Protest

The Internet filter protest in front of the state library:





Smaller crowd than I was hoping for. As you can see, several different political parties were represented...

Jobless

So - we all knew this was coming, but yesterday our Melbourne FAST office was officially let go by Microsoft. They had decided to discontinue our product, a year and a half after acquiring us, since it wasn't really in line with their corporate vision. A lot of that was due to the fact that we are developing in Java on Linux and Mac machines, instead of using Microsoft products.

No one in the office was terribly concerned; my boss is working on acquiring the software rights to what we were making are starting his own company, which would be a Microsoft partner company but otherwise unaffiliated with Microsoft. I think everyone in the office would be happier working without the constraints that Microsoft put on us anyway. That said, Microsoft was VERY nice about the severance, even going so far as to provide us a career counseling service to help us find new jobs, even outside of Microsoft.

So, I had really been looking forward to the time off. I've been coming up with a big list of things I want to accomplish during my "Autumn Of Mark". But then today, on my first official day off, I got a call in the morning from the FAST office manager about a job opportunity, and I couldn't really say no. So tomorrow I'm going in for an interview. If it works out I will have some Java temp work for a few months until this other company gets off the ground. But I definitely didn't want it to happen this soon. Sigh...

Paintball

One of my bruises from our company paintball outing last Friday:


It's turned a particularly lovely yellow over the past day. Tons of fun though - boss supplied us with unlimited ammo on the company expense account, so the air was dense with paintballs. I came home with 17 different welts!

Botanical

Our friend Trisha's 40th birthday party at the Royal Botanical Gardens.


I don't know why I didn't take any shots with the beautiful plants in the background.

Mueck

Ron Mueck exhibition at the NGV:

Angst

Laika always looks sad in the morning when we go off to work:

Comments

Haloscan, the provider I was using for comments for years is going away. So, I've been forced to switch to the comment system that comes built in with Blogger. I have all the old comments saved, but unfortunately there's no way to import them to the new system yet.

I have all verification turned off on the new comments, which of course means it'll fill up with spam shortly. I'll have to do something about that when it happens but in the meanwhile, enjoy.

Super Bowl

How I'm watching the Super Bowl this year:


Typical. Geaux Saints!

Lizard

More crazy backyard finds. Found this lizard skin while doing yardwork today:


I have big feet too, to give you some sense of scale. Since it's just the skin, we're thinking the guy who shed it may still be around. Our best guess is that it's one of these.

Hat

After car shopping we went to City Hatters, which has thousands of hats but EXACTLY ONE THAT FITS MY GINORMOUS MELON:

Mini

We came home empty-handed from car shopping today, but figured out a lot about what we're looking for. Here's Miss Marjorie test driving a Mini Cooper:


(which we decided is pretty sweet, but generally too small.)

Mantis

Preying mantis in our backyard. About an inch long:

Jets

Australia Day jets over our backyard:

Anglesea

On the beach at Anglesea:

Ouch

Maybe I should have reapplied.

Skim

This is my skimboard:


It's ancient. Not sure the exact year, but I know I bought in 1983 at the very latest. Lots of good memories associated with it. I just had my second skimboard session in Australia here in Lorne which was very fun. From what I've seen I'm the best skimboarder in the country. :-)

Lorne

On holiday in Lorne. The view from our hotel:


Some visitors, with eyes on the cheese plate. (One of Marjorie's coworkers happened to be staying in the same hotel with a friend so we had them over.)

Birthday

Marjorie, at our friend Fleur's birthday in the park:

Spicy wing!

After five years we finally found proper spicy wing in Melbourne!


The Gertrude Hotel on Gertrude Street does them up proper. We're more excited by this than you might expect!

Neko

Neko Case last night at the Hi-Fi Bar:


She's super talented, and sounded great, but truth be told her songs leave me a little cold. Marjorie's the bigger fan. I haven't written her off or anything yet though...