Entries 36
Page 1 of 2
China-Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan
This is the first of several travel entries from a Silk Road trip I took in late 2016 from Guangzhou to Dushanbe (in Tajikistan). Notes on Guangzhou I am staying in Guangzhou because it was simpl...
Catch up and Silk Road holiday
Haven’t written for a while. The main reason is work. For the last three months I’ve been acting in a managerial role and the workload, combined in the 1.5 hour travel time, is killing me. I don’...
After a long absence
I haven’t written for a while, and the simple and boring reason for this is that I’ve been buried under a large, never-shifting pile of work, most of which is government/confidential/billions of ...
Bookings and budgies
I’m in the middle of a long weekend, sleeping in each morning for the first time this year and trying not to think of the work obligations waiting for me on Tuesday. Yesterday, I finished booking...
Road to Dushanbe
Have a sore head from watching the Jesus and Mary Chain last night, playing ‘Psychocandy’ start to finish. A pretty shambolic performance with collapses in the sound system and basic musical abil...
Hot summer morning / Xmas party
It’s looking to get to a hot and windy 42 degrees Celsius today (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit for the metrically impaired), and I wisely did my jog around the mountainous streets of Eltham early this...
Sombre mood
The Paris terrorist attacks are still dominating the news coverage in Australia. I’m brooding over this more than I usually do the weekly terrorist explosions, not least because I am actually out...
Get a budgie
Enjoying a break while several major tasks are on hold, so thought I’d update my PB site – that and improve my game on Words With Friends. I am now officially moved in to my new place, with the s...
Off the grid
Settlement was due to take place today for my new house. However, I got a call this morning from my conveyancing lawyer telling me that the vendor’s solicitor had screwed up the banking details (...
Packing
Got ready to move into the new house yesterday by putting 700+ DVDs and equal numbers of books and CD into various plastic cases - these are now piled up in a fortress-like construction in the di...
Just bought a house
Some luck has come my way. Bid for a house this morning and to my great surprise (and, from what I could tell, the surprise of the real estate agent), I ended up with the property at around 4% BE...
House hunting
Haven’t written in a while. Part of the problem is that due to various changes at work, I can’t really say much about what I do there. It’s not that I’m working on nuclear secrets or anything tha...
Burnt down churches
Someone in Melbourne is burning down churches, including the St James Church about 500m from where I live. Jogging past the gutted, caved in ruins yesterday afternoon I was reminded of World War ...
Odd incident
An unusual event today. I was attending some training course - an annual tedium, part of the mandatory ‘continuing legal education’ that you must undergo in order to re-register as a lawyer each ...
Shonen falcon
Every morning at work, where I am lodged on the 35th floor of an anonymous CBD building, a small brown peregrine falcon perches itself just outside my window, gliding away when everyone else arri...
Tuesday
Writing here on a Tuesday morning. I’ve long decided that nothing great happens to anyone on a Tuesday. I’ve never heard of anyone getting married on a Tuesday. I think 9/11 happened on a Tuesday...
24th December 2014
It’s Christmas Eve and I have arrived to a largely empty office and am not inclined to start work right now. Monday and Tuesday were pretty hellish, though (largely thanks to Microsoft’s legal te...
Laid bare
I haven’t written for a while, mostly due to long working hours and failing home computers. I’m struggling to adjust at work – never have I been in a place with so many competing tensions and age...
Settling in
A fortnight into my new job, I’m taking stock. The level of professionalism is lower than my previous job, but there are some good and friendly people in my immediate work area, and I feel like I...
7 July
At work listening to Sun Kil Moon’s latest good but sometimes depressing album (as well as a great album by New Zealand’s Tiny Ruins). I was in Canberra last week for the second of my three fare...
Crofting
The weather, now in its middle winter, may be pretty awful, but overall I’ve had a great week. Because of the new job, I’m able to continue living in Melbourne, my employment and pay are more or ...
June 25
Some really good news – I’m going to be offered a new job with a State Government agency tomorrow. Same pay as I get presently, but given that my existing pay would be going down next week anyway...
June 17
A bit nervous today. A lot of the deadlines for my work ‘redeployment’ (i.e., selection for sacking process) is commencing shortly, but I know I’m on the shortlist for a job in a state agency, a ...
Here in my car...
This morning it was announced in Canberra that I and everyone else in the agency I work for was named 'in excess' (public service lingo for sacked). This isn't as bad as it sounds, as it is a leg...
still uncertain
Still no real news. I’ve been in several interviews, but haven’t been accepted or rejected for anything. There was an interview on Monday in Sydney, with the office in a beautiful location near D...
Book Description
These diaries are a continuation of the one’s I had on OpenDiary (OD). I am a lawyer living in inner Melbourne in early middle age and, being still pathetically single, have some of the baggage that entails. I work on a penthouse floor of a large skyscraper in the centre of the city, but at present my job is under threat so there may be some relocation in the near future. I travel a bit, and my OD entries dealt a lot with travels in the Asian world (the Himalayas, Uzbekistan, Korea, China).
