November 27, 2006

Ah, Long Weekend

Filed under: General — Chris Parker @ 04:00

It has been a few weeks since I have written anything so here I am :-) Work has been fairly steady recently. We wrapped up the Canada project a while back (yes!) and I have since been working on a bunch of smaller projects.

I had the chance to go to Vieques in Puerto Rico. It was a great trip. I had never been to the Caribbean before so new experiences are always eye opening. I was down there for a site visit for a project we ultimately did not win. I have some piccies from the trip that I will post in Gallery (sometime). I loved the fact that you could sit on the shore in a restaurant/pub looking out over the beautiful horizon. I did to get a chance to go Scuba Diving while I was there and I saw a bunch of pretty fish (including car battery fish and block fish). If we won the project, I would have had to invest in a waterproof case for my camera. The plane ride over was fun to with the hop from Saun Juan to Vieques being done in a 9 seater Cessna :D

 

 

Christmas is coming up fast, since we did not get Vieques I *should* be able to make travel plans soon to come back to Aus for a visit. I am shooting for either right before Christmas or later that same week. I don’t want to arrive earlier than that as I want the holiday rush to be over when I am flying back so the prices are not over inflated.

Today marks the last day of my Thanksgiving four day weekend. Thanksgiving was nice with a feast being served up at the Wilson household (mmm, turkey.. mmm, pecan pieeee). I did brave the Black Friday sales to a smaller extent compared to last year. I was up at 5:30am and went to Staples, Radioshack and Kmart all in the Hershey area. I stayed well away from Best Buy and Circuit City which had people lining up there for several hours before the 5am opening.

I have started to think about Chrissy shopping now and I have absolutely no idea what to get anyone except mum (who’s present I got months ago). I will be off soon to have a wonder around some smaller shops to try and get some ideas.

I got a pleasant surprise in my email the other day. It was a scanned copy of a letter from GEERS (General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme). The letter was to inform me that I was eligible and that I would be getting a check in the coming days! woohoo! I thought that money was dead and gone :-) Thanks to the Australian Taxpayers on that one.

Oooh, I almost forgot to add (well I did forget so I am editing this post) that GO AUSSIES in the Ashes. I finally found a couple of streaming audio broadcasts on the web that allow me to listen to the commentary here in the US.

http://stanjames.teamtalk.com/StanJames/Ashes_Popup

http://www.shoutcast.com/directory/?s=cricket

I could not believe that it was so hard to find these. The ABC’s, BBC’s and Cricket Australia’s PAID stream are all unavailable here. Stupid licensing issues.

 Edit: Fixed some stuff – Looks like my grammar/spelling have gone down the loo…

November 6, 2006

5 Years Ago

Filed under: General — Chris Parker @ 02:33

Five years ago I was 20 years old.

Five years ago I was living in Dynnyrne with Howard and Charles.

Five years ago I was at Uni studing 2nd year computer science and geophysics.

Five years ago I was driving my 1984 Toyota Corolla.

Five years ago I worked at Dick Smith Electronics

A lot changes in 5 years, I am now 25, living in Hershey, Pennsylvania working as a Geophysicist, driving a 2000 Honda CR-V.

Some things don’t change though. Five years today I lost a friend. Five years today, Amber died.