What a fantastic day (/sarcasm).

I woke up with the alarm at 6.30am, and I lay awake for a bit, but I just couldn't stay awake.

I fell asleep just after 7am, and didn't wake up until nearly 8am.

I had a shower, got ready, and I didn't end up leaving until about 8.40am, but I'm not sure of the time, it maye have been a bit earlier.

It had been raining outside, and the road was a bit slippery, so I was being careful riding.

I rode around to got on the freeway, and a couple of intersections before heading up the hill to get on the freeway, there was a lot of traffic.

I came to a stop, and then I moved into the start of the empty lane, and rode down towards the traffic lights.

A few seconds after getting into this lane, car pulled out in front of me, and I only had a few metres until I was upon in, I grabbed the front brake, and it locked up, I heard it screetching, but by the time I realised what was happening, it was already too late, and the bike was slipping out from under me.

I hit the ground, and I rolled over a couple of times.

I stood up, to see where the car was I was trying to avoid, and it was heading off down the road.

I left my bike, which was sickly idling, and I started running down the road, to at least get the number plate if the car kept going.

It got to the intersection, where the light was red, and I caught up to it a short time later, it was about 100m down the road from where my bike was.

As I got alongside it, the window went down, and the girl says "I'm stopping! I'm stopping!".

Yeah, well it would have been nicer if you had stopped immediately, or pulled off the road near the accident, instead of making it look like you were going to drive off and leave me lying on the road.

I told her to pull into the car park on the otherside of the intersection.

I jogged/limped back up to my bike, still on it's side in the middle of the road, it had stalled now.

As I was coming back up to my bike (or running down the road, I'm not exactly sure), someone was asking if I wanted an ambulance. I did not, and had no need for one, the only damage to me I can see is that the knee of my pants are ripped, so I answered that no, I was ok.

I started picking my bike up, thinking how typical it was that no one had stopped to help, when one of the guys from the plaster place on the side of the road came over, and helped me pick it up, he then helped me move it across off the road.

I asked if he had seen it, but he had only seen me running down the road chasing the car.

I noticed some fuel had run across the tank.

I turned my bike off, and took the key out.

I jogged back down to cross the intersection to see the girl, and I now realised my knee was hurting pretty badly.

As I was waiting for the lights to change, so I could cross, I could hear someone beeping their horn. I looked around, but I couldn't see who.

I turned back to wait, and heard it again, I looked around again, and saw a girl in a car motioning for me to get in, I went in and got in the car, she asked if I was ok, she had seen the whole thing.

Just as I got in, the lights on the intersection went green, and she drove across the intersection and into the carpark, and pulled up next to the car I had avoided hitting.

I asked her to stay there for a minute, and she said that was fine.

I got out, to speak to the girl in the car that cut me off.

She was on the phone, had the door shut, and the window up, so I just waited there, and she ignored me.

She got off the phone, and opened the window.

I cannot remember the exact exchange at this point.

I asked if we knew who's fault it was (ie, for her to admit it was her fault), and she said she did not know, but that her dad and her brother were police, and she could get them down here.

I said she should do that, if she didn't think she would be bothering them.

I asked how long she thought that might take, and she said it could be about 25 minutes.

She got on the phone again, and she called her dad (I assume).

She spoke to him for a short while. While she was on the phone, I went around to see the girl who drove me over, and I asked for her details, and explained that there were police on their way, but they would take a while, so she could go, and I would be able to contact her if I needed to.

She gave me her details that she had already written down.

I stepped away, and started taking my gear off (jacket, jumper etc), because it was so hot, and the sun had come out for a brief period of time.

I went back over to the car, she was still on the phone.

She said to me that we were both at fault, because we both failed to change lanes safely, (according to her dad).

That's pretty clever based on only what she has told him, when she caused the accident by not even seeing me, so I don't know how she could have explained what had happened.

I asked to speak to him, and she gave me the phone.

I asked to briefly explain my side, I was able to say that I was several cars behind her, I had moved into the lane where it started, and she came out and cut me off, and I had to throw my bike down to avoid hitting her car.

He said that it was my word against hers, and that I would have to go to court about it.

I said I had a witness to the whole thing, and he then said that I would still have to go to court, and my witness would have to go to court too, and if my witness did not, then I would lose, and carried on like this.

I noticed a paddy wagon stopped at the lights, I said there was a police vehicle here, and asked if I should flag it down, he said that was my choice, but that if I was injured, they would not take particulars, and I would have to contact the police on some telephone number (which he told me, but I don't remember), and he also gave me the telephone number of the police station, where I could report it.

I flagged the paddy wagon down, I thought they saw me, and the left turn blinker went on, and I expected them to enter the carpark, but they did not. I thought perhaps they were heading around the corner, to come in a different entrance, but they did not, they either didn't see me (fairly difficult, since I was standing right near them, waving my arm at them, or chose to ignore me).

I then told him the vehicle had not stopped, and he went on to tell me something about how procedures had changed relating to accidents, and reporting them, and gave me the number I should contact, of the local police station to report it. He also mentioned that things had changed, and he had been "out" for about 2 years now.

He then asked me to put his daughter back on.

I gave the phone back to the girl at this point, and she spoke to him for a few minutes before she got off the phone.

I asked for her details, and she gave me some paper and a pen to write my own down.

We swapped details, and then I asked what we wanted to do at this point, argue over who's fault it was (ie no, I don't and you shouldn't want to either), but then she took me literally, and started arguing.

I said I did not care, that I would go and look at my bike, and if it wasn't too bad, then I would either just sort it out myself, or I would contact her, and get her to pay for it, if it was like $100 in parts or something, or go halves, because I'm reasonable.

I left, and I walked back up to my bike.

I had a look at it, and I couldn't see anything really obviously wrong with it. The existing damage looked a bit worse.

The front wheel guard was scratched again, in the same place as when I ran off the road in Brisbane, glad I didn't pay the $750 to replace that. This time it was sort of discoloured, probably heat generated from sliding.

The right footpeg was bent up, the brake lever more bent than it was before, the front blinker was bent back a bit, and the lens scrtached, the plastic around the back right blinker was worn down a bit (but still attached). The part where the mirror is bolted on was more scratched than it was before.

I tried calling my mate who works at the place I'm at, but his phone said he was unavailable.

I called the project manager of the database project I'm working on, since he's probably wondering where I am. He didn't answer either, so I left a message.

I kept looking over my bike, and I noticed that part of the exhaust was missing, a chrome bit that goes over the actual pipes, the welding had snapped, and it had come off.

I looked on the road to see if it was there, I couldn't see it.

I walked up the road a bit, and crossed to the middle of the road, where my bike went down, but it was gone.

I saw the scratches on the road where my bike slid along on it's side.

I looked in the gutter, and on the grass off the road on the other side, but the part was just gone. Stuffed if I know where it went.

I went back to my bike, and I tried starting it, it didn't have any issues starting or idling.

I kicked the footpeg back down near where it belongs, I shoved most of my stuff I had taken off (jumper, neckwarmer, balaclava) into my bag, along with the bag cover, and I put my jacket and helmet on.

I went to ride off, this was when I noticed that the handlebars were not in the correct position, they were back wrong as they ended up when I went off the road in Brisbane about a year ago.

I wasn't sure what to do, I can go home, and straighten the handlebars up, but I don't want to go on the freeway if there's something seriously wrong.

I rode around to the motorbike place slowly and carefully, I rode up, and saw the mechanic.

He came out and had a look at my bike for me, but he couldn't see anything really wrong with it, other than the obvious damage, most of which was already there before, just not as bad.

He hopped on it, and yanked the handlebars around, and they popped almost exactly back into place.

This is when we noticed the lens on the front right blinker was scratched again, with a hole in it. Bugger, this is the lens I just replaced, just before Christmas, when I had my accident near the same intersection.

The mechanic got a big shifter, and he used it to bend the brake lever back where it belonged.

He showed me a bolt in the bracket that holds the brake lever and the footpeg, that's used to adjust where the brake lever sits, it's all bent, but that's old, because the brake lever has been bent and in the wrong place for ages.

I asked him anything might cause my bike to be defected, like the part of the exhaust missing, he said the bit missing off the exhaust doesn't matter, it's the scratched lens that may cause issues, if I was to get pulled over.

The mechanic went away for a second, I got my wallet out to check what I had on me, a $20 note.

The mechanic came back, with an old bolt, and some tape, and he taped up the back left blinker that's been hanging off for ages, and I keep taping up.

I tried to give the mechanic the $20, but as usual, he refused to take it, he said he'd get it from me next time (which is what he says everytime).

I said that I was planning on changing my oil this weekend, since I haven't done it for about 300 thousand kilomtres, so I'd come and buy it from him, and he laughed.

I got back on my bike, and headed back towards the freeway, I went up, got on the freeway, and just took it easy, once I felt that the bike was ok, I pushed it a bit, and didn't have any issues.

As I got near the end of the freeway, and was decelerating, my bike started mucking around.

Then as I headed on to the off ramp, I realised I was out of fuel, I'd only done 210km on this tank. I must have lost about 10km worth of fuel, in the amount that leaked out while my bike was on it's side.

I put it on reserve, and started heading down the highway. I pulled into a servo.

As I got off to refill the tank, I realised my knee was really aching now.

I filled the tank, and then I limped across to go in and pay.

The guy asked me how my day was, terrific so far, having just had an accident, and he told me to make sure I look after myself.

I limped back, got back on, and continued on my way.

I got to work, just after 11am.

I went inside, dumped all my stuff. One of the guys in the work area asked if I'd hurt my leg, and I said I had a prang, and one of the other guys said that that was why he wasn't a biker, it's not you that you have to worry about, it all the idiots on the road.

I took off the torn motorbike trousers, my mate will not be impressed when I give them back, I noticed that my bike jeans had a tiny tear in the knee, I pulled them up, and checked my leg, just a graze.

There was a note on my screen from the project manager, to give him a call when I got in.

I wasn't in the mindset for logging into the pc and checking how last night's export went just at this minute, so I decided to go up and see him.

I went out, got in the lift, went up to level 5, went to his office, it was empty.

I wandered around towards where the dba sits, in case he was around there, but he was not, and the dba wasn't either, so I went back around to the lifts, to come downstairs, as I was waiting for the lift, the project manager appeared, and I stood and chatted with him for a couple of minutes.

He hadn't answered my call earlier, because he was on the phone, and didn't recognise my number, he thought it was a real estate agent calling him.

I said I was ok, and that I was going to get to work now, after a coffee.

I came back downstairs, and I went to the coffee shop next door.

I mentioned to the guy in there about what had happened, and he said exactly the same thing had happened to him, someone just changed lanes and cut him off, he had to dump the bike to avoid hitting them.

He had someone on the back too, and didn't have a license, and it wasn't his bike.

He came off, and managed to go onto the grass of the median strip, so he was ok.

Apparently it cost hime about $2500 to fix the bike up.

He gave me my coffee, and I limped back inside.

I sat and did some work.

I was having great difficulty, and I couldn't think straight.

I managed to do some work however.

I got a call from the woman whose pc has been at my place for months for me to fix it. "You haven't managed to get around to fixing that yet have you?" "yes, it's done, I did it on the weekend. I put some extra memory in it I found, so that's all I'm billing you for, because it took so long." She insisted on paying for my time though, even though it took me about 6 months to actually fix the pc.

She asked if she could pick it up tonight, but I said no, because I've still got a nic in it, and the side is off it.

I said I would sort it out tonight, and she could pick it up in the morning.

I got back to work.

I finished writing one of the scripts I had been working on, and I set it up to run, it was going to take about and hour and a half to run.

I went out, to get some lunch, It was now about 3pm. I went up to the Thai place, but all their lunch stuff was gone, I couldn't be bothered trying to pick something off the menu I didn't know what it was, so I came out, went into Subway next door.

After I had told the guy what I wanted, and he'd made it, I realised I had no money.. that $20 I had in my wallet, I spent $14.50 of it on fuel on my way.

I had $8.70 in change in my pocket, and my lunch was $7.95. phew.

I went back to the office, one of the guys from the team said that there was no drinking on the job, unless I was going to share, thinking I was carrying a bottle, before he realised I had a sub roll.

I sat and ate my lunch, and then I tried to get back to work.

I started writing this blog, while it was still in my mind.

The script I was running finished, I kept working on this, then the project manager called me, I told him that the script was done, and I would come up shortly.

I got the keys to the room where the server is upstairs, and I went up. I was able to map a drive to where all the data was that I'd exported.

I went in and saw the project manager, said I would be in mucking around trying to get the software configured.

I went in, and set it up to index, it was slow.

I started looking through all the junk in the room, old 4x cdr drives from 1998, old pcs, millions of old "decpeaters", and ancient equipment.

I spotted a SparcStation IPX on the floor, along with a couple of tape (and perhaps storage) modules.

There's all sorts of junk in that room.

The project manager came in, and I showed him the software running, we decided we would get the vendor of the software in tomorrow (they were supposed to come in today, but he put them off after he got my message), so he went away to arrange to get them in tomorrow morning.

I went back to looking at junk, and I discovered a draw in the desk just full of junk.

The project manager and the dba came in then, and the project manager commented that they'd have to metal detect me on the way out, with all the stuff I'd pinched, and I said that the stuff was such junk, I'd be more likely to bring stuff in from home and dump it in here, to try to get rid of it.

We looked at the software running, it had run through 7000 directories, and there will be about 120000 directories in there, and it had taken 1/2 hour to do that, we worked out it was roughly going to take about 8 1/2 hours to run the whole lot.

I'm not going to stand here and watch it. It was now about 4.45pm

We came out, and I went back downstairs, and continued writing this blog.

The manager of the department I'm working in came and asked how I was feeling, and how my machine was, I spoke to him briefly.

I rang up my mate, whose trousers I'd ripped up, and spoke to him for a short while, he was on the train heading towards the city. He told me that he wasn't really worried about the pants, that's what they are for, and then he went on to tell me that he's getting a car shortly, and we said we might have to catch up on Saturday or something.

We spoke for a bit more, and then the phone dropped out. It was about 5.30pm now. My mate rang me back a minute later, and we spoke for another couple of minutes, before his phone dropped out again, bed reception in a lot of spots on the train line.

I started getting my stuff together, and I got an sms from my mate, he said he'd try to call later.

I put all my stuff on, including the torn pants, since apparently it's raining outside now, and they'll be better than nothing.

I came out, there were 3 bikes parked there now, one guy was just leaving, I loaded up my bike, and started putting my gear on, and another guy turned up and took off. I took off a bit after that.

I rode home, there were a couple of spots of rain on the freeway, so I didn't want to go too fast, unlike most of the people on the freeway.

I came home, and I got changed out of all my gear.

I took my jeans in, and asked mum to stitch up the hole, before it just frays the whole pants away, like usually happens to me.

I sat in there for a while, told them what had happened.

I came out to write this blog, and finish the pc, then have a shower and got to bed.

My phone rang, my message service, it was a message from my mate I go to dinner with. Oops, I was supposed to go up there tonight, I totally forgot.

I called him back, and spoke to him for a bit.

Apparently the colo guy is going to start charging me, because now I have a single customer, paying $10/month. Great, even though I can't add my own customers, my domain name doesn't work, and my email doesn't work (because dns is broken).

The issues with radius aren't likely to get sorted in a hurry, since he apparently only wants to do things when I'm there, that's difficult considering I'm working near the city until like 6pm each night, and he goes away on the weekend.

Ugh.

I'm going to put this pc back together, and then I'm going to have a shower and go to bed.

What a shit day.