Bend in the Weather (Entries tagged as friends)

Innocent Farmville hostage.

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:23:00 +1100

It would appear that even whilst I don't use either Twitter or Facebook -- I happen to be held hostage often to Farmville.

I have elected not to join either two communities for several reasons:

I seriously spend far too many hours a day on a computer (12-18 hours a day). I don't need something else to add to the hours.
I like keeping some level of personal privacy. I really don't have a need to post what I ate for breakfast, what my favourite book/movie/music/clothing is. (You really want to know my favourite music is -- follow me on last.fm). I also have a blog where I can write down my thoughts/opinions/frustrations already.
I have multiple methods to keep in touch with those I elect to already. (Email, IM, Telephone, SMS). I seriously couldn't give a flying razoo about people I went to primary/high school/Uni with. I haven't seen them for over 20 years, and I don't have the desire to kindle the relationship due to the mere fact we attended the same education institution (and for the majority of that time -- compulsory; I'm sure neither of us wanted to be there!)

Having said that -- I don't object to others that do use the services. Each to their own I say. (But don't expect me to accept invites for either -- both are duly ignored!)

Pauline is a Facebook user, she enjoys it... she catches up with a lot of old friends via it. She has put off joining Farmville for months, but finally caved to the constant barrage of invites and joined.

I now seems our daily life resolves around 'harvest time'... a classic case of seeing the Farmville Alarm come into effect. An often quoted phrase at present is

'Ohh, I have to go harvest X .... gimme 10 mins.'

This can happen at the most inconvenient times.

So at present, I feel I'm affectively a Farmville hostage. I'm wanting a virtual world-war to break out so that bombers blow up the fields. I might get a bit of normality back in my life.

Long time between posts

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:41:00 +1000

Well it's been about 3 months since my last blog post.

What has happened in that odd 90 days? A lot and not much.

The last few months have been tough. I've been mostly wading through a pool of emotional jelly. Whilst movement has been slow and tedious, some good progress has been made.

Recently my family buried my grandfather. I can't say I felt overly close to him, so it came as a shock how much it affected me. It managed to dredge up a lot of family crap that I thought I had dealt with, but it seems such things are only buried and resurface when your guard is down. Quite a quandary really, you physically bury something to discover other items resurface in their place.

His death has made me re-evaluate my own life and mortality; subjects we often don't give much thought to. As a result, I've been quite a bit more reflective than usual.

One of the questions I have been rehashing has been:

'How do you wish to be remembered?'

I can't say I have the answer to that question yet (as I think it's more complex on reflection); particularly as you're likely to mean different things to different people.

I certainly don't wish for fame or fortune. That's not my style... though I would like to leave a positive influence on people.
How I go about this... doesn't appear to be clear cut either. I do believe it's part of life's journey and something one masters over a lifetime. I also believe the answer is a personal one and what is right for one person, may not be for another.

So yeah, it's been a deep, complex month or two.

On the coding front... I've been quite stagnant over this period. That said, I'm missing it and looking to get back into it. I have two large projects at the inception stage and I'm excited about making some good progress on those over the next few months. I'll release more details on both at an appropriate time.

I hope to blog a lot more regularly over the coming months, though I make no promises!

Winter Vegie Gardens

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:19:00 +1000

Regular readers of my blog will know that at the end of last year we moved into our new house. In February we completed our front garden, but as yet haven't started on the back yard.

I took two weeks off after Easter and spent the time doing some odd jobs around the house. When moving into a newly built place there's 1000's of small jobs to do. (I know, I've already completed one large white board of such tasks, and have another one on the go!)

Whilst we've drawn up what we want to do out the backyard, we are starting getting our planter boxes up and running, so we can enjoy some great winter vegies as soon as possible. Around late Winter/prior to the start of Spring I'll also be planting a series of fruit trees as well to help complement the vegetables. We'll also be planting a range of herbs amongst the vegetables, as many such herbs work as natural pesticides to keep the creepy crawlies out of our lovely green leafy vegies. Much better letting nature fight it then introducing a range of chemicals.

A quick visit to see Trevor and Glenda (thanks guys -- we really appreciate it!) resulted in getting some great red gum fence posts that we were able to convert in to free-standing planter boxes. By using red gum and some galvanised bolts, these boxes will last us years and hopefully return us some fantastic home grown produce!

We've built one box so far, and plan to build one more in the upcoming weeks (in between birthdays, and an over-flowing social calendar!). A big thanks also to our fathers for helping with the building process.

So how did it turn out?! Well, we're certainly happy with the results!
Now to get planting and enjoying some home-grown goodness in the next few months.

The raw material.	Front On View.
Front profile.	Rear profile.

Once the 2^nd planter box is completed, we'll be gravelling around the boxes (so it's easy to move in gardening equipment (like wheel-barrows, etc). I'm considering whether we need to put up a short fence to keep the dogs out... still be determined at this stage.

We'll also have a heap of composting/chip-barking to do under the proposed fruit tree locations. Slowly but surely the back yard is starting to take shape. I'm finding working in the garden is a great way to get away from the computer and a good outlet that isn't 'electronic'.

Back online after moving into the new house

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:44:00 +1100

In my last post, I mentioned I was moving out of the city (Melbourne, Australia) and heading to the country.

Well the transition has occurred and I'm more than happy with the move. Our neighbours two deep on each side have all come out and introduced themselves, and the general atmosphere around the place is warm and uplifting.

The sense of community runs strong outside of the capital cities by the look of it.

Bannockburn is by no means a small town, though it's no thriving metropolis. It's about 15 mins drive from Geelong, but you would think you're thousands of miles away or in a parallel universe. Hand-waves whilst driving, a chat with a stranger (soon to be become an acquaintance/friend) are all common place. At the time of the 2006 Census, the population was a mere 2,486, but has more than doubled in the following two years. By 2015, they are expecting a population of around 15,000. If you're down this way, be sure to drop in. It's a quaint part of town and quite charming.

All the majority of our daily needs are here (local Woolworths, petrol, green grocer, butcher, baker, vet, auto repair, post office, pub, restaurants, fast-food, legal and accounting services,etc can all be found in the town). Those not here (ie: the not-every-day purchases) is only a 15 minute car-drive into Geelong.

I'm loving the lack of police sirens/choppers and cars doing wheelies until 4am most nights. The only noise we hear at present is the 6-7am chatter of the native birds found in abundance. (Not a real problem -- we're up at 6-7am anyway -- working through to late at night getting the house set-up).

Bannockburn for me was a natural choice. It's closer to loved ones, as well as the type of environment, community I would like to raise a family one day. The hustle and bustle and dog-eat-dog attitude that the big cities portray is not the values I would like to instil into my own children.

So how did the move go on Friday? As many know there was a deluge across a lot of Australia. In our neck of the woods we had the pitter-patter of a few rain drops from about 10:30am whilst filling the removalist's truck. By 3:15pm they had finished unloading the truck and literally seconds after the truck doors had been shut down it bucketed!

I'm glad we got our water tank hooked up prior to the move. Those 24 hours resulted in approx 70mm of rain. The tank is now full!
That much rain ensured we had a natural inground swimming pool over most of the backyard. The dogs found this too irresistable (they had never seen so much rain in their young years), and decided it was time for swimming. Shortly after we had dual-coloured dogs.... The original colour on their top half and a nice brown/muddy underbelly.

Saturday/Sunday saw us return to clean up our vacated premises. On Wednesday we return the keys to the landlord. It's a great feeling moving out of the rent cycle and into our own home.

Monday I had our networking guys in to terminate off our wired house. We now have 48 GigaE running throughout the house. The 19" racks I have in the garage look all very impressive now. I'll take some photos in the next few days and post them up for all to see. (Once I find the box with my camera data-cable! )

The new 48-port GigE Managed Switch also has PoE on all ports, and makes powering the Snom VoIP phones a breeze with no need for a power pack anymore (frees up on power point, and also one less cable to tangle unde rmy desk!). Cabling the house was a great idea -- being able to just plug an Ethernet cable into the wall in nearly every room of the house is just a god-send and something I would recommend to anyone who's building (do it during the framing stage, prior to the plastering).

The mountain of boxes strewn around the house are slowly disappearing. It will take us some time but we're hoping by Christmas to have everything fully unpacked/setup. That will leave me with the daunting task of establishing our gardens/plants/lawns outside during this crazy drought/summer. Something I am looking forward to getting up and running.

One of the benefits is since moving that my ADSL1 connection is indeed faster and cleaner here than our previous location (though we are about the same distance from the exchange (1-1.5kms). I'm pulling down pretty much the physical limits of ADSL1 and squeezing 100-150Kb/sec more then I previously have. Once ADSL2+ becomes available through my provider (Internode - due in the next few days), I may consider the move up if the price is 'reasonable'.

The garden shed and vegie garden will probably be first off the ranks, with the rest to follow after that.
I'm seriously considering putting in a large sandpit for the dogs so they can dig til their hearts content (and not in my lawn/vegies/plants! )

Though, all in good time. In the interim, I'm just enjoying country life, and not missing the glare of the city at all. A few more weeks of setting up house and I'll be as happy as my dogs running around in mud!

Finally recovered.

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:37:00 +1000

It took over two weeks of agony but I finally got over my wisdom teeth removal.

In the process it took many visits back to a heartless surgeon, and only the persistence of my family that saw me through.

The result - massive doses of painkillers, anti-inflammatories and even valium to see me through.
Why the valium you might ask?! It was used primarily as a muscle relaxant.

In the process of removing my wisdoms and the pre-molar (5 teeth in total), the surgeon tore the ligaments in my lower jaw and in the process dislocated my jaw.

A couple of visits to a physiotherapist that specialises in jaw conditions, and the valium saw me recover.

The actual holes left from the extractions were never a problem (though the cleaning process and mouth washes are a drag, they weren't painful after the first few days). The rough treatment whilst under a general is what did all the damage.

If you need your wisdom teeth out, some words of advice:

Ensure you get it done under a general if more than one.
Remove them in your teens or early twenties. Leaving them longer the teeth roots are much larger, harder to extract and the actual jaw bone is more solid. This makes for a difficult extraction.
Expect to be out of action for some time. Have plenty of heavy painkillers on the ready. You'll need them at least for the first few days (ie: A Panadeine Forte or likewise)
If you don't see any improvement, keep pestering your dental surgeon, don't get flipped off. Their charged to look after your well-being - before, during and after your procedure.
If you still have problems with your surgeon who is more than likely quite flippant; go back to your GP and inform him... it's not uncommon for these 'supposed surgeons', to not give a rats ass after they are paid and the surgery is performed
A second opinion is always a wise choice if you're not happy with your treatment. Surgeons have no loyalty to you, so don't feel you owe them any.

Going through the ordeal, I would never recommend the surgeon I had. (Heartless money grabbing self-righteous bitch is too kind a phrase to describe her).

If you're in Western suburbs of Melbourne, and needing such work done... let me know. I'll ensure you don't end up with her and actually are seen by someone who I would class as competent.

I hope I never see her again. It won't be by choice if I ever do.

At wits end

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:53:00 +1000

It's now approaching 3:00am...

It's almost 7 days since I had 5 teeth surgically removed, yet the pain seems to be increasing not decreasing.

Two nights this week has seen me head in to the emergency department looking for some form of pain relief.

Currently the Panadeine Forte only manages to take the tip of the edge off the pain. I now have pain from my lower jaw that heads right up to my temple on the left side.

I've gone back to the surgeon twice already, yet I'm told that 'all looks good'. However, from speaking to others the pain normally subsides by now or at least is on the decrease. The pain itself doesn't appear to be in the gum, it appears more in the jaw bone itself.

So I'm back to see the surgeon again tomorrow. I'm wondering if x-rays should be looked at now (could my jaw have been fractured in the process of the tooth removal?). Do I have an infection in the bone?! Do pain killers no-longer have any effect on me?!?!

Something is seriously amiss... I'm going to perch at the surgeon's office and not leave until some further investigation is done. It's crazy, this pain is about 3 times that of the pain I had pre-surgery.

I can't even knock myself out with some heavy shots of alcohol due to the large amounts of codeine I've taken; for fear of the possibility of respiratory failure. (Hence why you should never drink and take heavy pain killers). I'm wondering if it's prudent to come off them (the drugs) and soley use alcohol for pain relief?!? At least I could pass out and get some sleep.

I haven't had a decent night's sleep for over 3 weeks now, and tonight appears it's going to be one more night that I either sit killing some time in front of the computer, or lie awake in bed watching the digits on the clock tick past.

I originally intended on heading back to work on Wednesday (that boat has already sailed). I am hoping I can get back on Monday, though some serious head-way is going to need to be made if that has any likelihood of happening.

Dear lazyweb, if any of you out there have some ideas how to relieve some serious pain I'm all open to suggestions. To be honest, I'm pretty desperate.... feel free to leave a comment. As the topic states... I'm at my wits end.

It lives! (aka out of surgery)

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:12:00 +1000

Yesterday I had surgery under a General Anesthesia to remove 5 teeth (4 wisdom teeth, and a baby pre-molar that never got a secondary tooth; but had decided it had hung around long enough ).

The day surgery saw us arrive at 12:30pm to 'sign-in' though I didn't actually get the pre-med until just after 5:00pm. So a mind numbing wait of 4.5 hours was undertaken. (Even worse was the fact that my last food and any form of liquid was 7:30am, and it seemed the only thing showing on the blaring waiting room TV was food shows. ). That resulted in a nice headache by mid-afternoon as my blood sugar levels dropped.

The surgery itself was a success, I left the operating theatre just after 7pm, and it took just over an hour in the recovery room. There I was treated to food that makes everything better (icecream and jelly), as well as a glass of apple juice and another of water.

Pauline took good care of me, and kept me company during the long wait before hand (though she ignored my pleads to head off and not blow her whole afternoon waiting around in the waiting room). Whilst I was in surgery she headed home (only 5 mins down the road) to attempt a bite to eat (that didn't happen as they called her back as she was about to commence eating), but she did have time to wash some bed sheets, feed the dogs and get ready for my return (buying/making some additional yummy goodies that I could eat/drink).

Swelling is well down (I expected to look like a bullfrog this morning, but it's quite minimal). I'll continue using ice-packs on either side of my face every few hours, to lessen it further.

It appears that besides the general, that the surgeons also applied a local to my bottom jaw, to aid in pain relief. The local worked extremely well, although it gave the sensation I had a bear's tongue and not my own for most of last night.

Since waking this morning, the local has long worn off, and I'm in relatively good spirits. I'm using the Panadine Forte for pain relief (in fact the pain is minimal at this stage -- which is brilliant!).

I came home brandishing a swag of mouth rinses, painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs for the next few days; I should be hopefully back to full steam in a short time.

This will be a weekend of rest and time to re-assess early next week. I'll potter online a little, but it's more from boredom than a burning desire to be on the computer (I'm not much value above useless at present!).

A big thanks to all the well-wishes I've received over the past few weeks... it's great to know others are thinking of you. Thankfully this saga appears to be quickly drawing to a near and I'll be my annoying, harassing and cheeky self in no-time (so beware!).

Out of action for the time being

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:02:00 +1000

I will be out of action for just under week as I go in to have 5 teeth removed.

I must say a big thanks to Pauline for pampering me leading up to it. (and the big slushy cook-up she's undertaking!) I think I've got soup for a year!
She's also pureed up a roast, so that will be an exciting 'experience' through a straw.
With those and jellies, and tinned fruit on the ready it should be a pleasant culinary experience. I guess I can probably throw in some warm custard as well.

I go in tomorrow, so I'll be drugged up heavily over the weekend (I am going to attempt to sleep through the weekend), but hope to make a speedy recovery (fingers crossed). I'm hoping I can be back to work on Wednesday if all goes well... though I'll see how we go.

It will be great to get off the painkillers after this all... sucking heavy painkillers every few hours hasn't been fun over the past fortnight.

I have learnt some great tips on dealing with mouth/teeth pain along the way:

Use regular salt mouth washes every few hours. Directions: One tablespoon of table salt, to a glass of warm water. Rinse your mouth with it, and spit. Repeat until the glass is empty.
(Believe it or not, after the 3^rd time -- you get used to it.)
Applying either two whole cloves (place between gum and cheek above the tooth in question), or clove oil onto the affected tooth/gum is a great natural painkiller. It works extremely well!
Keep out of wind or any chilly air. This also includes whilst sleeping, you may need to warm the room you are sleeping in to avoid a painful night sleep.
Cold drinks nuked for 10-20 seconds in the microwave ensures a pleasant experience, works with water and fruit juices especially well.
Use a dental mouth wash like Listerine or the like after eating if painful, as it will numb the area.

It's been a revelation to me, as I have only ever had one filling in my life, and never suffered toothache before. Hopefully some of these remedies/tips I've discovered over the past couple of weeks will be of benefit to someone else.

Microblogging and Planets

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:14:00 +1000

I recently posted a subtle article in relation to microblogging. It may have been a little too subtle for many.

It seems a few other Linux Australia Planet readers also feel the same way about microbloggings from sites like twitter, delicio.us and the like.

I like reading the posts of what others are upto in the Linux community, even when not directly related to Linux per say. (it's a great way to discover new gadgets, general thoughts/opinions, and general useful information). We truly are a diverse community!
I find that microbloggings offer no substance of value to anyone but the author. That said, they are best left not syndicated. It appears that both Tim Connors and Andrew Pollock share my view.

Mary Gardiner has an interesting spin on the concept particularly when it comes to syndicating in a blog, actually her idea does have merits.

It's good to see that Michael Still has recognised it is an issue for people and provided a non-microblogged version of his feed. Though that didn't come without a retort.

Let's hope that PLA picks up this version... others that want the microblogged version can still then get it directly from him.

People that know me realise I'm not overly fond of the so called 'social' websites. Why?

Not because I'm anti-social (I'm far from it). I personally however find my time on the web is used more as a tool for research and my personal enjoyment. You won't find me Linked In, Facebooked, Twittered or MySpaced. I don't even have a delicio.us account (I have used a system very similar to delicious on our internal LAN for years prior to delicio.us so I have no need). I also don't feel the need for web-based group hug sessions which these so called 'social' websites appear to be all about. I'm also not in it for the popularity contest.
If someone wants to contact me, there are plenty of avenues available to do so. (I sit multiple IM and IRC networks and find these much more personal anyway) I keep in contact regularly with those that matter and really aren't that interested in chatting aimlessly to someone three-friends removed.

Personally, I feel microblogging has it's place. However it's best confined to the bounds it was created for (on twitter, facebook, etc). Microblogging needs context to make sense to the outside reader, and as such doesn't make sense to have it syndicated to planets. If I feel the need to pick up such microbloggings I can go directly to those sites.

Sure I can skip or filter it, but should I really need to?

The mobile connectivity we're starting to see now 3G is starting to become more widespread, will ensure microblogging will become more popular. I still see it in it's infancy and not too advanced. I suspect that future microblogging generations will allow people to use it to automate tasks (microblogging -> Home automation anyone?!). I suspect a microblog to a bank may in future also give me my account balance and other useful things (Microblogging -> street directions returned, etc). However, we're not there yet.

All in all, if you are happy with microblogging, more power to you. Ditto goes for social websites. For me, it doesn't meet my needs and something I choose to exclude myself from. I don't feel I'm missing out, in fact I feel empowered not being caught up in the hype that surrounds them all. I also find I can better use my time.

Anyway that's my $0.05 on the topic.

</rant>

Down but not out.

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:37:00 +1000

Some of you have probably noticed I haven't been around as much as usual in the recent week.

Last Saturday night I discovered a large painful lump in my mouth, just under my eye tooth facing towards my tongue. To say it scared the life outta me is probably is an understatement.

I headed off to the doctor to get it checked out on Sunday, and he immediately referred me off to an Oral and maxillofacial Surgeon on the Monday.

She examined me and all my tooth and diagnosed it as a Tori (Lingual) Mandibularis which is basically a bone growth that attaches to your gum. It unfortunately can get quite inflamed and sore if bumped or eating hard food. This is probably what caused the initial pain. The thing isn't small either, and is probably about the size of a peanut M&M (for comparison).

Whilst there she gave me my entire mouth a good once over. She noted that I was in immediate need to remove my two left wisdom teeth, and wanted me to go off for an xray. (The xray is to confirm how close the facial nerve is to the roots of the wisdom teeth.) Something you don't want to hit!

So off for x-rays on Wednesday and back to see her for the results on Friday.

It appears that all 4 of my wisdom teeth need to come out, in addition the upper left maxillary first pre-molar. The pre-molar is still my baby tooth (I didn't get any secondary tooth -- and it's long past it's expiry and it's root systems have long given way.) This is also the cause of the severe tooth/gum pain I've been experience (but first put down to the tori). A closer inspection of the x-ray has revealed that 3 out of the 4 first pre-molars are baby teeth! One I've already had removed as a teen (upper right), so that probably leaves one in my bottom that will need attention in the future.

I've been scheduled in for surgery under a General Anesthesia for the removal of all 5 teeth on Friday (11^th July). The surgeon explained that having my wisdoms out latter in life normally ensures the gum bone is much tougher and the root systems much more advanced than that of a late-teen (when many people have them removed). This is why she recommends a general over doing them with a local in the chair. (I'm all for knocking me out for the procedure!) Luckily for me the facial nerve is quite a distance away from the tooth so it shouldn't pose any problem.

So at present -- it's been a week of heavy painkillers to take the edge off the pain, that with salt mouth washes and only luke-warm drinks to avoid aggravating it further.

Pauline's also grabbing some full cloves as we've been told that placing them on the tooth also works well for pain relief. At this stage, I'll try anything. Dosing up on codiene based pain killers for any length of time is never the best solution.

So whilst I'll be out of it for a little while, I am hoping after the operation I'll be back to my normal self shortly there after. I've been advised that it will take about 5 days to recover post-op, but I'll pay it by ear. I've already missed a fair bit of work this week. Luckily it falls on a Friday so I'll at least have the weekend to help in the recovery.

So it looks like soups, pureed meals, tinned fruit and jelly will be on the menu later this week! I wonder what a steak and 3 vegies are like through a straw?!

Update: The tori will stay in place. It's apparently extremely painful to remove (they have to drill/chip it away from the bone of the gum), and something they only wish to do as a last resort. The hole created is normally quite large and requires weeks to heal. So this will stay in place. As such I'll have to just be more careful with a toothbrush (so I don't crash into it when brushing) and when eating hard food. It basically just feels like stubbing your toe badly when hitting the tori...besides the unpleasant pain, it's not much to worry about.