I am actually writing this much later than it claims to be, I was too upset to write this post when I got home last night. I can't remember a lot of details, it was a very long and hard day.

I planned to go to the Cafe around 10am, I woke up early, got up, got dressed, ate some breakfast.

About 8:30 I received a phone call from the guy who's machine I fixed the other day (the virus machine) he wanted to collect it at about 11:30.

I received another phone call, at about 8:45, from a tech support guy at internode, the provider my precision driving mate has applied for adsl from. It still does not work. The tech support guy tells me that Telstra have checked from the exchange, and that it works. They will leave the ticket open until tomorrow, giving me a chance to test it.

I moved the computer I fixed into the house, told mum someone was coming to pick it up.

I hadn't charged the batteries for my mp3 player, I stuck them on charge, waited around for about 20 minutes, until about 9.45, and decided I had to leave. I grabbed the batteries, stuck them in the player, jumped on the bike, and took off. I got about 2 minutes from home, and the batteries went flat again.

I rode the rest of the way in silence.

I got to the Cafe, I was a little bit upset as I came up to park, got off the bike, wandered in. I had to give a stiff smile as I entered.

The door of the Cafe was pulled down, with a sign attached to say that we were closed due to a death in the family.

I can't really remember what was said at this point, the first hour or so of being in the shop I have no memory of.

At some point in the first while I was in there, the phone rang (it rang a lot of times today), my mate who I go to dinner with answered it, he talked for a few sentences, asked who it was, and then announced that it was someone from the Daily Telegraph, we were disgusted, he was told "no comment" and hung up on.

People from the centre, and Wyong in general came several times during the day to offer their condolences, and any help we might want.

I decided to clean up, the place looked a total mess as usual, one of the main reasons I stopped working in there a few months ago, I couldn't stand the mess.

I kept myself busy, sorting stuff out, moving things around out the back, trying to tidy up in general.

I would stop every now and then, ask/answer some questions about the business/technical issues.

I collected a trolley, and started filling it with rubbish, empty boxes, papers etc.

The guy's de facto, and her mother came into the Cafe, it was very uncomfortable, everyone was upset. We had some conversation, mainly about the business, what was going on, then some details about the crash were described. Someone got a newspaper, it had a large article about the crash in it.

We sat and had discussions for a period of time, I can't remember a lot of the things that were discussed. The funeral is going to be in Canberra, where the guy's father and brother are. I think I will go down for it. There will also be a local memorial.

After the guy's defacto and her mother left, we went back to what we had been doing.

I rang a couple of people, to try to find out details we would need to keep the business running, trying to make arrangements with people, and just finding out as much information as possible.

People rang in during the day to confirm what they suspected, offer their condolences etc.

I was called up by a lady I do support for, my phone was out of range, she had left a message, I went outside to call her back, and left a message for her. I then called my adsl mate to let him know about the call I had recieved this morning, told him I would come to have a look at it later, and where I was and what I was doing. i went back inside, and my message was replied to, but again I was out of range, so yet another message was left, I gave up at this point.

A guy responsible for the national dialin service recently setup, and the Newcastle POP called. We decided to shut down the Newcastle POP. It's an office, containing an ADSL connection, a Tigris, a laptop, and a switch, the laptop and the switch belong to us, the rest of the equipment was leased off the guy who called, we'll have to arrange to get that equipment back.

i stopped at about 3pm, and went and got some food. The lady at the food shop said she was sorry to hear of our loss, she asked me if he was my friend, or just a man I worked for, when I told her he was my friend, I lost it. I managed to finish ordering my food, and pay, I quickly headed back to the Cafe, I sat and ate my lunch, all the while crying.

After a few minutes I went back to keeping myself busy, we had to tell too many people what had happened, it didn't get any easy each time.

We made a big difference to the organisation of the shop during the day, a lot of rubbish was thrown out, machines were moved, it all just looked a lot better, I hoped that would make the environment better for us to work in. I think we took about 5 loads of rubbish to the bin.

Someone took a photo of the Cafe, with the door down, and us inside. He was shouted at, I would have chased him, but right at that time I was very upset and had been crying out the back, so I was in no fit state. The hide of some people, it's disgusting.

A woman from one of the data providers called up, there had been plans to get a new link installed, and share it with another guy, I had told him earlier in the day it was probably better if he had that link in his name, and looked after it, she was calling to confirm that it was acceptable. I confirmed it. She then asked what was going to happen with the equipment in Melbourne. I was lost for words. I don't know what to do with it, she said not to worry about it now, we'll sort it out later.

I got off the phone with here, and I discussed the equipment in Melbourne with the others. I had forgotten about it. There is a rack on the 52nd floor of the Tower in Melbourne, which I relocated back early in the year. After Octa4 went bust, my friend must have bought it off them. I decided I would call the guy in Darwin we bought it off, to see if I could find out the contact details of the local tech that turned up to help me complete the relocation, to find out if he could remove the equipment, and either sell it, or ship it back to us.

We closed the Cafe around 4pm, I went from their to my adsl mate's place, I had been there for a couple of minutes, when I realised it was his birthday, I had completely forgotten. I sat around for a little bit, he showed me he had got some cat5 and rj45s to setup the adsl router. I came home, got my crimping tool, and went back again.

I fiddled around for about 3 hours trying to get the service to work. There is still no sync. I read the manual, I tried different phone cable pinouts, resetting the device, reconfiguring the device.

I eventually gave up, and called the tech support. I told them that it was still not working. They would try to arrange a Telstra tech to test the service at the premises, rather than at the exchange.

I went down the road to McDonalds, I sat and ate my meal, and I read the paper. I thought the paper was the same as the one containing the story, but either it wasn't, or that section had been removed, there was nothing in the paper.

I sat in McDonalds for about an hour. I went back to my mates place, we all ended up sitting outside having a conversation and a couple of beers for a couple of hours. The birthday cake came out, we had some, a very funny anecdote was told, and I couldn't help but laugh, it felt very good to laugh, it helped.

We decided to get some more alcohol, we headed into Gosford, went to the bottle shop, we bought a bottle of rum to drink, and I bought a cheap bottle of whiskey to get me through the week.

We got a pizza on the way home, and while in a daze, I fell down a step, the others found that very humerous, I was too far away mentally to care.

We went back, my mate's wife was reading the paper, I expected to see something about the crash in the paper, but there was nothing.

We made up some rum and cokes, very strong, watched a video my mate had filmed with a camcorder over the last couple of days, just talking and cars and stuff, pretty boring, but funny in some spots. We went back outside again.

We listened to some music, Dire Straits, and drank our strong rum and cokes. The song "Brothers in Arms" came on, at the end of this song, I lost it again. I sat on the step and cried. My mate consoled me, I felt really bad, here it is, his 22nd birthday, and I'm sitting here crying my eyes out.

We had some private conversation for a while, I felt a bit better, I kept drinking more rum. After a while, I started to think of all the crazy things the guy and I got up to in the last 18 months or so, that made me feel better, the things we've done, heh.

I thought about it, and realised that he did make good use of his life, he achieved a lot of things, and I think everything he wanted to, he had a successful business, knew lots of people, earned lots of money, and bought all the toys he wanted.

I just sat outside, and listened to my mates stories of places he's worked, and the things he's done, I drank more rum. at about 2:30am, we went back inside, we were going to watch Army of Darkness, but my mates friend was on the phone. I watched him play a Lord of the Rings game on his suXbox, realised it was about 3am, and that I needed to get to bed, because I had to go back to the Cafe again in a few hours. I left, and I came home.

I sat and listened to some U2, Bad was a very important song. I cried again.

I tried to deal with some email, I couldn't concentrate on it, so I went to bed, listening to U2, and crying.