I was taken on a walk around one of our vendors’ ‘R&D’ areas today; so they could show off all the flashy things they are looking at both today and for tomorrow; whilst some of it in my personal opinion is a little bit of a pipedream at this moment in time, certainly not against the realms of reality; all technically feasible stuff only things that hold this ’stuff’ back is the world of open source and ubiquity I guess? Anyhoo….they took us to that place where all the engineers work real hard, I know for a fact it was kocher; because of the low ceilings and lack of any windows or natural daylight! Interesting stuff anyways - whilst I wasn’t given a specific none disclosure form; I am savvy enough to realise that I can’t really talk in depth about the ’stuff’ I have been privy to today. All boring stuff anyway - I don’t wanna send you all to sleep …??? (nudge -ed) dang too late!

In other news? I’m about to embark on installing Open BSD on one of my home machines. Yes UNIX not Linux….ok!! It’s all good

Well…what can I say; seems like the brass band have dominated my life this year - and the culmination of all the hard work hopefully will pay dividends in a couple of weeks, when we head up to some place near Palmerston for the regional contest. Our 4th competition in 12 months of undefeated winning!!! People have high expectation since we are the current B-Grade Australasian Champions.

so….

no pressure?!

In other news - yup!! I did it - I went low maintenance on the hair style again….it’s all gone =p Jason sooooooo owes me a week of Chinese at work

I have been playing with my MPLS lab again, and looking at a number of layer 2/3 approaches for what I will call the ‘new world’ (don’t ask - then I don’t have to lie). Topics for my betime reading at the moment, are UDLD and Etherchannel running LACP in Hot-Standby high-avilability using stacked switches!

Today has been, well….very wet! It has rained nearly non-stop since yesterday evening, and I am really hoping my digs are still above ground by the time I get home, since I am in a flood plane - interesting location I live in actually, apart from the obvious environmental risk of earthquake (living on top of 5 major faults), I also have to live in fear of flood, tsunami and since the land I am on is sedimentary in an earthquake I could potentially sink like in water - oh AND by the way, a lab near where I live houses a nuclear reactor underground….part of a scientific particle accelerator or some such….? Other than all that I’m safe as houses!

Speaking of houses, mine in the UK ‘STILL’ hasn’t budged…..really fed up with it now. I wish I could just give the keys to the mortgage company and be done with it, coz I ain’t gonna make any money from a sale…..it’s getting to the point where I only really have one option; which cannot be uttered out loud since it’s so far beyond last resort for me.

Oh and I watched ‘The Dark Knight’ film a couple of days ago, and it ROK’D! Although sadly Heath Ledgers final performance it’s certainly one of his finest; a great portrail of the Joker indeed! One for my DVD collection when the time comes for sure!

In other news….? Meh!

A fellow colleague in MSD has just released an EP!! Think KT Tunstall, Sarah McLachlan et al…

So anyway, her tunes will be available through iTunes soon! Meanwhile I am soooo getting a copy (original and maybe signed if I can twist her arm) before she gets UBER famous?! :loopy: anyhooo to slightly paraphrase her myspace description she grew up surrounded by folk music, which is so very often the best pedigree for great and lyrical musicians.

You are better off heading over to her site right now! Go on… I’ll still be here when you come back don’t worry?!

….ah, you’re back took you time didn’t you? I’ve had tea, and watched two episodes of Lost!! So, hopefully you agree with me, that this little gem is a keeper, and a very talented young lady indeed, I’ll be enquiring at work tomorrow whether she does any live gigs, so that I can go and offer my support.

In other news..? LESS THAN 10 DAYS TILL BRISBANE??!!!?!!

Oh!! And CONGRATS to Alan Crowhurst (one of my longest standing friends since Primary School?!!) who just got married to Abby Gidman (now Crowhurst ) I wish you both all the happiness in the world, and do try and come to visit NZ sometime, so that I can properly congratulate you two!