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I have had such a heavy workload lately that about 2 weeks ago I planned an entire day off – knowing I would need it and the family would be needing me. So yesterday was locked out in my diary as being work free. well it didn't entirely work out as thanks to Optus screwing around with my plans I had to go and do a wireless internet install and local network setup for a client in their home. 3 hours later,  5 PCs online, mostly patched for windows updates, AVG 8 installed and updated, and Live Mesh installed for some users and synchronising backups. I left for this really early so we were able to leave the house and be ready to go at lunch time! We stopped on the highway for Maccas and KFC for lunch 15 minutes after leaving. hen it was back ont he road again and off to Mapleton Falls National Park. This is part of the great Sunshine coast walks and I was on a recce for a great bike ride that we are planning.

I had used the camera heavily the previous two days taking photos for the geek girls dinner and then for the missions fund raising dinner. Check the photos and the 3D photosynth out of the dinner. So the camera batteries were on the charger and I only had my mobile phone camera. Still I took some reasonable shots. The panoramic picture picture above was created using Live Photo Galleries cool panoramic feature from the falls look out platform. I would estimate that the height was about 100 metres straight down. I also made a photosynth of the same pictures – check it out – it is way cook and allows you to zoom in heaps.

We took heaps of pictures on the rain forest walk all up on Flickr. Here's some fun ones of all our shoes and then all our faces. Click the photos to be taken through to Flickr and the rest of the photos.

After that we headed out to Coolum Beach for nachos and doner kebabs by the beach. The children jumped waves and played for a while and then it was time to go home. I relaxed with Jude for a bit before settling into code for a few hours before hitting the sack. All the Coolum beach photos are on Flickr also.

so im away at the moment. In toowoomba. Working. Its so hard choosing where to eat out. Tonight i had to choose between pizza, steak, chinese, italian and mexican. I went mexican. Oh good food just got served. Im about to enjoy a quesadillo followed by a pablano with the hottest sauce they have.

Came back the same way I went. What took 2 hours 20 minutes to go, took 2 hours 17 minutes to come back - thats consistent driving!

Now I am home I have a massive amount of work to do. While I was away I could get into my server and process emails, manage files and other bits and pieces but my laptop does not have the same development environment for coding, making it impractical to try and work on some of the jobs I have to do. Only having 2 screens in the motel made it hard also when I’m used to working on 4.

So today its diving into the code work and getting the piled up jobs out of the way and done. First some paperwork associated with being away, a strong coffee to help with that and then code code code!

Oh and we just got word yesterday on a massive database contract we tendered for in February against Oracle – we won it! So that will kick off in a couple of weeks and I need to be clear of other work. Anybody know of any Excel and VBA developers in Brisbane looking for work? Email me or use the contact form in the menu bar.

I am in Toowoomba now. I am currently in a motel room (pictures below) using very fast ADSL2 Internet service provided free by the motel via wireless network.

I got here the fun way.

When I wrote my motorbike off a couple of years ago I waited for some time before replacing it and eventually replaced it with the Suzuki Swift Sport. Since then I have done 18000 km but no real good driving – just city and highway work. Today I got the opportunity to really go driving with it.

The videos are on YouTube. They are all filmed on public roads using a camera held in my hand while driving and holding the wheel. So the image quality and stability is sacrificed for safety. Additionally I didn’t push the car beyond the speed limit. However the roads are so twisty that was not necessary to obtain some great footage.

I am finding my work schedule is working pretty well right now. I usually get up around 8-9am and start work within 10-15 minutes from getting up. I work through til around 4-6PM with lunch eaten at my desk thanks to my kind secretary / best friend / wife, From there I spend time with the kids and family, or go out to football training Tuesday night and basketball coaching Thursday night. The exception is Monday night where I break at 3:30 for running and hen start back into work at 5PM. Wednesday nights I do not go back to work until after everybody is in bed – around 11PM. The nights are then mine. I am finding that I can get in 4-6 hours each night before heading to bed around 2-3AM. Thursday nights I usually work right through til 4 or 5AM.

I have been taking some breaks to watch the tennis because this fits into the same waking time anyway (Wimbledon runs from 11:30PM to 3 or 4AM here).

This work schedule works best for the family and me. I don’t need more than 6 hours sleep anyway, and sometimes less. I have a very good sleep pattern and I can tell from my Xobni Stats that I am nearly always asleep between the hours of 4 and 8am.. The family gets my time from between 5 or 6pm and bedtime and also in weekends, particularly Sunday and plenty of regular sports and exercise means I am keeping fit. Clients in America are able to access me from around 10PM through 2AM my time when I am always awake and nearly always on the computer.