Adam Searle » Blog

So there we were.. 5 of us in total at maisys. I had the car, and the mission was to drop everyone home and use lots of toll roads (free preferably). So..

Start at maisys (cremorne) -> northbridge -> *maisys gateway/military road onramp toll (free for now)* -> maisys (long ass return trip, just wanted to use the 40 meters of toll road)

-> *harbour tunnel* -> *ed* -> jasons

-> dover heights (jo anne)

-> *harbour bridge* -> *lane cove tunnel north* -> hoojs

-> debs

-> my home

All in all we got 2 uses of the new lane cove tunnel (free for a month). Quite a cool tunnel; lot of road for your money. Plus we got to use the ‘maisys gateway’ as stephen named it And the usual harbour tunnel/bridge/ed

Tune in next time for some cross city tunnel, m2 m4 m5 m7 action I bags not driving next time, as my bludgy road trip crew were asleep for all of it after the second stop

The weather in Sydney these past few weeks has been so whack. Rain, sun, hot, freezing, all in the turn of half a day. Whenever anyone bitches about the weather now, I just respond ‘climate change’. Doing my thing to raise awareness haha.

This past week has been pretty huge. I concluded my 2 months of physical rehab; I didn’t really want it to end! It’s been a great time there.. I’ve improved, met a lot of awesome people there, and you always feel great after it. Now it’s up to me to keep my program running at the gym (my second home these days) - definitely looking long term. If I keep this up for the rest of the year, I should see solid improvements. But yeah, I’m sad to leave the folks up at lady davidson. Whenever sunday hit, I would be so looking forward to monday morning - best way to start the week. Kat and Duncs particularly, you guys are awesome! Huge help to me, and I feel really lucky for having crossed paths with ya. Hope to see you again some day.

Finally confirmed my longer-term plans and told the boss - I’m going to be moving on from my current place of work in a few months, and will be going ‘back to the lab’ to bone up on ultra cool geeky things. I plan on sinking my teeth into php and mysql for what I see my line of work for the next year or two; web apps (how web 2.0!). Server side coding is crucial for rounding out what I do; going from ‘flash developer’ to being independently able to make the whole web app widget. Not sure if I’ll touch on AS3 yet as it wont be until later next year I’ll be able to use it for projects realistically; when flash 9 reaches a decent installed userbase. So, in a few months I’ll be off the work grid and doing my own thing. Can’t wait!

Still on the health craze, and enjoying it. Got a plan for where I want to be in 6 months, so there is something to aim for. Next year increasingly looks like I might be working overseas (Marky and Dagra will be over London way, would be much awesomeness to stay with them there!). Who knows, maybe I’ll get around to organising that 21+1 sometime….

I said maybe

Been a while since my last blog post!

The renovations are going well. Cement base has been laid, bricking starts shortly. Still, 4 months to go! Thanks to all those who have offered for me to crash at theirs, appreciated, gunna go a little insane in a couple of months..

Completed my month session of back rehab last week. Its been fantastic - new outlook on life - back into putting health as my top focus. Have been doing that twice a week, hitting the gym many nights a week, and my physio has a bunch of stuff for me to do at home as well. In short, as Jason put it, I spent more hours last week on health/gym than actually doing work.. lol.. kinda true. Anyhow, it was all very successful, so I’m going to do another month of it. Technically its more about overall fitness and mobility than ‘back’ rehab, but yeah, I’ll stay as long as they’ll have me haha

I’ve taken on another semester of teaching at cofa. We’re about to begin week 2, and I think I’ll enjoy it. Plus, I dont mind droning on for an hour or two about flash, especially if it helps. My teaching feedback from last semester was awesome, so its very encouraging to be back at it. Had a really good class last year, looking forward to repeating that!

These last couple of weeks have been pretty trying, managing everything at once, but we’ll get there. Gotta try and settle into a sustainable routine.

Storms coming. I love the rain! Catch ya all later

We’re about the renovate at home. In theory it starts tomorrow. Actually it was meant to be today, but the weather wasn’t great. So, basically, half the house is getting gutted and another 50% is getting added on the back, good cos its too small otherwise. Problem is this is going to mean 5 months of people waking me up with noisy equipment at some insane hour like.. 7am. By law, builders can’t start work before 7am, so that’s kind of cool - 7am still sucks however though

So, if you have a spare room around the sydney region, and can put up with me for a short while..
We had our last bbq out on the deck (first thing that will be ripped down with the renovations). Kind of sad actually, the whole pergola/deck has served us well over many years of hot aussie summer days, bbqs, christmas events, etc. Due to silly local council laws we need to maintain a percentage of grass on the property, which means we cant immediately build a new deck out on the back - it has to be something small to fit in with the local limitations. So, the end of having a large outdoor area..

Fare thee well old friend! And bugger you 7am

But whose counting
Bit more on track now. Last week was a disaster, got shit all done as far as work went. On every other front it was great however! Back rehab continues to go along well, keeping up the gym, feeling better already over these past two short weeks. March on!

Trying to remember what I did last week. Thursday night caught up with Shant, an old primary school friend. Its great to hang out with people from so far back - I wouldn’t recognise anyone from that era anymore, let alone actively do stuff with them. Thursday was also a legal meeting for the company, which was tops - good progress there. Friday we did drinks to celebrate adelaines first job (congrats!) - and what a rockin night! Cabana bar was awesome as usual. Quite a few of us there, so great times with everyone. Adz finally met us all after work (and unfortuantely after last drinks), so we went off to the cremorne hotel - never been previously but it was actually ok. Open really late, drinks weren’t too overpriced, but the main point was by this stage it didn’t matter, it was an awesome night. Finished up at maisys at like 3am, latest coffee run ever, probably the most unnecessary too!

Saturday was the case of two fionas. Had lunch with the wizardlover13 one at north sydney in the day. Whale of a time! haha. Went to the farewell of the tall one that night. Saw children of men (again.. hmm) on the outdoor screen - which itself was quite an experience. Bon voyage to fiona d, and all the best overseas! After that met up with the remenants of the nights cabana bar crew, mark gem and debs, and (being sober) drove them to maisys (yes, again..). Actually pretty cool, quite laid back, and mark storys first time there too - yet another convert, woohoo! Also, out of the blue, we ran into adelaine there, haha. Small world!

Sunday was a quiet day in at home. Neighbours down the road recently finished a rather extensive renovation, and I popped in there for after dinner drinks - right when monsoon type rain began. Awesome view and vibe from their new family room out the back, felt very holiday-ish. Funny, right now, anything holiday-ish that takes me away froom the day to day grind is great.. counting the days till the next break!

So yeah, last week was pretty awesome I guess, work aside. Back at it this week.. onwards ho. Feeling fitter is a big deal for me, and I am, so.. that’s a big motivator

So yeah, its been a challenging week. Definitely really hard trying to adapt to 9-5 type wowrking hours. I’ve been really tired all the time, which generally annoys me a lot. Give it a bit more time!

Started back rehab last week. Wont go into the details of it, but my back issues are substantial. One bone is connected to the next - so true. I go in with back issues and they start working on ankle issues heh. In any case, so far, its been great. While I’ve heard most of the physio points before (been around that block a billion times), its nice to have a regimented two day a week plan - forces me to get active. The main thing I hope to gain from this rehab is motivation, and so far its working. My back pain hasn’t really stopped - its very on off, mostly off - but when it goes on (like last night), its on all day - absolute motherfucker. Over time it will get better. But more important is building up core strength and stability. This is the key to improvements in many areas.

Some say its an odd view, but I have long since seen the body as a system of continual updates. Calling it a computer system needing upgrades is crude, but it makes a good analogy. Right now I’d say I’m going through firmware and software upgrades - hardware upgrades done for the time being. I know full well on the horizon there is more work to be done, surgery etc down the line, but I dont fear it at all.. I look forward to it. Really is a machine. Things need improving, things can be optimised, boom. I’d happily install a new ankle, but I haven’t found any good prices on ebay
Changed my gym membership over (*swish voice… to a platinum membership at fitness first) - god I hate fitness first as a company, but the fact there is one just around the corner from me is awesome. Costs more, is pretty swish, but damn, the convenience is great. Went for the first time on sunday, a good feeling! They are open late-ish, so that should help too

Saw a PS3 for the first time last week, wicket. Ubisoft had a sales promo thing for EB etc, so that their staff will push ubisoft games I guess. Anyhow, the event was very much on the cheap, but GRAW2 on 360 looked wicked (except the bloody grass, so last-last generation, urgh! yes stephen - I have at least one issue with everything ;). The PS3 itself looked hot hot hot. What it was running was not not not. Some shitty old ubisoft flight sim game - blazing angles. Snore. Ran bad (ran worse on the 360 tho) - ugly, old port. Show us something decent! Would have loved to have seen warhawk running on it instead! Speaking of 360s, I plan on getting one soon, but not too soon.. need a new monitor first, HD yada yada

Weekend was chilled. Drinks friday, chillin saturday, movie coffee etc sunday. Three types of events for three moods with overlapping mates, rockin. I need to drink more tho

The new season of 24 is awesome! As is top gear. I hate watching them an episode per week (now that I’ve finally caught up on all of them) - having the dvd set and playing as many as you want is definitely the way to go. Alas
Oh, and I’m temporarily clean shaven. Mistake. I miss my goatee already. This will be ammended for the weekend!

Got home at like 6am, saw the sun rise. Very cool! Reflective, deep mindset haha

Great night out - geeks elite mini edition at johnnys place. Basically just lots of xbox 360ing. I’m inching closer and closer to getting a 360 - what’s holding me off now is I want to wait till our renovations are done (we start renovating at home in a couple of weeks!), I have a HD screen (will happen once I get my new room with a lot more ROOM), and possibly the newer cooler 360 comes out (quieter, runs cooler, bigger hdd, hdmi - or so the rumours say). Xbox live ghost recon would be SO cool

At last, I’ve figured out what this year will be about!

I recently returned from a week up in noosa, queensland. Awesome holiday, fantastic to get out of sydney and away from everything. It honestly felt strange coming back - distant, like a reconnection to a far away past. I’ll take that as it was a good break away heh.

Best of all, the holiday gave me a lot of time to think. Looking back, really, it was a period of soul discovery. I had a lot of questions to answer, on where I wanted to go witih life, work, friends, morals, fun.. I feel like a lot of my life is under review. Now I feel like its only the beginning of a much longer journey, one I’d like to label: 2007 - the year of soul discovery. I’ve had a few ideas so far on what I need to change, and with my return from sydney, they shall begin straight away. The goal is to feel more positive soul-wise towards the end of the year, to achieve a happier life balance, and generally be happy.

First and foremost, it involves establishing boundaries. I’ve never been good with boundaries - especially with work; it becomes all consuming. I throw myself into it, achieve a great deal, and sacrifice a lot of ‘what I could be doing otherwise’ stuff. Time to myself is important; time to reflect, time to think, time to just chill and decompress. The main boundary I’ll be setting is with work - moving to a more 9-5 style regiment, where I’m not working all day and all night.

Second is putting more time into pursuing things that interest me. A large slice in this is relationships, others include things I find interesting that really could do with more time. I wouldn’t mind getting back into playing music, I wouldn’t mind kayaking more (got kind of addicted to that while at noosa)

Third is putting my own interests at a higher priority. Sometimes I stretch myself too far in doing favours or excess in work - so this is kind of like point 1. Putting my own wellbeing at a higher priority level. Taking care of my health more - putting more effort into taking strides forward with that. Protecting the feel good

Fourth is not holding back in letting my opinions and values be known. Too often when I know someone will have a significant difference in feeling on opinion or value to mine, I don’t push the point. Its important to stand up to what you believe in, so I aim to do more of that

Some things have lost priority or been postponed. Car aspirations are now on extended hold. Travel plans I think now will likewise be looked at next year. My general plan is to establish a comfortable course for this year, follow it and enjoy, and then next year go overseas for an extended period and reconsider where I am and what I want. That’ll be a huge step - potentially a change in job direction, and a whole lot of new experiences. If this is the year of soul discovery, next year will be the year of soul reaction.

As an aside, last years goal was extremely successful - the year of risk. Getting into the working world was a big step. Freelancing was great. Teaching was a huge growth demonstrative experience. Being involved in starting a company and really pushing myself forward with that was a huge opportunity and step. Staying true to my goal of meeting new people was also achieved. If this year can succeed as much as last year did, I’ll be overjoyed

And so the year of soul begins..