Phillbo’s Blog Site

Well I am probably the laziest blogger in the world. I even question why I still have one. Maybe it is just a strange security blanket?

Anyway, I must get back on track.

July 12 2009 will forever be burned in my brain. On this very day, I proposed to my beloved girl Sandra, and she gracefully accepted. Choosing a place to propose drove me mad, so I eventually settled on our local weekend breakfast cafe which we affectionately call it by its old name - Poppy. This cafe serves the best Bacon & Eggs that Frankston can offer.

I must admit I have never lied so much to keep the engagement ring a secret, but I am glad it is over and done with, as I am a very bad liar. I only had the ring for 3 days prior to the big life changing proposal, and that was bad enough.

Sandra and I are now happily engaged. Two years ago, I would never have thought in my wildest dreams that I would find anyone, but I am so happy that I now have someone who loves me for me. I don’t want to sound sookie, but I thought it was about time everyone knew.

I plan to have a house warming and an engagement party in the next few months. I am not sure in what order, but both will definitely happen soon. So expect the unexpected. If you want to make sure you get an invite, please comment. I haven’t seen a lot of you in along time, so we now have the perfect excuse to catch up.

I must go to bed now, the midnight hour has commenced. Sleep calls my name, otherwise work tommorrow will be insane.

What a roller coaster week, but I hope some stability sets in.

Last night’s budget was a royal time wasting disaster. If politicians had half a clue, they’d limit their speech to three minutes, and reel off the the government’s proposal in about 15 minutes. As both the media and the politicians like to drag it on, I just gave up watching it, and read the details in the online late evening “newspaper”. Maybe I should turn up and “bust up” their speech. Then again, I’d probably be forcibly removed from the public gallery of parliament house.

I wrote a letter to Nicola Rixon, our Federal Health Minister to express my concerns. I hope she answers my letter, but I have an evil geek redunancy plan if she fails to respond. Dilbert would be so proud. I will keep those plans under wraps for the time being. The element of surprise has some added benefit.

I am going to sign off, my mind is tired, but my body isn’t. I will take my beloved Cindy for a moonlight walk. The moon looks almost full, scary!

Much has changed in my life since this time last year. I would never have dreamed much of it was even possible.

Sandra and I have been in a relationship for almost a year, in fact April 27 is the big day when we celebrate our one year together. This is my longest relationship with a woman ever, and I am still madly in lover with her. Sandra and I also have a beautiful puppy too, I will definitely publish a photo soon, I just don’t have any appropriate software to resize the images installed right now.

I spent two fabulous weeks in New Zealand wth Sandra during February this year. We travelled across both the North and South Islands, and visited places including Auckland, Timaru, Napier, Lake Takeapo, Queenstown, and quite a few other places too. I have a huge collection of photographs which will take forever to upload to Flickr, but I will definately work at getting them up.

I have got myself a house and a big mortgage to go with it in the prestige suburb of Frankston. Buying a house was a very challenging experience, there were many ups and down, but I have no regrets about it. I have to follow up a few more committments, but they will happen in due course.

I have finally got  my Internet connected, after waiting for three weeks, so my house now feels civilized. Fancy that!

I still haven’t got a MySpace page or Facebook account, despite mounting pressure to do so, but my blog will have to suffice, even though I am guilty of posting once in a blue moon.

The past four days have been a drag, as I have come down with a nasty virus, with has resulted in a horrible throat and chest infection. The doctor has told me to stay away from others for the time being. Being sick is so boring. But I will survive now that the Internet has arrived. I hope to be back at work soon - I actually enjoy my job on most days.

On anoher noteworthy announcement, I have dropped 17kg since this time last year. I think I may be doing something right, or Sandra has been teaching me the ways of the force. I sure hope it continues. Must get an early night - I want to get well as soon as possible.

Well my Christmas was a blast. I had the Chilean Christmans on Christmas Eve. My folks came up for the celebration, and the atmosphere was great. A good time was had by all.

Come Christmas day, Sandra and I head down to Geelong, for Christmas lunch at my sisters place. I got to spend some valuable time with my brother in law and my nephews. In the afternoon and evening, I got to kick back with my family, and I must admit, I didn’t over indulge.

Come Boxing day, I wished Dad a happy birthday, and then headed to Maldon. Went via Ballan, and came very close to running out of fuel. Country petrol stations don’t seem to be open on public holidays. According to the trip computer in my car, I had 6km left.

Sandra and I went to Dalesford, and then to Hepburn springs. Drunk the very metallic tasting water, chilled out at the mineral baths, and soaked it all up. Sandra definately enjoyed her time. We crashed in Dalesford for the night, before heading up to Maldon for a day trip. Maldon is a town trying to keep in touch with history, and they sure do a good job at it.  No plastic bags, lots of bargains to be had, and a great place for old collectables, memorabilia, and the entire town is in walking distance. Although it was a very warm day, we headed back to Melbourne via Mount Macedon.

As with every trip to Mount Macedon, I like to visit Straws lane (one of the roads to Hanging rock), where I get to see the illusion of my car rolling up the hill backwards. I know that the way the horizon is visible, along with the road cuttings, you could definately get the impression that you are facing down hill. But as my cousin Alistair and I proved over 10 years ago with a spirit level, a big bottle of water, and a ball, it is simply an illusion, but a very good one. Many others would provide you with some magnificent explanations saying gravity pulls and magnetic fields, but they are not really plausible arguments, although some strange events have actually happened at Hanging Rock itself.

Sandra and I then went down the Mountain, and visited one of the countries biggest private gardens. It was amazing, a whole world, with rain forest trees and plants, to a beautiful array of floral, ferns, ponds, and statues, along with some replicas of artifacts from around the world. I was very surprised, and I think I will return, even though the entrance fee is $6. Afterwards we stopped by Gisbon for a coffee, and then to Shane and Helens for a magnificent barbequeue.

At about might night last night, we finally arrived back home, but I must admit, Christmas this year, along with the longer weekend that followed was awesome. I think Sandra is beginning to relax again too. So I am very happy about that too.

No time to proof read, as work starts again tommorrow, but I hope all is legible.

I am not sure how reliable this news feed is, however the Honourable Senator Stephen Conroy, who is the Deputy Leader of the Australian Federal Government in the Senate is hell bent on spending millions of tax payers dollars finding a way to effectively filter the Internet.

As a geek, I know that this Internet filtering trial is total waste of time, nor is it even viable to consider. The government could save millions of dollars if they simply drop this Internet filtering concept. I wonder if the government will hear common sense calling them. My guess is that they are too stupid.

The Rudd government may now be looking at cost cutting measures, however canceling this unnecessary Internet trial would be a great way to reduce some of this government’s frivolous spending.

Well that time of the year has happened again, and I turn another year older.

I had to work on my birthday, but it was awesome that it was a Friday night. My beautiful babe Sandra bough me an iPod Nano for my birthday, a purple one, and it sure is prestige. I’ve been using it in my car all the time. No more swapping CDs. I should have got one earlier, but was always to much of a tight arse to justify the need for one. But it is so cool.

My babe and I then headed to St Kilda for a spectacular dinner which included pizza, pasta, bruschetta and beer, as it as was a hot night. But it sure did go down well. Afterwards we just had a quiet night together, as the weekend involved the mass clean up.

We worked hard, and then harder, and finally the back yard and porch looks almost habitable. My cousin Al dropped by in the evening for a beer, and I feel like my weekend went way too fast. But not to worry; Christmas is just around the corner and I cannot wait. I get to experience the true Chilean Christmas. I am sure it will be grand.

Well my week had some ups and downs, but ended on a high. The Christmas break up / End of year party at work was awesome. Got to sing a few tunes with Osama Bin Johnston (aka Ian), and ate in true style at Caesars. Magnficient. I got a little drunk, and had to suffer this consequence early Saturday morning, but I had recovered by 11am. I am glad that I didn’t become very drunk, unlike a few other colleagues.

This Saturday just past, I had to go on a trip to Doncaster, as my girlfriend Sandra had to have some dental work. Even with the Eastlink being so convenient, a trip to the dentist can take a minimum of three hours out of your day. A good Dentist who works on Saturday is hard to find, hence Doncaster will have to do for the interim.
On Saturday afternoon while Sandra was sleeping, I went to Bunnings, purchased some more gardening tools — including a saw and some gardening gloves, and I finished my pruning of trees in the backyard, although I had to saw the bigger branches.

Today I slept and slept and slept. Had planned to go to Geelong, but even Sandra was full on sleeping in. I think the drugs she had yesterday finally wore off. We had a late late breakfast of bacon and eggs (2pm), and did some Christmas shopping afterwards. All is looking good, although I still haven’t decided what to get for a few people yet. I did run out of available money, but I am now living without any credit whatsoever, so it makes life a lot more interesting. It also means I have to save to buy. I have now been developing better money habits, recording all my outgoings, as I plan to get a home loan sometime next year.

Tonight I’ve been kicking back with my babe, listening to a variety of music. I look forward to a good night’s sleep, as next week will be even busier for me. I just know it.

I remember seeing that Simpson’s episode, where Lisa gave up hope of being vegetarian, only to find out that the hot dog she just ate had no meat at all. In fact it had thrice the fat of a regular meat dog, but this is another story. Likewise, I have never been one to go with the ultra popular option, although the Internet world is hell bent on me changing my mind.

I’ve never signed up to MySpace of Facebook, and I had my reasons, however most of them were based on factional demographics of the typical user of these sites at that time. Although this strange concept was observed by an Immortal, and moreso agreed without question by myself (as I hate doing unnecessary research), I have never taken the plunge of joining up to either social network, even though the social aspect appears to be better grounded in Facebook.

I hear rumors all the time about what is happening on Facebook, but as a non-user they remain that way. I have received so many invites to Facebook, but they have all been declined to date, and all based on my steadfast refusal to join. On reflection, I think my initial reasons were somewhat obscured, however I believe if I joined now, I would be sucked into a vortex, and my time would disappear forever. Facebook addiction is a common illness in cyberspace, and pretty soon there will be Facebook anonymous support group — and chances are it will be hosted on Facebook too - just to have that added irony. But if you look at the alternatives, they’re simply not there.

In my observation, MySpace users seem to love themself way too much, and it is obvious it is marketed towards a younger audience, or an audience that simply wants to brag or show off. To them, I salute you, but I won’t waste my time reading any more dribble unless I am directed to a must see link.

My dilema is this. Do I hold on to my precious time, and continue to be a minority Internet user that isn’t a member of a main stream social network? Or do I take the plunge, become mainstream, and catch up with a million people from the past, most of whom I will rarely see again?

Time Vs Social Junkie. Maybe one day I will sign up just to see what the rave is about, but that won’t be today. My reasons may have changed now but I know if I join up, I’d be in front of my computer screen more than I would like to be. So today, I am still in the minority, but tomorrow may change all of that.

I witnessed once again today how over ambition and greed has clouded the judgement of someone. Maybe one day this person will question themself?

Only time will tell if this person can even redeem themself, but one thing I know for sure, this person strives for material possessions, but they them self live miserably.

Fortunately, I am glad I don’t need to suck up to anyone to live through my day, and I live with a clear conscience. This is mostly thanks to my beautiful woman who gently corrected me of my wearying ways. I love her so much!

To my beautiful and highly esteemed cousins and friends, I will respond to you all soon. I have had a lot on my mind, and a lot to do, but everything is beginning to look up.

Sandra and I celebrated our six months as a couple yesterday, and we had an awesome time. We headed down to Emerald, ate a delicious lunch at the local bakery and cafe, and then walked around lake emerald, admiring the beauty of nature. We also took an aqua bike for a spin in the lake. This lake is a lot smaller than I remember it – but that was 16 years ago since my last visit. The day also ended on a high, with an excellent dinner at Latino’s Restaurant, a new Chilean restaurant in Dandenong.
But back to today. Deadlines at work are fast approaching, and today I realise again that despite my own personal prejudices towards some people, I must support them - and work with them to ensure the end goal (and common goal)l is achievable. The desired result is to be a success. So today I find myself changing tasks again, but I know if I am diligent, it can work, and work well.

Instead of me getting upset by other employees, I must do everything I can to help them.  It is a valuable lesson to be learned, but it requires much discipline to act upon such a conviction. This in turn will also demonstrate how I should lead by example. Now time to get into machine mode as the task won’t do itself.