Chris's Random Ramblings
Michael talks about Qantas never having lost his luggage even though he's flown a lot. I've lost my bags a few times, though its mostly been during overseas trips with a few connections which isn't too surprising. These days on international flights I take a spare change of clothes with me with my carry-on-luggage just in case. However, Qantas has lots my bags once on a direct flight from Adelaide to Canberra. Perhaps I confused them by checking in 60 minutes before the flight instead of just in time. So far (fingers crossed) all the airlines have been really good about finding my luggage and I've never had to wait more than 24 hours, normally only a few hours on the more highly travelled routes.
I've been meaning to try voip and have a play with Asterisk for a while. I finally got around to getting an Analogue Telephone Adaptor (ATA), the Sipura SPA-3000 during the week.
This ATA has an ethernet port, a socket for a phone and one for a PSTN line. This makes it possible for me to use my cordless phone to accepts and make calls through my normal telephone as well as voip calls. There is a nice fail over function where if the voip connection fails or there is a power failure then it falls back to routing the calls through the PSTN line.
Registered for a free account through SipPhone and setup turned out to be very easy. Stephen also bought and setup an ATA and I gave him a call - was most impressed by the quality of the sound. The ISP which I use, Internode are meant to be setting up a voip service, so I am looking forward to getting an account through them. Having a DID in Adelaide would be great for having really cheap phone calls with my parents.
Pipe has been having diarrhoea problems, and the very helpful people at the Canberra Veterinary Hospital recommended we try him on some hypoallergenic food. He hasn't been quite so eager to change his diet, and unfortunately got into the kitchen bin again on Friday night to rescue some pet food cans. Even worse, he also ate a small plastic bag in the process. We didn't find out till Saturday night when he started making some funny noises and then threw up a few biscuits along with what we hope is all of the bag.
Talked to someone from the hospital this morning and he seems to be ok now. So now the kitchin bin lives locked away in the laundry. Plastic bags bad for animals! And probably not so good eating for humans either.
Jeremy organised a Go Karting session last Saturday, so I went along with Anton, Michael, Martin, and Rusty. As our normal place in Hume was booked out we went to the Fyshwick track for the first time. Unlike the other track, the Fyshwick one is entirely indoors and quite small with very tight corners. Still very fun, and I accidentally ran Michael into the side of the track - he did a bit of a spin losing a wheel and some oil in the process.
After that it was off to Rusty and Alli's place for Sushi that Alli and Kelly had been making for most of the day with my new sushi making device (makes making sushi very easy!). We arrived to find a note saying that Alli and Kelly had decided to go back to my place to play with Pipe. So off back to my place to discover a surprise birthday party for me!
My birthday was a couple of weeks ago, right at the end of Linux.conf.au and Kelly had already organised a surprise birthday cake at Tridge's post conference BBQ, so I had thought that was it. But apparently Kelly has been organising a surprise cocktail party for me for the last couple of months. Even my parents who we visited last weekend in Adelaide knew about it and sent some curry puffs and pineapple tarts back with us.
Of course, a cocktail party requires some formalwear, so a very formal suit, with gloves, top hat and stick was waiting for me in the bedroom. Kelly had managed to find an excuse to borrow one of my suits to get measurements to hire the clothes.
Pipe was the life of the party!
