Days of our lives

Well, the wolf has grown older. Celebrated the umteenth anniversary of my 21st.

almost managed to duck out of all references to my birthday.....NOT !
got woken at some ungodly hour by good old mum, determined to be the first person to call me. (she'd even woken up at 2.30am...the time of my birth.. weird huh)
then my nieces got into SMS mode... then Bob rang (blow me down with a feather)

thought i would at least have a quiet day at work... no.. got taken out to Yum Cha lunch, and ate like a pig. wondered why everyone was trying to talk me out of having mango pancakes... (of which i made sure i had anyway)

but i enever expected to be in the office and have the lights go out and people produce a cake with sparklers on it. (got all mooshy inside)

Dinner with my mum and by brother went reasonable well.. even if i get end up arguing with mum over who would pay for the dinner. was a bit pricey and didnt want her paying for it, to which she got upset. sigh.

got a little/lot tipsy... so tried my chef friend suggestion to have cheese before bed, and after i finished drinking.. aparently the cheeese breaks down the alcohol. well it kinda worked.. no hangover but still felt like my head was all fuzzy.

so thus i managed to survive another birthday.. relatively unscathed.

will it ever end?

well... stress levels at work have basically gone thru the roof! hence havent been writing for a bit.

so to relieve the stress and find a good life/work balance, ive decided... fuck it. im coming out from behind my shyness. (yes friends.. laugh all you want but believe it or not, i am actually quite shy)
been trying to balance the work hard with play hard. gone out a few times with me best mates Paul and Joseph. Saw Bob breifly last night. was a little strange to see him, but i know in the end things will work out for the best for both he and I. Aparently hes going well with his new boyfriend so it makes me happy that hes so happy... just a little weirded out to think of him loving someone else. oh well.

had a nice Valentines dinner cooked for me by a good friend Ian (who does a mean BBQ) oh and Ian, if you read this... you know you love me ! (lol) i think hes out on a date tonight.. so looking forward to catching up on the gossip.

god.. birthday looming.. eeek! have decided im way too old to be having birthdays anymore.. so im boycotting them in the hopes this will stop me getting older. Mind you the older i get the more fun i seem to be having so im not really all that worried about it. more fun to pretend i am.

got new nokia N70.. so having lots of fun with my new toy. because FINALLY they decide to give you a cable to attach to the pc ill be able to more readily take pics on the run and post them up here.

anyway.. must go.. things to do.. people to do.. places to be.

Ouch

Well, a good end to a crapulous day.

needless to say work is filled with endless bureaucratic red tape,

and weird directorships. but my 2nd class at my new martial art went well. kinda.

well, did heaps more wrestling around this time. got trown about a bit, but gae as good as i got. noticed the guy i was partnered with, who was at his first lession, was a little reckless during training. but i put it down to just being inexperienced. got to practice with some advanced guys too. heaps of fun, although the positions are a bit sus.

got winded twice, almost broke my wrist, sweated like a pig, copped an accidental backfist in the face, got dizzy and delerious by the end of it from all the throws and chokes. but hey, i got to learn mount position, and side mount, how to apply this neat choke from the mouht or rear position. learned a defence against the mount position, and even the defence against the defence of the mount position. so overall id say it was worth it. even if i did seem to somehow hurt my hand, but think its only an old martial arts injury so im not too concerned.

had great fun, managed to throw one of my team members, who whilst a girl, is bigger and heavier than i am. and managed to work it against her, so looking forward to practising it on maybe friends who are bigger.

wasnt as bad as i thought being in all those extremely compromising positions with some pretty buff looking boys.. after you get over the initial thrill of ooh err who wud have thought id be like this with a hot straight boy, you actually dont even think that way because youre so focussed on training. seriously.

felt i got a good workout. planned to do 10 mins on the rowing machine after as a warm down, but only lasted 7.5 mins and got bored. i was so tired and in need of a shower.. so gave up.. naughty me. but i reckon i did enough today. we did about 150 crunches/situp things which killed by the end of it but feeling the abs getting bigger already (i know, im a bastard) and 20 wheelbarrow pushups which were weird coz we also had to walk like a wheelbarrow between the sets.

a good night of torture and im ready to curl up and snuggle my pillow.

Flying High

well.. Travelling Dan is off at it again. Tonight, off to Brisbane for work. luckily only going for 2 days.... Brisbane is a bit too humid for my liking and usually you end up being drenched with sweat just from walking up the road.

my little team are going great, despite having so many database and environment issues... testing is a very slow process at the moment.
went to a conference on the weekend for work.. where my boss presented to the conference and theres a picture on the big sreen, of me... entitled Dan "Who's ya daddy" on it. after several years at flight centre, i think they finally found my nickname. gosh, you make one little comment in a meeting and BAM it sticks.

get back to sydney on thursday and thankfully its a public holiday so i can not have to rush from the airport to work again.

hope to have some pictures for the blog when i get back

emerged from the other side of the weekend

wow, what a weekend.

went out with a group of friends on friday night to a club that we hadnt been to before. had fun, danced the butt off!

got home at some ungodly hour sat morn.. got hardly any sleep before being picked up by Bob and driven down to Wollongong to go to another mates party down there.
got to sleep at some ungodly hour that morning too.... Sunday afternoon is a bit hazy.. but i know i went supermarket shopping.. spend $200, and nto really sure what i got, since there doesnt seem to be that much food in the house.. lol i think it was a lot of frozen meals and crap like that... and fruit juices (to detox the body after such a bad weekend)

lucky me found out that Telstra have broken something at the exchange and i have no land line for a couple of days until they can fix it. which of course means no broadband either.. so no internet.. doing this from work during a break.

sigh.. what did we do in the days before internet?

going to bobs tonight to do washing.. since my washing machine broke and just havent had time to get a repair man in.... as not home during the day lately.

my team at work still has no environment to test in (the technology dept up in Brisbane have really let us down) so i was a good boss and gave them the afternoon off.. better than playing hangman.

wow ! how cool was that !?!

after a gruelling day of training my team (and somehow ended up with the nick name of "big daddy" ) i fought my way thru the problems of my laptop crashing just prior to starting the training, and then not having a database for them to start work on.....

we managed to get them all down to the harbour, and take them for a well deserved Jet Boat ride. fantastic experience, and recommend it to anyone in sydney! ok, we got soaking wet, but every second was worth it.

on the adrenaline come down now.. but cant wait to give it another go sometime!

heres a pic of my team (this is the actual team, the other project members not included)
of course this pic was taken prior to the ride, so we are all nicely dry.

Stray wolf finds blog again

Ok, yes, I know... Its been a while. lets all get over the shock and back down toit.

loads has happened since I last wrote on this thing, and if I was to put it all in here, we would all be here for days. so lets do the abridged version.

have been working as test manager for one of the projects at my company. we are buying a suite of programs from a 3rd party supplier. anyway, had to go work in new zealand for 2 x 2 weeks, and work with the developers so I could understand what the programs do.

Made a good mate whilst I was in NZ (Hey There Newman) and totally battled the return on a kiwi accent.

got back to Australia the day prior to xmas. so missed out on all the pre-xmas merriment but sure made up for it on xmas day. tee hee

New years was fun.. ended up going to a dance party called Fantasy. whilst the party itself wasnt so full , i had a great time on the dance floor.

then when i get back to work, i was given a team of 7 to manage, and ive grown so proud of my babies as they have just finished training on the programs yesterday and handled it with ease.

Today they enter training with me, and im going to teach them all to be testers. eeek!

We have a surprise for them this afternoon, and im taking them all jetboating on sydney harbour as a graduation present.

anyway.. thats a brief catch up, and im promisig to keep writing more regurlarly as my mates overseas never seem to know what im doing (wonder why)

how slack am I ??

god, it has been ages since i wrote anything in here.. so heres a quick update on the life of the wolf.

The new job as UAt Test Manager, is provings to be an interesting one. ok, so its full of undefined stresses and lurking horrors that im only just barely aware of. but focussing on the priorities in frontof me and trying not to the the enormity of the project scare me too much.

got to go to Auckland for 2 days. but the 3 hour time difference nearly killed me. we arrived at 1am on day one... and had to be in the hotel lobby at 9am. (9am Auckland time is 6am Sydney time) in my sleepy haze i got confused and set my mobile phone alarm to the wake up time, forgetting my phone was on sydney time..... i woke up, 5 mins after i was supposed to be in the lobby. man, i dont think i have ever jumped up so quick.. nor made it across a room in one step. managed to get ready in 10 mins.. but was in a sleep induced haze for about an hour.

day 2 was only slightly better.... and we met at 8.30am... .after a rather boozy night touring the vodka hot spots of the city. anyone who knows me, will know im not a morning person.. so youc an imagine what it was like for me to be ready and packed, in the hotel lobby at 5.30am sydney time.

on the upside, i did get into the qantas first class lounge on the way home.... so that made up for it.

looks like work is thinking that i may need to move to Auckland for 2 weeks soon, to work with the 3rd party software supplier that i will be testing for. interesting!!! always wanted to work overseas.

currently in Brisbane, on a whirlwind visit, as we (my division at work) are headingup to Noosa this afternoon for a conference. hard like.. first class lounges and luxury resorts like the sheraton noosa. who would have thought flight centre would offer me this. must be true, that we open up the world for those who want to see. (man my FC microchip that they insert into you on induction is working overtime today.)

im sure i have more photos to add in the blog, but working on the laptop.. so no access..

stay tuned.

Sleazy Wolf

ok, have recovered sufficiently from Sleaze to be able to report the story.

Saturday day was spent running around doing last minute shopping. I FOUND SOME SNEAKERS!!! (yeah i know, will wonders never cease) found a great pair of black adidas with white triple stripe. (very sk8er!)

had planned to go to some friends for drinks before the big party, but by the time my other friends got to my place, we kind of had to go straight to Fox Studios. the friends i was going with, were in one of the shows, and i was being given free entry, as a support provider to one of the performers. which meant we had to be there at 10.30pm and go in the back entrance (ok enough of the comments about that)

anyway, the entry pass we had gave us entry to the VIP bar (which overlooks the RHI dancefloor) have always wanted to see it from that view. very swish.

mind you..... at AUD7.00 a pop for a half can of heinekin and AUD3.50 for a small bottle of coke... trips to the bar were not all that frequent.

Danced my little tush off! had a great night i think.. all a big blur really. time went so quick, i was actually shocked to see the sun coming up.

Dashed home for a shower and change.. then headed off to manacle to check out recovery. Howver.. again, best laid plans of mice and men...... the line was about 30 deep, and after 15 mins...it wasnt moving at all... so bugger that!!! ended up going down to hyde Park and laying in the shade of a tree and chatting for afew hours before heading home. actually was a really nice way to spend the morning.. although.. to save the travel time .. there is a park across the road from my place....hahaha.. well i know for next time.

today im due to start my role as UAT Test Manager. first meeting at 2pm.... eeek!
already theres word i may need to be sent to NZ next week for training. wont that be fun.

starting Brazilian JuJitsu tomorrow night.... and starting back at Choi Kwang Do next week (getting some private lessons to catch up on patterns and techniques as its been a few months since i last trained) looking forward to getting back into the exercise and getting back into fitness. theres a Gym opening up in ouor building, which is owned by my company.. so free membership. hoping to get in a session or two in per week, to suppliment my martial arts training. i thnk its now more the case of deciding what nights i wont excercise..as the muscles will need a rest between workouts.

looks like some masseur is going to make a fortune fixing my aching body.

All hail to the great cosmos

Well... its happened again. Here is me.. not happy in my job.... and the great cosmos throws me another opportunity. Got head hunted yesterday. The role sounds very interesting, and would be a step up the career ladder. So i reckon im going to pursue it.

Big thanks to the guardian angel!

Seems i am lucky in this, that often the universe seems to just throw things at me from time to time, out of the blue. i think its done for a reason and so i take on the challenge and see where the winds of fate will send me.

Must mean i have a decent head on these shoulders. Im probably too hard on myself most of the time, work wise, and set higher expectations on me that i can ever achieve.. but hey, its a good way to be i think, always striving for perfection. (how very Borg of me)

anyway.... another wallpaper for Ollie today. throwing up my artworks for all and sundry is a scary experience.. but scary can be good sometimes.. lets us know we are alive.

Rang a mate in Germany yesterday. Schones Geburtstag Andreas! was chuffed that i managed a 20 Min conversation (approx) and only spoke a handful of english words. not bad for 8 weeks of learning german.. i dread to think how many errors i made but hey, he understood all.