Well, been a busy Christmas and New Year. GNOME-wise, I’ve mostly been concerning myself with the Subversion migration whenever I get time, although I have managed to do a few odd other odd sysadmin requests here and there.
Work-wise, it’s been hectic. One customer started getting behind on payments, while another gave me some requirements and a lump sum in advance, but still hasn’t come up with the test data required to define the detail required to design it, but investigating the rest of the job has consumed a fair amount of time already.
Meanwhile, about 6 working days and several thousand baht have been lost to the immigration department and the labour department while they process my application for a one year visa extension. The procedure is a joke. I wish there was an easier way. More detail in my monthly journals elsewhere.
However, as I did finally get paid after having scraped through Xmas and NY on the overdraft, I was finally able to buy a new phone. My ‘N-Joy’ (whoever heard of them) phone finally died after 3yrs use. It was never the nicest phone in the world, and I swapped it with someone else for an old Nokia for a most of those 3yrs until that broke and I needed the N-Joy back. Now the N-Joy’s dead, I’ve finally decided to get a smartphone, particularly because I wanted to be able to use GPRS/Bluetooth to check my e-mail without needing to lug my laptop everywhere, but as a bonus, my new phone also plays MP3s, takes photos and videos and does all sorts of other fancy stuff too. It’s a Nokia 3230, and it’s pretty cool.
On the flipside, my CBR fell over again in the rain recently. A friend had parked it up after using it, but didn’t park it with the stand on the metal plate, so when it rained, the stand sunk into the soft mud and the bike fell against my motocross bike, causing the bars holding the wing mirrors in place to bend out of shape and snap the plastic windshield and top fairing. Add that to the damage done to the rear indicator, and plastics the last time it happened, and the bike now looks like a tatty old mess and will need a few thousand baht and a few days worth of attention to get back into reasonably respectable shape again. Oh well. In the meantime, I’ll have to use the Honda Wave to do my Prachuab visa stamp tomorrow, and catch the train to Suratthani to collect my old laptop tomorrow.
Work is coming along, as always slower than I’d hope, but then I always think I can get everything done by the end of the day/week/month, but only ever get about 50% of it done (if that). I’ve been tracking my time on an hourly basis since the beginning of the year, and I’m not impressed with myself. I spend too long waking up, too much time resting between jobs (or getting distracted when I should be concentrating 100% on a job) and too much time chatting with people that come round to visit when I should be working.
This month, I’ve also played ’teacher’ a few times, helping P’Pa’s daughter to translate a Thai love poem into English (that was difficult!), and teach her how to write a basic webpage (for her school homework). It’s good that I can speak enough Thai to teach these things, but I still struggle to find some of the words I need, so my explanations are probably a little long-winded and confusing at times.
And, I also blagged a free ‘introductory dive’ for myself and Chai. A friend of ours here in Ban Krut, Emma, runs a local dive school and needed to examine a trainee dive instructor, Peter, while he took people through the introductory course. Emma invited me and P’Chai to be guinea pigs, so we went to the pool at Baan Klang Aow resort, and Peter took us through the basic principles, safety etc poolside, then we went in and did the practice in the pool. I think we were under water for about 15-20 mins each. It was pretty cool, as I’d never dived before. We both did well, and we’ve been invited to go diving off the boat at the local dive spot, Koh Talu when they next go out. I’m looking forward to it.
The weekend after next, I’ll be heading up to Bangkok to collect my brother and his girlfriend from the airport, give them a quick one-day tour of Bangkok then we’ll catch the train back to Ban Krut.
Oh well, my cup of tea’s gone cold already. Better go make another one and get on with some work.
Addendum: Punch, my dog died earlier. We discussed the symptoms etc with the vet on the phone shortly before he died, and it seems he probably drink some water infected with rat excrement/urine, and as he was only a few months old, we hadn’t vaccinated him yet, and we didn’t think it was serious until it was too late, he died. We are both very sad at the moment, and will miss him.