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Two different dinners today, with the work Christmas lunch at Aqua at Milsons Point, with crazy perfect views of the Harbour Bridge. Very, very good food, where I get to indulge my fish love (without my fish allergic wife), and have prime Barramundi as the main course, along with a vege entree and an amazing chocolate cake as the desert.

So good, some phonecam snapping was in order:

The view from my seat

The desert… where presentation is nearly everything!

The afternoon was a nice work gathering, as nice as any work gathering can be, with an amusing Kris Kringle swapping of parents (someone gave me a cut Spiderman dinner set that went straight to Will when I got home), and I gave a colleague something similar for their young child. Drinks, conversation that was rarely work related, and a great location and atmosphere.

In the hot conditions, when we were done with that I jumped the right train to get back to Blacktown and pick up the kids, then headed to our hotel room. Got the glorious news that Sallie had spent the day finishing the packing and cleaning with Rachel, and later with Salllie’s parents down from Coona to help us out, so my ordeal would nearly be over. Then, I took the boys over to Blacktown Westpoint where we had dinner at the Hogsbreath Cafe with Sallie’s parents, grandparent and Uncle Wayne and his wife Roisie, and they young daughter Joselyn. Big family gathering, fun evening, nice food even though I didn’t eat heaps since I was full from lunch!

I had some more work to finish, back at the old house after dinner, finishing it all off and taking one last load to the storage (where we picked up a second smaller space!) Finishing and finally closing off the old house at 11pm felt early compared to yesterday, and I enjoyed an hour at the hotel before sleep.

Tomorrow, we hit the road!

Went back to work today, after a long weekend at home. Much of the same old thing at work really, with no great issues (even when I thought there would be), and no great revelations.

Rugged right up as usual, getting back to leaving home at 7.30am. Didn’t miss that… it’s lucky to be over 10 degrees. This morning, it was colder when I got to work at 9am than when I left home, which was even odder.

Well, back home at the end of the day, get to have the quiet night and do as I please (meaning Guitar Hero and TV downloads!), maybe a movie later, being a Tuesday night.

A few days of quiet is great, but I have to admit, it’s now becoming noticeably clear that I’m so used to a house full of family that I will find the situation very odd after a week… so after three weeks? Hmmm…. it won’t “upset” me, but it will still be odd.

Went into the city today for a birthday party for a friend at work, which I haven’t done that often recently, so it was good. Of course, the weather was awful, and the trains were delayed from trackworks, but it worked out okay.

Cameron picked an amusing choice for lunch… he’s 29 but went for the “12-year-old” birthday option. We ate at “Bite Me” Burger at Star City Casino, another one of the increasingly common higher-end themed burger places popping up. Better than The Counter, not quite as good as Grill’d, is how I’d describe it (to name drop a few other burger places I’ve eaten at recently. None as good as Burgerlicious though, but it’s been a few years since I went there.

Nice lunch, good time with good people, talked mostly about sport since it was a fairly blokey crowd, oddly enough. After, we were supposed to go back to Darling Harbour to play Laser tag, something I haven’t done since I was about 14. Apparently the other guys had been there not long ago one night and thought it would be fun.

But when we got there it was kid central. Not exactly surprising really, but this place, from what I’m told, runs like a kid’s party heaven in the day time, then turns into a nightclub on the right nights. No guesses as to when they last went.

Anyway, to some extent we’d expected to take on teenagers, but when a tribe of seven year olds marched in with a typical seven-year-old degree of noise, we reconsidered our options. And quickly backed out…

Maybe another time, when the crowd matches us a little more. Not really wanting to look like Barney from “How I Met Your Mother”, we thought it would be tough to take on kids half our size, so we opted out.

Oh well, it will have to be Laser Tag another day. Still, good fun anyway…

Took Alex to the hospital for a flu shot in the morning, which is always an interesting trip, but totally uneventful. It did keep me working at home for the rest of the day, and I’ve got the outside room set up as a good office now. The kids have their lounge and table out there as well, and they spent much of the day with me out there, which worked mostly…

Will got a bit crazy, hysterical actually, which didn’t work out so well for productivity for a brief period. You’d swear he was drunk the way he was, laughing hysterically, falling over, giggling on the floor. Funny but crazy.

And naturally I went until 2am… powering through gallery creation for the new website at work. Got a lot done, but plenty more to do.

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, etc… Yes, it is my birthday today, 34 today, though I expect for the most part it will be a day as usual as any other. No specific plans today, with the celebration of sorts set for Sunday (when we can have a day of babysitting and go out, just Sallie and I). Work was as odd as it’s been this week, with no specific computer either, I spent a bunch of hours at work, had a birthday lunch at the pub with colleagues, then gathered up all the files I needed and went home to do the required work for the day. Friday’s are getting really dumb at work, so I didn’t feel like being in the ofice until 8pm again. Of course, at home I ended up working most of the night, which isn’t terrible when you can pause and watch the new Simpsons (something I almost always miss now), and be with the family. So I work and enjoy the night, and send the newsletter out at 11.30pm. Oddly enough, this subsequently didn’t seen to bother anyone.

Been a funny week at work this week. On Monday my computer broke down completely, which saw me shuffle around any spare desk for a few days (we’re in a small office, so there aren’t many to choose from). Then, today, there was nothing available for me, so I have literally been able to go home at 10.30am. I mean, I’ll do some work from home to be sure, but it’s a quiet day anyway, and I haven’t been well, so there isn’t much on me pressure wise, which is always good.

So, home by midday, a bit of work remotely, as much as I would have done from work certainly, then, recuperating. Always good.

Well, I say again, but it was at least five weeks ago that I last had any time off. And this one is quite different today, mostly just the headache/temperature/coughing thing.

Half the time, I think I stay home from work on this because I want to avoid the hour and a half commute… ha ha.

Anyway, looking to get back to work tomorrow, no need to elaborate here.

Though, as further note on my phone situation, the thing still works, but apparently the ringer is broken. People ring me and I can’t hear it… ha ha.

Another hospital trip today, this time mainly for Alex. A hearing test… to put it bluntly we’re quite sure he  has some hearing problems, we’re just not sure how much.

It would explain a lot, like his speech, and his understanding of things, and the way he reacts, or doesn’t react, to us in so many ways.

Typically of course, no concrete results today, only more follow-ups. Such is the way.

Managed to work at home for the rest of the day, and got a lot done. More than I’d do in the office, today at least. I’m really enjoying the challenge right now.

Currently in a work sense, I’m really not doing Fridays very well…

Day’s too long, work is too overdone, and not enough gets done anyway.

Work-wise, it’s all crazy… I’d rather be doing the new things, but the old things just take up all the time.

And lunchtime is party time on Fridays, which is great, but it cuts down on the work time as well. Can’t really complain about that, wouldn’t want to change it.

But the end of the work day never comes, and I’m always the last one there… I can change it if I organise it of course…

And damn you Channel Ten for putting The Simpsons on Friday night for some stupid reason! The only night of the week I’m almost always home well after 7.30pm… typical! More reasons to download…

This is what I call productivity:

On the train, to and from work, I wrote 2100 words of my new fiction project. About 1100 in the morning, and another thousand on the way home.

Quite happy with that. Making good progress on this new thing…

Then… at work, I was able to spend nearly the whole day working on the new site. I seemed to learn more PHP than  ever before, get further into the WordPress system, and I  actually ended the day solving several problems and really feeling like I learned many things.

Which isn’t that common at work, unfortunately.

But today was… productive. On all counts. Nice.