Well, I’m just getting ready to head out for new year celebrations 
Its a good time in life, both short and long term.
Maybe one of my new years resolutions will be to blog more!
Have a safe and happy new years, 2006 was awesome, and all the best for 2007!
Now to get very very drunk, get to it!
cheers,
Adam
Cool weekend. Friday night I had a bbq at mine, was heaps of fun. Considering the fact that I’m pretty useless with cooking food, it was more of a “here, I’ll provide the venue, someone else can cook” type deal 
See pics on my mobileblog, over to the side of this page..
Saturday night saw borat. Awesome movie! I pretty much spent the first hour perpetually laughing. The second half of the movie was a bit slow (and maybe unnecessarily ‘deep’ with the whole character hits rock bottom thing – I mean, its a comedy, not a deep story on borat), but it was great! It’s hard to tell what scenes were staged and what weren’t – my only wish is that the dinner party scene was real, because if so, that’s simply gold!
Today went to the castle hill showgrounds for the medievil fair and guinea pig show. Something different, quite cool!
Now I have a ton of work to get through.. due to good news! Our games company just secured a couple of really cool deals, and that’ll keep me busy for at least a month – which means as of tomorrow, I’ll be transitioning from full time freelancing to working for our company, full time. Its been a long battle, but finally we’re putting the stake in the ground 
(expect bitter posts about being over worked in.. a week or two..)
Spent a few days earlier this week down at Lake Conjola, staying at Bens holiday house. A bunch of us went down, but Jase and I had to head back early for werk. Twas awesome! Really nice lake to kayak through, we honestly felt like explorers (that, or the fact that we had no idea where we were going.. but hey). Wouldn’t mind going down there again in summer, maybe for an extra day or two.
Beautiful drive down there too. A few nice mountain areas. I spent a large chunk of my learner driver time racking up the hours doing mountain driving, so I have a soft spot for it.
Oh, and it astounds me how much food 5 people can get through in a day. Most of what we bought for a week.. wasn’t there in the morning!
I’ve been sooo lazy with this blog. Truth be told, things have been busy lately, so I shall try and recap!
-Jason arrived back in sydney after a stint in HK. Good to have him back in town Don’t worry, we’ve got him back to work haha!
-My games company launched a few games! One for a client, one as a self-promotional kind of thing. In a latter post I’ll talk about what we do.. I’ve kind of concealed it up to now
-Gemma had a rockin bday! Minus 5 is an awesome bar. When we went in the temperature was about -15, did the whole ski jacket thing, it was great. After 30mins you’ve kind of had enough heh. Discovered a cool beer garden at some pub in the rocks. Can’t remember the name (the orient.. maybe.. no..) but yeah its begging to be rediscovered another time
-We are all envious of morgans new car!
-Somewhere in this rough order of things, was the Richmond airshow! Very very cool. Hooj dave and myself trekked up to the air base up there (battled against hick driving as well – quite a traumatic experience – nearly died 3 times on the road). Great day. Felt like a smaller version of avalon, but considering it was a quick drive up there, not bad! The Hornet demos they did were great – generally speaking there is a rule that planes cant fly over the crowd, who are assembled about 100ma way from the runway. One of the four hornets in their little performance broke off and flew low and fast over the crowd – we so weren’t expecting it and it was AWESOME! Ear burstingly loud, and the whole crowd was surprised. Show highlight for me, such a sweet sound.
-Been doing some work for digital eskimo lately. Check their site, www.digitaleskimo.net. Their home page is now all.. tilty and cool
-Cofa annual 06 expo is on soon – I did the CD again. Its looking great this year, I prefer the clean minimal design. On the tech side, we added some great navigation features, and generally its a nice advance forward. The code is so clean and beautiful, not the end user can see it, but.. embracing OOP, actionscript2 and classes for teh win
-Halloween was awesome, met some really cool people! Fun night
-Finished up my teaching at cofa. To be blunt, its been great. I really enjoyed the teaching experience. The sense of giving something back and seeing people take on what you tell them was very rewarding. Assessment presentations were the best, when you saw all the threads coming together to form a whole. As a student I always enjoyed presentations, and looking back I think they were important to develop speaking abilities, so I was keen on getting my students to do the same. Anyhow, all the marks are in, all the works in, semester is over. I’ve registered interest in doing another course next year at cofa, so we’ll see!
-Debs had a great bday night on friday. The summit was great, we racked up quite a tab. Fun people, great talks, great night!
Busy last month or so. Looking forward to summer. For most of the upcoming weekend I’ll be out of town, so that should be fun. The cofa annual expo is soon, which always promises a good night. And quickly enough, that’ll wrap up another month! Time flies by..
Gah, the last 4 days have been a washout while I’ve been sick with food poisoning. Never had it before, didn’t know what to expect – not good! Nearly over it now thankfully.
Caused some chaos with weekend work that I had planned – basically I fell through saturday, worked to catch up sunday but didn’t get it all done.. monday was a wreck.. and so the rollercoaster goes.
Anyhow prior to the somewhat painful last 4 days – friday night was a lot of fun! 5 below is an awesome bar to experience. I’d definitely consider going again. The summit was great, as usual. I dont know if its the altitude, subtle movement or the atmosphere, but every time I sit by the window at the summit I feel relaxed. On graduation night, it was a ‘conquer the world’ feeling. On friday it was a ‘look where we are’ type feeling. Can’t really describe it, but I always love that place.
Rest of this week look to be a little more relaxed than usual – cleared my schedule due to being sick, but its slowly repopulating with work. Hoping for an easy going weekend!
So the other day, I was crunching the numbers. Numbers and I kind of get along – especially when it’s about money. Only tend to do it when I’m bored, but hey, I like to know where I stand. So I was trying to work out exactly where I stand on the next 4 months – now until part way through summer. I’m planning on taking January off, as well as going away for part of that time, and with Christmas and all that being an expensive time of year, I know I need to plan now so that I can make that all happen nicely.
But to rewind a little..
Those of you who know me, will probably know I’ve had one big, non-work related dream all year. All year, I’ve dreamed of changing cars, from the echo I have now (needed the practicality when I bought it, no longer necessary), to a convertible for the upcoming summer. Specifically, I was after an MX5. A joy to be in, beautifully styled, with a top down wind in your hair rush. Not too insanely costly either for a slightly used model. The dream image was simple:
1. Summer (undeniably better than winter, summer rocks)
2. Convertible (I love driving, and with the top down it’d’ be awesome)
3. 1+2 = yay
Point 2 in particular cannot be overstated enough. To me driving is the absolute parallel of freedom. Before I could drive, I lived in a world without physical freedom. It was hard to get anywhere, it made me very dependant on others, and overall not a great feeling, but a lifestyle I was used to at the time. The arrival of the car heralded a new era; where I could literally do what I wanted where I wanted – to go anywhere. Without driving I have no freedom, and I don’t see that mindset changing in the next few years. So to me, driving is extremely important. Thus I can personally justify going a bit further than need be with that side on the finances – my dream of having a convertible in summer wasn’t that far fetched..
The plan to get the car was likewise simple. This year I’ve worked my arse off on various freelance projects, and have done relatively well with them. Saving up for the car thus seemed like a perfectly achievable goal for december. Give some time to find one I want, sell my current car, and whatever change over delay – I was expecting to have it by January. So far so good, only a couple of months left of saving. Until part one of the problem emerged, the other day.. when crunching the numbers.
The next two months of this year wont be too costly. December will. January very much so. Plus, I wont be working in January, and I dont want to come back to work off debt if I can avoid it. That puts a decent bar up for the next three months of work. However, not a bar that plays well with what I have left to save on the car. Put simply, it’ll be very difficult to do both. It has to be one or the other..
Part two of my dilemma, is my second dream. The company I have been starting along with two other guys finally got its first client the other week. A small project, but a good start. As I truly believe this is my first preference for what I want to be spending my time on next year (full time job be damned!) I made it a priority that the rest of my time this year will have this as a number one focus. In fact, I only have one more freelance project in the pipeline (a *very* empty pipeline..) as a result, which is being done more out of love than pure dosh (cofa related, but not teaching related). So what does this mean? I dont have a whole lot of guaranteed income left this year. Car or all other expenses for 4 months, definitely one or the other now. The latter being much harder to.. live without.
Hence especially not enough freelance work to make the car dream come true.. while summer takes place. While I could possibly get it all done freelancing, it means more to me to really put a big shove into company work as we’re beginning to fire on all cylinders now, rather than follow the car dream. Unless of course the company churns out some dosh my way before the end of the year – then there would be a slim chance in it happening, but for business reasons its desirable not to pay me in full straight up, rather opting to invest that income back into the company to boost early growth.
I feel I’m doing the right thing, as I’m going after the long term better option than the short term. But its hard to give up something you thought was going to happen all year. Especially when you got so close. MX5, see you later in 07.. after summer.. after the summer dream.
One dream has been sacrificed for another…
Ever had a moment, where a conversation, a fleeting thought, a movie… some event, made you rethink life? Or at least, made you feel that at face value.
This evening I watched Blow; a movie detailing the cyclic rise and fall.. well ultimately fall, of a cocaine dealer. The last cocaine related movie I saw was Miami Vice – which quite frankly left me dreaming of the ‘miami lifestyle’. To say Blow was a reality check from this perspective, would be an understatement. The overwhelming feeling you are left with at the end of the movie, is that life is about what is important to you. Don’t let distorted ambition or greed take hold of that.
For me, that means thinking about the importance of family and health. Two things I feel some of us, at least myself, take for granted. One of those moments…
“Even a 1000 mile journey begins with a single step”
What a powerful line. Things have been good lately! Tonight I was at my public speaking course, which is going really well. Gave a semi-impromptu talk tonight, which I’m becoming more solid on. Its great to get feedback and see what I can work on.. then put that into place with my teachings. Lots of interesting people at the course; an extremely varied bunch of backgrounds. Nice to see.
Been a little while since I’ve blogged here (vs my mobile blog, which is running hot with photo spam haha!). Been keeping busy, what with the two courses I’m doing plus work with Jason for the company. We set up shop at his place, and converted one of his rooms into the office. Lots of fun really, quite productive, and last week alone tore through a lot of work. He jets on Saturday, so its push push until then.
With the different fronts I’m pushing on, in many ways it feels like a time of new beginnings. Seeing what moves successfully, trying different things. Living in an interesting time.
Guitar hero rocks! I’ve got it for the week from Julian to decide if I want to buy it… this week will be a great test too cos I’m really busy. If I can make time to give it another quick run, that’s a positive sign indeed..
Saturday night was a blast. Great to see the old cofa crew all together. Sucks jason wasn’t feeling well, but otherwise we all had a great night, him included. Some of us up till 7am – though johnny was first to pike, mr old man at age 21. You can tell someones old when they start talking about meeting people ‘at 10′ being in the morning and not at night. Still good
I really wanna get this RC chopper flying soon. This weekend I hope. Expect lots of pics and maybe a video or two if I can actually get it to fly!!
More later. Enjoy!