I got up, got ready, and left for work. I don't think anything remarkable happened.

I got to work at 10am, and since I was planning to stay up here tonight, I parked my bike under the building, in the secure carpark.

I went in, and headed for my desk, when I went through the common area outside the section I work in, there was a bunch of people, and they were just about to have a morning tea, because there's a bunch of people leaving today/tomorrow, now that the relocations project is finished.

I went in, dropped my stuff off at my desk, did a bit of work, and then went out to find out what was going on with the morning tea.

The director came down, and they had a presentation for the people leaving, and they were given cards, and bottles of wine.

Once they'd done that, there was a laptop and projector and stuff setup, and they showed us a presentation that someone had put together, which showed the construction of the building.

There was a huge cake, they cut that up, and we hoed into that, and tea and coffee as usual.

I went back to work after that, and got a couple of hours of coding done.

I got a call from the guy upstairs, he wanted to know if I wanted to go for lunch, I said I did, and we headed off down the street, along with a couple of other people from work.

We went down to the pub, and went in, and found a bunch of other people from work in there.

The building manager was in there, and he was being smart, asking me what I thought I was doing thinking I'd get away with "it".

I asked what I'd done now (since he seems to enjoy having a go at me), and he said I knew what I'd done, and I figured he must be having a go at me for parking my "jap crap" bike in the car park.

I told him that I thought I'd get away with it, and then he made some smart comments, asking me how I thought I was going to get it out of there, and I said I'd just use my swipe card to open the door, and then realised what he was getting at, that he was going to disable my card.

I had a bit of cynical laugh (it wouldn't have surprised me if he had already removed access to the carpark from my card).

I finished my drink, had another one, played the pokies for a bit.

I went over and spoke to the building manager, and explained the only reason I'm riding it (the "jap crap"), and not a Harley or something, is because I have a P license, and I'm restricted to riding the 650, as it's the biggest bike on the learner approved list. (I had forgotten about the fact that while I had a Ps license, it wasn't engine restricted, so I could have ridden anything).

I had another drink, and played the pokies a bit more, and we all sat around chatting.

My phone rang, it was the college at Hornsby where I did some IT work ages ago. I went out into another section of the pub where I could hear, and spoke to them. They wanted to know about me installing a new PC for them, but I told them that I wasn't available, because I'm contracting full time, in Maitland.

I got off the phone, and went back in, we continued chatting for a while.

We'd been in here for about an hour now, and people said they were going back to work (people who were already in there when we got there, so who knows how long they were in there for).

The guys I went in there with decided to go back to work, I said I had to go and get something to eat, I was starving.

I said I was going down to the shopping centre to get some food, and I'd see them back at the office. As I was about to head off down there, the guy from upstairs said he'd seen this terrific hawaiian shirt in a second hand shop a bit down the road.

I took off, I decided I'd have a look for it. I went past the Samaritan's store, and I saw it in the window, I went in, had a look at it, XXL hawaiian shirt, looks terrific(ally tasteless).

I kept going, I went down and bought a couple of pies at the bakery in the shopping centre, and sat outside and ate them. I felt a bit better after that, the liquid lunch was giving me a bit of a gut ache.

I went into Lowes to look for a plain white shirt to wear under the hawaiian shirt, but I couldn't find one, they seem to only sell those dumb shirts with Lowes written on them now.

I gave up, and I went into Best and Less, I found a plain white shirt in there, but only medium, no large or anything, I looked at it, and I figured I could squeeze into it.

It wasn't the cheapest shirt, but I was a bit pissed after all the drinks, so I wasn't that worried.

I wandered back up the street, and went into the Samaritan's store again. I looked at the rack of shirts, there were a few more, but none as good as the one in the window.

I got an sms off my mate, he'd put the computer into the new case he bought the other day, but it wouldn't work properly, he wanted to know if I could stop in later.

I replied, and told him that I was staying up here tonight, to get pissed.

I went over to the counter, and I told the woman I was interested in the shirt in the window, she went over and got it.

It was still brand new, had the original tag in it. The original tag also had an $8 price tag on it, and there was a Samaritan's tag on it, for $12. The woman said that that was a bit rough, so she should probably give it to me for $8, I said I'd give her $10 for it (since I'd already got a $10 note out of my wallet, and what's $2 anyway), so I paid, stuck it in the bag with the white shirt, and I left.

I went back to work, and did a bit more coding.

I checked my email, and I got an email about one of my domain names going to expire soon. I went and looked, and the prices have increased ridiculously. It used to be about $10 AUD/year for a Christmas Island domain, and now they're up to $50 AUD/year. What a joke.

I went over to godaddy, browsed through a few different domain names I thought about, and ended up registering a .net domain for 10 years, for $82 USD, which probably works out around the same as a .cx domain for 2 years.

I did a bit more work, and then about 5pm, I got a call, that we were leaving to get ready for dinner.

I grabbed my stuff, this week I'd been organised, and brought a bag with me, unlike last week, where I left my clean clothes in my bike.

I went out the front, and waited for the guy from upstairs, he'd driven off down the road somewhere, and was coming back to pick up me and another guy from work.

I waited out the front for a while, while I was out there, another guy from work came out, and I spoke to him for a bit, and then the guy from upstairs called me again, he said he was waiting in the carpark around the back, so we both walked around there, and jumped in the car.

There were already 3 people in the car, so now it was full, and we went back down the road to the pub.

We jumped out of the car, I asked the guy from upstairs for his key, so I could drop my stuff off in his room. Then he drove back up to the office to pick up the other guy from work, who I'd been waiting for, before the other guy came out.

I went into the other pub (where the room was, not where we'd been dropped off) I put some BO basher on, and changed into the white shirt and the hawaiian shirt I'd bought, left the rest of my stuff in the room, and went down and scross the road to the other pub where the others had gone.

I got a drink, and sat down with them. We were there for a little while, and then a few more people turned up, including the building manager. He wasn't having a go at me for once.

I sat there and chatted for a while. My phone rang, it was my mate who'd sms'd me before, about the computer, he wanted to ask me a couple of things.

I wandered away from the others, into the carpark, where I could hear, and I spoke to him for a little while, he'd moved the stuff from one case across to another, but now it wouldn't power up.

I asked him a few questions, and had worked out that he'd shorted the power supply out somehow. (But I was actually wrong, it turned out he hadn't connected the power button to the headers on the motherboard, so it never tried to start when he pressed the power button).

I suggested he take the board out, and remount it, checking all the spacers and stuff.

I got off the phone, and went back to sit with the others.

Eventually the guy from upstairs and a chick from work turned up, and they had a drink, and then they got a call from one of the other guys from work, who was leaving today, he was across in the other pub, and had bought us drinks or something apparently.

When they finished their drinks here, we headed across to find out who was in the other pub, because we wanted to head down to another pub, to get dinner.

We went in, and grabbed our drinks. The chick had disappeared somewhere, so I ended up with her drink, a schooner of Tooheys New with lime in it, ugh.

We were in there for another short while, the Director was in this pub, and then we all left, and headed down to the other pub for dinner.

On the way, I was talking to the chick, and she was telling me that she meant to take me and show me a shirt in the window down the road, it was exactly like the one I was wearing.. yeah, because it is exactly the one I'm wearing.

When we got to the pub, I started talking to the guy who looks after the email systems, and then when we got to the pub, I sat out the back with him, on a different table than the others I'd been talking to.

The started calling to me, I said I'd be there in a minute, I didn't realise that they wanted me to go and sit on the table with them, and stop a woman from work that they can't stand from sitting with them.

Oops, too late, she sat down there.

I sat on the other table, with 4 other people from work.

The email guy and I had both ordered bangers and mash, they came out not long after. I know the bartender pretty well now, he used to be an A grade Newcastle Knight, so when the email guy asked for some bread rolls, he had no issue going and grabbing them for us, and we weren't charged anything for them.

After the meal, we sat chatting for a while.

The others, sitting on the other table, took off out of the pub. Seemed a bit strange.

I sent an sms, and asked if I'd been excommunicated because I'd made them sit with the woman they couldn't stand, (after being naive and not realising why they'd been calling me).

I didn't get any reply. Hmm.

About 10 minutes later, my phone rang, it was the guy from upstairs, I asked him what was going on, and he said that they'd gone back to the pub, but now realised they couldn't get in, because I had the key.

I said I'd be there shortly, and got off the phone, I told a few people in the pub that I'd be back in a bit, and then I took off to go back to the pub we were staying in.

I got back there, and let them in, and then we went into the room.

I was going to go back down to the pub, but they said they'd be heading back down there shortly, so I might as well sit around for a bit.

Someone opened a bottle of red wine, so I had a couple of glasses of that while I waited.



We sat around in there for a bit longer, and then we headed out again, and went to yet another pub, the one that's open to midnight.

We got in there, got some drinks, and had a game of pool. I was feeling a bit crook, I had a headache.

We hung around in there for a bit, the smoke in there was getting to me, so I went outside for a bit. I felt a bit better out there, then I went back inside, they finished their game of pool, and so then while they sat there, I had some practice shots on the pool table.

I worked out why my game is so shitty, it's because I've not been aiming properly. I've been trying to use the angle of the cue to aim the ball, rather than the placement of my thumb, once I worked that out, I was getting quite a few good shots.

We went and sat out the back after that, more fresh air, that was good.

I sat and had a conversation with the chick for a while, and then some more people turned up, people from work that we'd left at the other pub earlier.

One of the guys was pretty much pissed when he got there, and he had another few drinks in the time we were there.

We sat out the back for quite a while, and then around midnight, when the pub was closing, we moved outside.

The guy who was a bit drunk started going up the stairs inside, to where the rooms were. I asked him where he was going, and he said he was going to bed, I told him that he wasn't staying in this pub, and he had a bit of an argument with him, until I managed to convince him that this wasn't the pub he was staying in.

He came back down the stairs, and we all went and sat outside.

A few people had bought takeaway drinks, so they sat and drank those.

The woman from work that they can't stand was going on about getting a taxi, because she wasn't staying in town with the rest of us.

The building manager wandered off across to the railway station, assumedly to see if he can find a telephone number for a cab company or something.

I went over there too, to make sure he didn't get into any trouble, because he was a bit wobbly.

We couldn't find a taxi number, so we went back across the street to where the others were, sitting outside the pub.

When we got back across the road, a taxi went past, with someone in it, bit I tried to flag it down anyway. The driver hung out the window, shouted "10 minutes!" and then kept going.

We waited 'round for a few more minutes, and then we started walking back up to the pub.

I was walking ahead of the rest of the group, talking with someone, they called me back to wait, so I slowed down so they could catch up.

I ended up helping the chick basically carry the drunk guy up the street.

What's wrong with this picture? a 25 year old chick, and a 23 year old guy, carrying a 50 something year old bloke along the road.

We were about 2/3 of the way back to the pub, it ended up just being me carrying the guy along the road, he had a sudden burst of agility, and he decided to swing around a road sign pole, but in doing so, he tripped over the gutter on his way back on to the path, and nearly went face first into a brick wall as he fell down.

I stopped him from actually hitting it, by grabbing his shoulder and arm as he went down, and then I helped him to get back up again.

We got back to our pub we were staying in, he was staying in the other pub (where we started drinking), he said he was right, but I really didn't trust him getting back to the pub, finding the after hours entrance, getting the key in the door, getting up the stairs, finding his door, and getting it open.

The chick came back, and helped me to get the guy back to his pub/room.

He had his key, and we let him open the after hours entrance, but it took him a minute or so to get the key in.

I then had to carry him up the stairs, there was no way he would have got up them by himself, he was going up on his hands and knees as it was.

We got him up to the top, and walked him around to his room, and then let him open the door, but after a minute, I gave up, he gave the key to me, and I opened the door for him.

We put him on the bed, he said he'd be right from there, and we both went out, and I pulled the door around behind us. I didn't shut it, I just stood and listened for a minute, to make sure he didn't fall or anything, then I pulled the door shut, and we both left that pub.

We walked back to the other pub, went in, and went up and sat on the balcony of the other pub.

I was so hot, I went and changed into the shorts I'd taken with me to sleep in.

We spent the next few hours drinking, and chatting.

People slowly went off to bed, or left, and there were 3 of us left at about 4am.

I went in to the room the email guy was staying in, he had a spare bed.

I went to bed, he wanted a cigarette, and he'd left them in his car, back at the office, so he took off to walk back there.

He came back about 10 minutes later, he'd got half the way there, and realised he hadn't taken his keys with him, so he gave up at that point, and went to bed.



He wanted to chat for a bit, I was pretty tired, so I didn't add anything to the conversation, just acknowledged what he was saying, and then we went to sleep.

I was woken up again a couple of hours later, by the loudest snoring I've ever heard.

It didn't fully wake me up, just enough to be conscious, and lay there listening to him snore for hours.

Footnote: television is a terrible distraction. While listening to music, I was able to get through about 5 days of blogs in a few hours, after I turned the tv on, it's taken me about 4 hours to write one day's blog.