Phillbo’s Blog Site

Well that time of the year is approaching - the end of the year that is. I am reflecting this on the eve of New Years eve. How bizarre.

I’ve been invited to go to Josh and Carla’s place, to Willy Madina’s tavern, to Half Base & the Volley Maestro’s place, to Mansfield (which includes a flight), and I’ve also been invited to celebrate the new  year with (nameless) and possibly a few others.

Now what to do? Accept the first offer, the second, the third? Who knows, but time is running out to decide.

The simple fact is that the New Year celebration has little significance to me these days. New Years Eve was always previously a celebration of my grandfather’s birthday. In recent years, its has been about  getting drunk, and getting really sick the next day, and consequently wasting your public holiday. What a way to greet the new year! I’d rather greet the new year with a Stump Rump.

Still I could always make a new year’s resolution, and consequently break my allegiance to that promise in record time. Am I being a bit negative? Possibly. But the reason why I am skeptical about this is that I’ve seen it happen way too often, in fact I’ve broken them myself.

Am I all sour grapes? I hope not. But I think maybe my age is catching up with me.

I love meeting up with people and having a grand time, but I do not like seeing my friends turn themselves into absolute arseholes when they get overwhelmingly intoxicated. I am convinced based on my own experience that being inebriated brings out the truth in most people, and I often don’t like what I see when this happens. I’ve had a few embarrassing moment involving drunk friends, and a few other moments I would like to forget too. Some people I cannot drink with socially, simply because I do not trust them at all. They have hurt me before, and they don’t want to face the consequences of their actions. It is like being drunk is an excuse to fuck with you both physically and emotionally. For this reason, I will not turn  up, as alcohol brings out their evilness.

Some people will expect me to become as plastered as they are. This is good in theory, but its not on my agenda either. I hate being in a relatively clear frame of mind when everyone else is off their face. This is not what I would consider fun. Being plastered isn’t fun either - it is simply a short lived illusion.

So what to do? Well if it involves a guitar or two, a bit of singing, a few ales, a good souvlaki, and chilling out with a few friends, I am sold on the idea.  The only thing to do now is to go to bed early tonight, so I can finish work early tomorrow. I would much rather greet the new year without a hangover.

Well Christmas came, and now Christmas has gone. A good time had by everyone present, myself included. Enjoyed quite a few ales too.

The only area of concern is that I didn’t get a present. Not one. But alas, it just proves that Santa Claus really is dead. I blogged this post about Santa more than 2 years ago, and it still holds true.

Well I think so anyway.

Santa doesn’t exist!

I have no idea why I picked that title, but I’ve noticed the reliability of this network becoming less and less reliable. Maybe its just affecting me, but I’ve never seen a program log in and out so often over the course of a day. Its not like I am a junkie with this client. I barely use it, but when I do use it, I’d at least expect it to work. But you can’t expect perfection from anything om the Internet - its not possible, so who am I to complain. Oh well. Happy Christmas Eve and time for bed for me. I have to work today.

I can’t wait to meet my family and friends over Christmas. It should be grand, well I hope so anyway. I will definitely make the most of it.

I will bring my guitar down, and try and get back on stage at Irish Murphs on boxing day. Well that is the plan anyway, but plans can change, and probably will.

I had planned to go down to Geelong this weekend and wish my Mum a happy birthday, but I postponed for several reasons. I think I needed some time to chill out and clear my head.

My work situation is changing for the better. I’ve been concerned about my health, and realize that I need to deal with chaos using some type of systematic approach. My colleagues and friends have been very supportive, for which I am thankful. I also know I must take corrective action to strike a balance in my life. This is a mandatory requirement for not only my survival, but so I can enjoy what life has to offer too.

After speaking with my mate Angelo, he has made a few things quite clear to me, and I am glad I listened to him.

So what is changing?

I am hiring staff to replace me in my current work duties. This may sound quite weird for a few people, but I don’t want to have other staff or the business being so dependent on me. This dependence or even perceiving this dependence can be quite overwhelming, and it takes its toll on your wellbeing. Without taking this step, I will never get to have a hassle free holiday, and this is something I desperately need as soon as possible.
Making a comeback to social competition tennis has to happen too. I went to my Christmas end of year break up at my tennis club, and I realized how much I missed everyone. They even got me a birthday cake too. It also has the added benefi of the after game ale too.

Returning to regular flying is a must for me too. I’ve missed it big time. My flight instructor has been away, and the recent weather has also been delaying potential flights. But my over commitment to my work has also prevented me from flying. Aviating is something I wish to persevere with — I want to get my full PPL as soon as possible. It also gets your mind off everything else.

So these things must happen. Maybe its something like a new years resolution, but I don’t generally like the concept as such, as most people seem to break them. I will take action now. I hope to catch up with a heap of friends real soon - and go on a much needed holiday.

Well I just realized, its past midnight, and I am now officially 32. I am old!

Now I share my birthday with the following people:

• My Uncle John (who is exactly 13 years older than me)
• My cousin Mary (who was born and bred in the USA) - she is 5 years younger than me and happily married
• Ebony - a beautiful woman I’ve known for years and years (she is also 5 years younger than me and a mother of 2 young but stylish children)
• Bob Sutton - a football trainer for the Geelong Under 19s and Reserve football team (he is at least 10 years older than me)
• Steve Edge - my grade six teacher (who once shook the hand of Prince Charles while in PNG, and didn’t wash it for weeks)
• Ricky Ponting - an Australian of the year? - Ricky is exactly 1 year older than me. He will (if his fitness prevails) become the highest test run scorer of all time, and acquire 50 test centuries before he retires. I have a bet on this, and the wager is a grand souvlaki and a slab of beer, so I hope that Ricky continues with the good form.

Now which comes to the obvious question. Who do you share your birthday with?

Well I may be jack of many trades - but specialize in none so to speak.

I am not the kind of person to name names, but this one has taken the cake.

What really grinds my wheels (I stole that line from the Family Guy) is when I have to teach basic web authoring concepts to a person who does web site design for a living. Go Figure!

Welcome to O2Design

http://www.o2design.com.au/

I built a basic web site for a friend with simple PHP headers and footers, and using a basic CSS style sheet. All HTML elements can be viewed in the PHP file using any text editor. Even more fancy editors like Dreamweaver can view each index file in design view. Due to time constraints, my friend decided to use a professional web site developer to complete their web site, however after the handover (which happened over a week ago) - I haven’t seen any progress, and today I find out why.

A certain person working for O2design has demonstrated the following:

• That they only use FrontPage for building/editting web sites - and does not know how to view a very basic PHP file
• Their web site says they are proficient with PHP, but they demonstrated no understanding of even basic PHP
• They could not even identify the HTML within the PHP file

Now if I were a super geek, and whacked in element after element, added arrays within arrays, it may look like a dog’s breafast, but alas, my design was very basic indeed.
I know that I am not a good PHP programmer, and I’ve never claimed to be, however I do like keeping certain tasks as simple as possible. When I built my friend’s web site, I made it is simple as possible, as I expected that they may want to make their own edits at some stage. For this reason, I have used PHP for defining headers and footers on each index file. Only one other page has more complex use of PHP, and this is where I hacked up a PHP web page booking form. Using PHP was preferable to the classic way of submitting form data through the use of an old school cCGI BIN script.

In summary - I haven’t designed a complicated web site (I wouldn’t know how to), and I have no reason to. I’ve made every effort to make this transition as smooth as possible, explaining the current hosting environment, and describing how the current design works. But when I get asked questions about why I can’t view (in design view) the HTML elements of the PHP file in Frontpage. I have no answer to that, but Google had the answer.

With my experience, I think maybe I should go into web site design? I am very disappointed that a professional cannot grasp even basic concepts.

It has been good catching up with a few of my trusted friends. They’ve been very supportive, and I thank God that I have them on call. Well mostly anyway.

I’ve realised that I’ve allowed myself to become enslaved by my commitment to my work. This attitdue is now changing. I am going to find a way to get back into playing competition tennis, a basketball team, and to fly aeroplanes regularly.

I know my current problem has been caused by my own decisions, but its pointless giving up everything for work, when in effect it becomes your life. I should have learned this lesson from the evil Telstra days. I will still remain committed to the job at hand, but I hope they give me some flexibility to do stuff that I like doing.

It is much better to live, and catch up with your family and friends, than it is to work all the time, and miss seeing everyone. At this stage, I know I have a lot of catching up to do. But in the end, this choice is straight forward, and an easy choice to make.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so busy as I  have been last month. This has go to change soon. I have neglected committments elsewhere, and now I am paying for it. Once again I feel I have let down so many people. Yesterday I did get a reprive, and I went to a Lionel Richie concert with Gill and Andrew. The performance was absolutely brilliant. A good time was had by all.

I have another web site to complete, and its shaping up nicely, I just have to make sure I make time to finalize it. It will take about four solid hours to polish it off. My friend Michael has been helping me take my 1999 web skills to year 2007, and I am somewhat pleased at the progress I’ve made, but I must complete it, and complete it very soon.

I am also quite shell shocked by recent events, and I’ve made certain decisions that will inevitably have a major impact on my life. I just hope I can find an amicable way to act upon these choices I have made.

I can’t believe my 32nd birthday is fast approaching. I am officially old, but hey, I am not at my mid-life crisis yet, well I hope not anyway.