2k8, the year that was.
Ah, I do believe it is time for me to post the current State of the Dilph. It’s been a wee little while since the last, so I should prolly bring my admiring public up to speed on Wot I Dun.
Well, let us see. You have all seen my post on the unmitigated awesome that was VNV live - if not, go here, I’ll wait - so the greatest moment of the year is already covered off in plentiful abandon. So I should update y’all on the more prosaic things, the simpler joys and sufferings.
Last July I decided to take a little time off work, relax, recharge, and catch up with the family. Work had been reasonably hectic for a while - the endless joy of short-staffing combined with the end-of-financial-year crunch - so it was the perfect time to GTFO and take some me-time. Which I did - a week of sleeping till noon, my mother’s cooking, some quality Droog-time - happiness, basically.
This was interrupted one morning by a phone call from my boss. Which, although being at 11, woke me up due to the aforementioned sleepins… and threw me into a wild panic. Why would my boss call me while I was on holidays? What had I forgotten/been caught out doing/been accused of? As far as rude awakenings go, it was roughly analogous to the traditional bucket of ice-water; and it got a lot worse, very quickly. He put his boss on the line. As you can imagine, that made me /really/ worry. Her first words? “I’m sure you’re aware that I have a PSSO job vacant at the moment… would you be interested?”
Given I’d been working towards that for the last two years, to hear those words made me oh-so-slightly happy with myself and the world. Some more minor details were sorted with regards to start dates and pay details, but I basically floated through the rest of the call… and the rest of the week. Best holiday /ever/.
New job is pretty well exactly what I’d expected, and I slot into place with minimal disturbance… all is right with the world. The team has a little upheaval as we lose a few more folks and are unable to replace them, so by the time I was trained, the team was short-staffed again… which kept life very interesting. This came to a head in October, when we lost two more of our team to fatherhood, leaving the team at half-strength… buckets of joy. But I made it through, got everything that needed doing, done… and learnt a bunch along the way. This was exacerbated by the fact that my folks finally sold their home of twenty years, and moved out at the end of October. Being the good son that I am (well, on the odd occasion, when no-one is watching) I took the last week of October off to help ‘em pack, move, and renovate the new place… so yeah. Double a normal month’s workload, in three weeks. It got hairy. I was in desperate need of a holiday by the end of it, but shifting furniture, packing sheds, and ripping up floorboards aren’t much of a holiday… even though I stole a weekend to be at zezom and raphstar’s housewarming/Halloween party, as the Zombie Cyclist - the general response was “Shouldn’t you be in some kind of costume?” Good times. I needed a holiday to recover from my holiday, in the end - the folks worked me hard - but it was well worth it.
The next grand adventure was Movember; first time I’d removed the goatee since Christmas last year, and the face behind it sure didn’t look right. I went the classic trident, and made a fairly decent showing - $290 overall, and third on the office fundraising list. Given I got given a miracle start by Phylos_Fett, to the tune of $200, it was vaguely disappointing that I only managed to shake another hundred outta folks’ pockets - but hey, still not a bad effort. Next year I think I’ll go something a little more extreme - the Lee Press-On pencil mo is looking likely, but there’s still a good nine months for me to decide how best to humiliate myself. Unless I end up doing the Shave for a Cure this year, which I’ve been tempted by for the last few years; a bald, goatee’d Dilph is going to be a fairly disturbing sight, I think! If it does end up happening, I’ll make sure you all have the opportunity to contribute to my embarrassment.
December’s big deal effort was the Christmas sneak attack on the folks. I’d been declined xmas leave, as I’d had the last two years; kinda disappointing, but still, they’ve gotta be fair to everyone, right? Mum was fairly heartbroken that I was gunna miss the first Christmas at the new place, so I got to scheming with my brother… even though I had no leave, with Xmas falling on the Thursday, I had a four day long weekend. So on xmas eve, I jumped a cab straight to the airport after work, and flew to Brisbane. My brother picked me up, drove me to the coast (the folks live two hours out of Brisbane) and dropped me at a family friend’s place. Christmas morning, I got a lift to the parental’s place, and rang the doorbell while they were having breakfast… I’ve never seen Mum so surprised. Well worth the effort, I think… happy days.
New years was a quiet affair - chillin’ with 17catherines, silverblue, chaos_crafter, lokicarbis and a few others - good times; just shootin’ the breeze with good folks. First NYE I’ve spent away from the Qld Droogs for a while… kinda odd. I’ve decided next year is going to have to be an absolutely insane partaaaay night, coz it’s been a while since I had a really big NYE… but we’ll see what eventuates, I guess.
The chariot has been treating me fairly well, of late. I’ve ended up doing 2060km on it in the last twelve months, and the last big accident I had was the Bloodbeard episode, back in May; the scar still hasn’t filled in, so I’m fairly sure I’ll have a bald spot on my chin till the day I die (probably in another horrible biking accident.) I did have the bike blessed by an Anglican Bishop, an Islamic Imam and a Buddhist priest in about September, so maybe the jinx has been lifted - who can tell? It’s behaved itself since, with one notable exception, but I’ll get to that momentarily.
The other big thing I’ve had going on is that I’m finally getting myself back into the re-enactment scene again; it’s been far too long, and every time I tried to get hooked in, I came up with nuthin - I couldn’t find a group playin’ in the time I wanted to play in, that met in a location I could practically get to on the chariot. But Novemberish, I stumbled across a 14th century sword scholar - studying the works of Fiore - who would be touring Australia in March. So I signed up for the Victorian leg, and found out that the organiser was also Victorian-based, and was running weekly sword classes on the same material… so of course, I jumped on that with both feet. Buckets of fun, and a link to the local re-enactment grapevine; just exactly what the doctor ordered. They meet about 15k out of the city, so just barely within riding distance; so I made a habit of strolling out there after work for a bit of a bash. This is where the previously mentioned bike incident comes into play…
It’s a fifteen km ride from the city to the meeting hall. It’s five km in the other direction to my place. So five to work, fifteen to train, twenty home. One evening, about three k into the 15k leg… my pedal snaps. I’m left with a steel spike about an inch and a half long in lieu of a pedal. Being the stubborn bugger that I am, I keep riding. The spike is exactly that; it has a somewhat jagged edge at the tip. It’s exactly long enough to reach the centre of my foot. I ride about 20km on this spike (I caught a train for a large chunk of the way back). By the end of this, the spike had chewed its way through the sole of my shoe, the lower, and the innersole… leaving only my sock between my foot and metallic pain. I got there and back, though! The most disconcerting part was when the spike (which, as I was shifting my foot over it to find a less-bruised place to put pressure on, had gouged a trench the whole length of the sole…) managed to get caught /in/ the sole, leaving me somewhat befuddled as to why I couldn’t take my foot off the pedal… good times.
The other new and exciting physical adventure at the moment is rockclimbing with Silverblue and chaos_crafter - a lot o’ fun. I’m fairly inept as yet - my endemic lack of flexibility is making life hard, but it’s a challenge I’m enjoying the hell out of at this stage. Hopefully I’ll learn how not to embarrass myself soon - I doubt I’ll ever be awesome, but I’m sure I’ll be able to call myself competent, soon.
Oh yeah - I had a birthday in there someplace, too. Possibly the lowest loot-count in recent history - the folks are holding off till next time I’m up north, and most of the local crew didn’t realise it was coming up, so it didn’t end up being an event. Faintly disappointing, but all’s good - the surprise of the day was being contacted out of the blue by the ex. Actually had a decent conversation, so we may be over the fallout of the relationship dissolution enough to be friends again - which would be pretty awesome. Time will tell on that front, as it does on so many others. I may have to actually indulge in some (gasp!) self-promotion next year, and try to organise a par-tay of some form… it’s always hard, given how close it is to xmas/new year, so I think I gave up a while back. Still, 29 next year, prolly a good excuse for a party.
All in all, 2008 was a pretty good year. I got the job I wanted; got back into a few hobbies I’ve had on hold for too damn long; entrenched myself in multiple social groups; had enough interest from the fairer sex to convince me that I’m not out of the game yet; and got a whole bunch of anecdote-worthy scars. A good year.
Here’s hoping I have a few more years like that, hey?
Well, let us see. You have all seen my post on the unmitigated awesome that was VNV live - if not, go here, I’ll wait - so the greatest moment of the year is already covered off in plentiful abandon. So I should update y’all on the more prosaic things, the simpler joys and sufferings.
Last July I decided to take a little time off work, relax, recharge, and catch up with the family. Work had been reasonably hectic for a while - the endless joy of short-staffing combined with the end-of-financial-year crunch - so it was the perfect time to GTFO and take some me-time. Which I did - a week of sleeping till noon, my mother’s cooking, some quality Droog-time - happiness, basically.
This was interrupted one morning by a phone call from my boss. Which, although being at 11, woke me up due to the aforementioned sleepins… and threw me into a wild panic. Why would my boss call me while I was on holidays? What had I forgotten/been caught out doing/been accused of? As far as rude awakenings go, it was roughly analogous to the traditional bucket of ice-water; and it got a lot worse, very quickly. He put his boss on the line. As you can imagine, that made me /really/ worry. Her first words? “I’m sure you’re aware that I have a PSSO job vacant at the moment… would you be interested?”
Given I’d been working towards that for the last two years, to hear those words made me oh-so-slightly happy with myself and the world. Some more minor details were sorted with regards to start dates and pay details, but I basically floated through the rest of the call… and the rest of the week. Best holiday /ever/.
New job is pretty well exactly what I’d expected, and I slot into place with minimal disturbance… all is right with the world. The team has a little upheaval as we lose a few more folks and are unable to replace them, so by the time I was trained, the team was short-staffed again… which kept life very interesting. This came to a head in October, when we lost two more of our team to fatherhood, leaving the team at half-strength… buckets of joy. But I made it through, got everything that needed doing, done… and learnt a bunch along the way. This was exacerbated by the fact that my folks finally sold their home of twenty years, and moved out at the end of October. Being the good son that I am (well, on the odd occasion, when no-one is watching) I took the last week of October off to help ‘em pack, move, and renovate the new place… so yeah. Double a normal month’s workload, in three weeks. It got hairy. I was in desperate need of a holiday by the end of it, but shifting furniture, packing sheds, and ripping up floorboards aren’t much of a holiday… even though I stole a weekend to be at zezom and raphstar’s housewarming/Halloween party, as the Zombie Cyclist - the general response was “Shouldn’t you be in some kind of costume?” Good times. I needed a holiday to recover from my holiday, in the end - the folks worked me hard - but it was well worth it.
The next grand adventure was Movember; first time I’d removed the goatee since Christmas last year, and the face behind it sure didn’t look right. I went the classic trident, and made a fairly decent showing - $290 overall, and third on the office fundraising list. Given I got given a miracle start by Phylos_Fett, to the tune of $200, it was vaguely disappointing that I only managed to shake another hundred outta folks’ pockets - but hey, still not a bad effort. Next year I think I’ll go something a little more extreme - the Lee Press-On pencil mo is looking likely, but there’s still a good nine months for me to decide how best to humiliate myself. Unless I end up doing the Shave for a Cure this year, which I’ve been tempted by for the last few years; a bald, goatee’d Dilph is going to be a fairly disturbing sight, I think! If it does end up happening, I’ll make sure you all have the opportunity to contribute to my embarrassment.
December’s big deal effort was the Christmas sneak attack on the folks. I’d been declined xmas leave, as I’d had the last two years; kinda disappointing, but still, they’ve gotta be fair to everyone, right? Mum was fairly heartbroken that I was gunna miss the first Christmas at the new place, so I got to scheming with my brother… even though I had no leave, with Xmas falling on the Thursday, I had a four day long weekend. So on xmas eve, I jumped a cab straight to the airport after work, and flew to Brisbane. My brother picked me up, drove me to the coast (the folks live two hours out of Brisbane) and dropped me at a family friend’s place. Christmas morning, I got a lift to the parental’s place, and rang the doorbell while they were having breakfast… I’ve never seen Mum so surprised. Well worth the effort, I think… happy days.
New years was a quiet affair - chillin’ with 17catherines, silverblue, chaos_crafter, lokicarbis and a few others - good times; just shootin’ the breeze with good folks. First NYE I’ve spent away from the Qld Droogs for a while… kinda odd. I’ve decided next year is going to have to be an absolutely insane partaaaay night, coz it’s been a while since I had a really big NYE… but we’ll see what eventuates, I guess.
The chariot has been treating me fairly well, of late. I’ve ended up doing 2060km on it in the last twelve months, and the last big accident I had was the Bloodbeard episode, back in May; the scar still hasn’t filled in, so I’m fairly sure I’ll have a bald spot on my chin till the day I die (probably in another horrible biking accident.) I did have the bike blessed by an Anglican Bishop, an Islamic Imam and a Buddhist priest in about September, so maybe the jinx has been lifted - who can tell? It’s behaved itself since, with one notable exception, but I’ll get to that momentarily.
The other big thing I’ve had going on is that I’m finally getting myself back into the re-enactment scene again; it’s been far too long, and every time I tried to get hooked in, I came up with nuthin - I couldn’t find a group playin’ in the time I wanted to play in, that met in a location I could practically get to on the chariot. But Novemberish, I stumbled across a 14th century sword scholar - studying the works of Fiore - who would be touring Australia in March. So I signed up for the Victorian leg, and found out that the organiser was also Victorian-based, and was running weekly sword classes on the same material… so of course, I jumped on that with both feet. Buckets of fun, and a link to the local re-enactment grapevine; just exactly what the doctor ordered. They meet about 15k out of the city, so just barely within riding distance; so I made a habit of strolling out there after work for a bit of a bash. This is where the previously mentioned bike incident comes into play…
It’s a fifteen km ride from the city to the meeting hall. It’s five km in the other direction to my place. So five to work, fifteen to train, twenty home. One evening, about three k into the 15k leg… my pedal snaps. I’m left with a steel spike about an inch and a half long in lieu of a pedal. Being the stubborn bugger that I am, I keep riding. The spike is exactly that; it has a somewhat jagged edge at the tip. It’s exactly long enough to reach the centre of my foot. I ride about 20km on this spike (I caught a train for a large chunk of the way back). By the end of this, the spike had chewed its way through the sole of my shoe, the lower, and the innersole… leaving only my sock between my foot and metallic pain. I got there and back, though! The most disconcerting part was when the spike (which, as I was shifting my foot over it to find a less-bruised place to put pressure on, had gouged a trench the whole length of the sole…) managed to get caught /in/ the sole, leaving me somewhat befuddled as to why I couldn’t take my foot off the pedal… good times.
The other new and exciting physical adventure at the moment is rockclimbing with Silverblue and chaos_crafter - a lot o’ fun. I’m fairly inept as yet - my endemic lack of flexibility is making life hard, but it’s a challenge I’m enjoying the hell out of at this stage. Hopefully I’ll learn how not to embarrass myself soon - I doubt I’ll ever be awesome, but I’m sure I’ll be able to call myself competent, soon.
Oh yeah - I had a birthday in there someplace, too. Possibly the lowest loot-count in recent history - the folks are holding off till next time I’m up north, and most of the local crew didn’t realise it was coming up, so it didn’t end up being an event. Faintly disappointing, but all’s good - the surprise of the day was being contacted out of the blue by the ex. Actually had a decent conversation, so we may be over the fallout of the relationship dissolution enough to be friends again - which would be pretty awesome. Time will tell on that front, as it does on so many others. I may have to actually indulge in some (gasp!) self-promotion next year, and try to organise a par-tay of some form… it’s always hard, given how close it is to xmas/new year, so I think I gave up a while back. Still, 29 next year, prolly a good excuse for a party.
All in all, 2008 was a pretty good year. I got the job I wanted; got back into a few hobbies I’ve had on hold for too damn long; entrenched myself in multiple social groups; had enough interest from the fairer sex to convince me that I’m not out of the game yet; and got a whole bunch of anecdote-worthy scars. A good year.
Here’s hoping I have a few more years like that, hey?