs Winchester only stood some 4ft tall, and a lot of the doors were made for her size. Melanies aunty towers over this one

Most of the stuff in the house was imported from overseas. The wallpaper in some rooms was actually pretty rough but didnt look too bad.

One of the most expensive windows in the house, cost around $1500 i think.

She had an intercom system throughout the house, if at anytime she needed something she just had to press the button in the room and it would ring in the servants quarters. With the 160 odd rooms, the servants would have had a hard time finding her if they didnt have this little box that automatically popped up the room number that the button was pressed in.
You can see the box on the wall with a white number.

One of the most expensive rooms was the ballroom, it was all that big, but it has some awesome wood carved furniture and walls/floors.

The tour took us around 65mins, it went really fast and i can help but feel we didnt even see half of the place. Theres other tours that take you to the basement and stuff, theres even flashlight tours at night!

After finishing up there, we walked around the pricey shopping district and checked out the bookshop. Then went back to Doris and Tims house and had tea. We had chicken and it was great

It was a good day

Its Australia day in Australia today. I figure there will be a big beach bash on the beach at Yepoon.

I also found this site:
http://www.australiaday.gov.au/
which is strange considering ive lived in Australia for so many years and never thought of looking it up on the web, then the year im in America i look it up.. heh

So yeah, Ive blatently stolen the following quote from that webpage to describe what Australia day is:

“Australia Day, January 26, is the biggest day of celebration in the country and is observed as a public holiday in all states and territories.

It’s the day for us to re-commit to making Australia an even better place for the future.”

Sounds about right to me, no real reason, apart from celebrating what it is that makes Australia.. Australia.

So happy Australia day to all those on the beaches, around the bbqs, on the verandas and houses throughout Australia.

I actually wore my $2 “Koala Australia” shirt that i got from Melbourne markets today without realising. haha

I guess thats a good thing, Ill fire up the aussie music as well today and tomorrow, that should be enough of a celebration for me.

Has a neat ring to it doesnt it?

So yeah, last night Australia time, my sister gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. Apparently it was a long labour but both are fine.

As yet i know nothing more than ‘its a boy’, no doubt more details will follow, hopefully with pictures as soon as mum and jodie can work out how to get them on the computer.

Guess its time to head to the Apple store and start buying blue stuff

Uncle Brett, yup, i think i can get used to that.

UPDATE:
Harrison Peter Kearsey
Born 1:15am, 24th January 2006
8 pound 5 ounches
51 cm

Apparently he has a bit of a cone head, but that will sort itself out after a while. Happy healthy baby.

The ‘default template’ look of this place is getting on jmy nerves. I need to spend some time looking for a new template.

Im not really that keen to sit and design my own custom template or design, just finding a prebuilt one would be fine.

hrmmm

Yep, im still alive, im still in the US, everything is still good.

I havnt posted much cause really there hasnt been much to post about. I get up every morning and get to Apple early and get to code all day. Its great fun.

Weekends i go for a ride, i tend to find something new each weekend which is cool. Lately ive spent a fair few hours on the weekend at the Barnes and Nobel bookshop. I love big bookshops! The ones that have charis around that you can actually sit in and read. Anothr good indicator is whether they have a coffee shop inside the bookshop.

Ive bought a few books, mainly for other people. I like the idea of books as gifts. Going to the store is good because i get to see the books and types, so far ive bought one or two from thea ctual store, the rest i just use amazon – its a lot cheaper. I havnt yet tried the online barnes and nobel store though, maybe i should.

So yeah, its like 50 days until i head back to Australia, time has flown.

Things are good.

Friday 13th Janurary 2006, 9:11am BCT

Ashley reminded me this morning that we are about halfway through our internships, which basically means we need to do the next questionairre for the Visa people. I couldnt help thinking though that time has flown. Seems like only last week that i arrived.

“Work” is awesome, i put it in quotes becuase as yet it doesnt feel like work to me. Its a lot of fun, yet i feel so productive everyday that i leave and head back to the unit. Im usually brain dead at night but thats ok.

The whole experience so far has been way better then i imagined. Ive told people i know that i thought it would be cool, but its cooler then the coolness i thought it would be.

The whole experience so far has been way better than i imagined. Ive told people i know that i thought it would be cool, but its cooler than the coolness i thought it would be. *

I like it here, except that im away from Melanie… only about 56 days** to go though till i see her again!

* Edited cause i spelt than / then wrong and got in trouble.

** Accurate day count provided by the countdown dashboard widget. Please note, the accurate day estimate may not be accurate.

Monday 9th January, 2006, 5:53pm BCT

Simon was nice enough to take us for a tour of Santa Cruz on sunday. He arrived around 10am in his flash red convertible and drive us the 40-50mins down there.

It was a great day for it, had the top down just cruisin around the coast. Saw a few beaches and walked along the boardwalk. There is a big entertainment complex thing on the boardwalk which is cool. We all went for a ride on the Big Dipper roller coaster. Its one of those old style wooden ones and it was great!

Ate some food around the place, and did some more sight seeing, sampled some hot chocolates from around the place and generally had a good time.

That night, we went to Simons house and he cooked up some pizza. A few of his friends came around and we all just sat and chatted and stuff.

Around 11/12 we headed back to Cupertino. Simon crashed at our place for the night. We were going to just stay at his place and come back early in the morning, but i didnt have my eye drops… bleh

It was a great day though. Cruisin down the Californian coast in a convertible with the sun shining down on you is a cool feeling

Friday 6th January 2006, 3:10pm BCT

I ordered some stuff from Amazon today. My first online order since ive been here in the US this time. I love how in America its so simple to order stuff online and get it home delivered. It takes like 2 days to ship from pretty much anywhere in the US.

Ive actually been making a list of stuff i want to get. Im not sure if ill get it all, but ill make the decision when i get around to ordering it.

Most stuff i buy in Australia takes a good 3-4 days to get to me in Rockhampton, and thats from Sydney or Brisbane which arnt that far away.

The whole online shopping system is so easy and cool. The only bad thing is i cant physically hold and look at the item im buying, which can be a disadvantage at times. Most items though are fine, and i guess if all else fails you can just go to a shop to see and play with the item then go home and browse the web for the cheapest price.

I guess Australia is pretty good, you can buy lots of stuff online. I guess my whinge isnt about the times, but the shipping / postage time it takes.

Friday 6th January 2006, 3:01pm BCT

For some strange reason, my ears have been burning hot since around 5pm (guess) yesterday afternoon. I dont feel hot, and its not that hot here, if anything its cold.. but my ears seem to disagree.

I actually had one of the guys that i work with say “wow your ears are really red!”. I dont understand it. I remember i used to get hot / burning ears when i was younger, but its been years since that happened and all of a sudden it seems to have started again. hrmmm

Maybe i should google to see what causes hot / burning ears. *shrugs*

Has anyone been talking about me?

Wednesday 4th January 2006, 2:00pm BCP

Today is a perfect day, its kinda hard to believe its meant to be winter over here. I wish i had my firewire cable so i could snap some pictures with my iSight out the window near my desk.

The sky is totally blue, not a single cloud. Sun is shining in that ‘i want to lay down and sleep’ kind of way. I cant really believe it considering only a few days ago it was storming badass.

Im guessing it wont last long, although my totally 100% accurate dashboard widget says otherwise… indicating that its going to be like this for at least the next 5 days.

So like its totally beach weather here dude, like, i should be out catching some knarly waves and like scoping out the babes. *gag* Im so american

oh well, that was good, back to coding

Yep, its running. Like other upgrades it was pretty painless. Cosmetically it doesnt look very different, although i can change the color of the header a bit easier now. Melanie has already suggested purple, and ive taken that onboard for consideration

So yeah, it seems cool. I also grabbed a new spam plugin. It has a variety of criteria that it scans and rankes each comment. Ive let it scan through my entire ’spam’ categorised comments and it seems pretty smart now. Already had 2 comments which it promptly nuked.

I guess i should mention, if you do post a comment that doesnt seem to appear, let me know… maybe it nuked ya and needs tweaking

Sunday, January 1sty, 2006, 9:53 am

So its now officially Jan 01 2006 here in America, another year gone.

I spent the new year at Mels Uncle and Aunties place with the rest of the family. There was the usual food eating, talking and game playing. We also skimmed over the 3rd lord of the rings movie, watching the good bits. Before long it was the countdown to new years and the traditional chin family balloon popping took place.

Melanie rang up just before new years and chatted to everyone, she was on the line when the balloons popped.

Im not usually one for new years resolutions. My goals and stuff change dynamically throughout the year. I guess i could make a list of stuff id like to do though.

hrmm, ok, off the top of my head.

* Get a real job
* Get a savings account that actually has savings in it
* Start my own bonsai from scratch
* Find more ways of showing Melanie how much i love her
* Start drawing again
* Work off some of the XXX burgers i ate over xmas
* Dance with Melanie more
* Laugh a lot

That will do i think.

I fly back to Cupertino this afternoon, have to pack my bag soon and make sure everything fits in

Leaving Mels family will be a bit of a downer, ive had a great time here, but then again ive got a project at Apple to do and high up mucky mucky people to impress

Happy New Year everyone!

Sunday, January 1sty, 2006, 9:39 am

WordPress 2.0 was released only recently. Ive read the changes and they sound big. Ive already downloaded it and will have to try updating soon. I was thinking the other day how many blogs running wordpress ive helped setup, at a rough count there is about 10.

This blog is kinda the test bed i guess. Ive got a back up of everything so ill probably install 2.0 on here and see how it goes before trying to move other blogs over.

I hope the new version has some better spam control thnough, i mean the version i run now is good, it stops comments from being published, but i still have to go in every few days and moderate 200+ comments, most of which are spam.

Oh well, i like playing with new stuff.