Ugh, this looks like a massive day to blog. Here we go..

I woke up, at 6am, and lay in bed in for a bit, listening to the radio.

I didn't need to get up too early this morning, I had a shower last night, so I don't see the point of having another one this morning, when all I've done since then is sleep.

I fell asleep again, and then woke up suddenly at 7am for some reason. Shit.

I looked out the window and the senior DBA was there to pick me up. Holy crap!

I dived out of bed, quickly pulled on my jeans and a shirt, and then I piss bolted down to the car.

He was giving the guy from CCB a lift this week, I told them I'd fallen asleep, but just needed 5 minutes to get ready.

I pissbolted back up inside again, finished getting dressed, put shoes on etc, gelled up my hair quick as, then packed up all the bathroom stuff I needed for the week, and chucked the toiletries bag into my backpack.

I grabbed my bag, ran out door, went and jumped in the car, it was less than 5 minutes later, pretty good.

I listened to Merrick and Rosso, as we headed for the freeway.

We got to Lisarow, and nearly had an accident where a truck was turning right from a T intersection, and a car turning left from behind it just came out, and the senior DBA had to swerve around the idiot.

We kept going, heading for the freeway, and then I realised I hadn't brought my shorts. Bugger, I'll have to buy some when I get to work.

We got on the freeway, and continued listening to Nova. There were cops parked on the freeway, busting people, near Toukley.

We kept going, listening to Nova, up the freeway until it dropped out after we took the Cessnock exit from the freeway.

The senior DBA changed to Triple J after that, and we continued going to work.

We got to work, the contract DBA was there, at the cafe across the road, so we waved to him as we went into the carpark, and then we parked, and went inside, and I was at my desk at 8.10am.

I did some work, and then I got a call from the manager of royalty, confirming that I'm going to the blood bank this afternoon still (that I volunteered for at some point last week).

I told him that I was still planning to go up there later, and he told me that the bus would be waiting for us in the carpark about 1.30pm, to take us up to the hospital.

I did more work, until the sysadmin came down at about 11.40am, asking about lunch.

I told him I was just working on something, and I'd come up and see him about midday.

The little guy from royalty came down to see me just before midday for a chat. I told him that I was supposed to be going to stay over at Newcastle tonight (my mate who lives over there asked me to go and stay over there). The little guy offered me a lift to Newcastle later.

I told him I'd let him know, because I'm still in 2 minds about whether to travel all the way over there, and back again in the morning, or just stay here.

I went up to see the sysadmin about lunch, and bumped into the senior DBA, on his way out, since he's driving to Orange this afternoon, and will be over there for the next few days.

I chatted to him for a bit (he was supposed to have left already), and then he went.

I went with the sysadmin into the computer room, he had to check some tools he needed for swapping a disk in one of the arrays out. The tools were right.

We left the building a bit after midday, and we decided to go and get some Thai, so we walked all the way down to the Thai place near the post office.

We went in, and sat down. The guy who usually takes the orders was outside putting up some big umbrellas, with advertising for iced tea on them.

There was some kid working in here, it must be the school holidays or something.

We ordered our lunch, and were served, it was pretty good food. I didn't want anything off the lunch menu, so I'd ordered a Pad Thai, which was at the normal price, instead of the lunch price.

While I was eating, I was looking at the building across the road, through the window upstairs, I thought I could see someone opening and closing a door constantly, before I realised that it was the gym, and it was that bit of gym equipment where you use your arms to build up your chest, pulling them together in front of you from the side.

We finished eating our lunch, and paid, it was pretty pricey, $16 or something for lunch.

We started walking back to work, I remembered about the registered mail I'd asked to have redirected to Maitland.

I didn't know if there would even be anything in there, since I'd heard that the mail had been left at the place of the guy I used to work for, who owns the aircon business. I decided to check anyway.

I went in, asked about any registered mail there for me, and the woman went away, and came back a minute later with an envelope. I signed for it, and then left.

It looks like as I suspected, the court summons for my unlicesed driving charge. I opened it, and confirmed that.

I continued walking back to work, with the sysadmin, reading the summons on the way.

It went on about how I was accused of riding my motorcycle while not licensed to do so etc, and I'm summonsed to appear in Bundaberg local court, on May 6th, at 9am.

Christ, Bundaberg court??

I continued reading it, and in the facts section, I noticed they had my rego details wrong. At one place it said the rego of my bike was "VD527", and somewhere else it said "VD5271", neither of which are correct.

Oh good, this should get thrown out then, for having incorrect facts.

I continued walking back to work, and bumped into the chick from work, and the annoying support guy. I spoke to the chick for a bit, saying I'd just got my summons, to appear in Bundaberg court, and that the rego was wrong.

I didn't have much time to hang around, since we were still a bit away from work, and it was getting close to 1.30pm, when I'm supposed to be getting on the bus to go to the hosptial.

We kept walking, and we got back to the office at 1.25pm. I checked in the visitor's carpark, and the bus was already there, with a few other people from work already on it, so I jumped in, and then we were driven to the hospital, about 2 minutes up the road.

We got out of the bus, and walked into the blood bank. I got a form, and started filling it out, meanwhile, and the woman in there kept going on about my hair.

I filled out most of the form, there were a couple of extra things added in there, including something about people who'd been to north Queensland not being able to give blood.

I finished filling out most of the form, there were a few questions I wasn't sure of the answers to, so I left those, figuring they'd go through the form.

I went into the waiting room, and sat and watched the tv, while I waited. King of the Hill was on, new episodes I haven't seen.

They were running late in there. There were people from work who'd come in the last trip from work, still waiting to go through their forms, letalone give blood.

While we waited, they had bottles of water, and juice, and cheese stuff to eat, to prepare for giving blood. I just had a bottle of water, since I'd just eaten.

A couple of good looking chicks turned up, and waited in the waiting room.

I eventually went in to go through the form, all the others from the group I'd come with already had. I did all that, it was fine, so the woman checked my haemoglobin level, which was 155, which is normal, or good or something.

She asked if I'd been eating and drinking properly all day, in preparation, I hadn't but I fibbed, and said I had, since I figured that I wouldn't need to worry about that.

I'd also already wasted an hour up here, I'd rather just give blood, than come up here for nothing.

I went back and waited in the waiting room again, watching more King of the Hill, until there was a free bed thing to lie on while they took the blood.

Someone finished, and came out, so then I was asked to go and lie down there. I went in, and hopped up on the bed.

I noticed that one of the units they use for extracting the blood was manufactured by Baxter, one of the places I used to work at when I was working for the aircon guy.

The woman came in a bit later, who'd gone through my form, and checked my blood pressure, it was fine.

One of the chicks who'd turned up came in, and lay on the bed opposite me.

We both had boots on, and the woman who's been going on about my hair before starting going on about us wearing big boots, and I explained that they're for when I'm riding my motorbike (if I ever ride it again), and the chick explained that she had to wear hers for work, she said she worked at the kebab place, and it was an OH&S thing.

The woman looking after me put the needle into my arm, it was huge, it has to be, to stop the platelets from getting stuffed up or something, and then she set it all up, with the pint bag etc, and started my arm draining.

The woman started going on about my hair again, what did my girlfriend think about it, and I explained that I didn't have one, so then she figured that I was gay or something, and was asking if perhaps another "partner" had feelings about it, so I had to set that straight right there and then.

They checked the chick's blood pressure, and found that it wasn't high enough or something, so she wasn't able to give blood, and was told to come back in a few days, after spending more time during the day eating and drinking, and then she left.

I sat there for a little while longer, I'd nearly filled the pint bag.

I finished it, and then they came over, and took a few samples out of the line, and took the needle out of my arm.

A minute or so later, I felt really seedy, like I was totally pissed, and was going to pass out.

They asked me how I was feeling, and I told them that I wasn't right, and the jacked the end of the bed up, with my feet on it, above my head, and put a pillow under my feet.

They gave me a wet cloth to put on my head, some water to drink, and a bag of jelly beans to eat.

I sat there for about 10 minutes, feeling pretty rough, but then I felt ok again, so I got up.

I went out, they'd packed up all the biscuits and stuff from the waiting room, that you're supposed to eat after giving blood, because we were the last people for the day, and they were packing up.

I went out to the bus, and all the others were already on it, waiting for me. Oh well, they'd shouldn't have made me be last.

I got in, and the guy dropped us back at work, we got back about 3.30pm, cool, only wasted 2 hours there.

I did some more work, and then I got a phone call, from my mate's brother in law in Bundaberg, telling me that the computer was stuffed, and it wouldn't turn on at all.

I called him back, and then I sat on the phone for quite a while, talking him through trying to fix the problem. We ended up pulling the whole machine apart basically, pulling all the cards out, disconnecting the drives, and then eventually, after removing every card, and reinstalling the video card, and unplugging all the IDE devices, the computer booted up.

We then went through putting all the cards back in, one at a time, checking it was still booting, and then connecting all the IDE devices back again, and it continued working, so it was sorted.

He told me that it was still turning on when the phone rang, but I told him I don't know what to do about that, since the wake on ring/wake on lan settings in the BIOS don't make any difference, regardless of what they are set to, and I also don't have modems in any of my machines, or turn any of them off.

I got off the phone at 5.20pm, and decided that I really didn't want to have to rush across to get the train to Newcastle, I'm feeling seedy still, after giving blood.

I went and saw the sysadmin, and we left work, he gave me a lift down the road to the first pub we go to.

We went in, to find out about getting a room, because neither of us had anything sorted, the sysadmin hadn't checked in, and the senior DBA didn't have to, because he was now in Orange, and there for the next couple of days.

I've got the shits with the pub we usually stay in, because they're overcharging us, and they keep sticking us in a tiny little room.

We went into the pub, to find out about getting a room, they guy had one, he gave us the key to go look at it. We went up, and had a look.

The room was a bit stinky, but I figured we could open the windows, and put the fan on full while we went out for dinner, and get rid of that, it also had a tv.

We went back down to the bar. We talked to the guy about getting it for the week, but it was only available until Wednesday, because "Steamfest" is on this weekend, and every room is booked out for that.

We said we'd get it just for tonight then, and try to find something else to deal with the rest of the week, and then the guy said it would be $35.. each. $70?? It doesn't even cost that much in the other pub, when they are overcharging us, and they had air conditioning.

The sysadmin wasn't impressed with that, so then the bartender suggested that we might want to look at motels up the road or something, if we wanted to try to find something for the week (the sysadmin has to stay up Friday night too, because he's working on Saturday), and that he'd hold the room for us anyway.

We left, and went to the pub we normally stay at, to find out about booking in for tonight. They'd stuffed up the booking, it was supposed to be a single booking for Tuesday night (for me), and then a twin for Wednesday (when the senior DBA comes back from Orange) and Thursday , but they had it as a single on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I got it sorted, I booked it as a single for tonight, and tomorrow night, and then a double for Wednesday and Thursday, and paid for it.

The sysadmin was able to book in for 5 days as well, but the Friday night was in a different room, so he'd have to move around, which was a bit of a pain.

We want back to the car after that, and moved it around behind the pub, since it was still parked near the other pub we'd gone into, and then we unloaded all the stuff, and brought it up to the rooms.

I dumped all my stuff in the room, went out, and the sysadmin had realised he'd left his key in the car, so I watched his stuff while he went down and got his key.

He came back, put his stuff in his room, and then we left the pub, and went for a walk.

We went back to the pub we'd been at before, and told the guy we managed to book a room in the other pub for a week, which wasn't entirely true, but close enough, and it was just to let him know, since he didn't have to hold the room anymore (if he was even intending to).

We kept going, we went to find the Thai place across the road from work that the contract DBA had mentioned.

I think he was confused, because there's an Indian restaurant over there, not a Thai.

We wandered all around, through the shops in that area, across the road, but there was no sign of a Thai restaurant.

I recalled the pasta place I'd seen when I was near the post office the other day, paying my Amex bill, the guy from royalty had pointed out that they had all you can eat pasta for $10 or something.

We decided to go there, so we walked all the way down the street to there. On the way, we went past the gym, I looked in, and saw a woman sitting on a lounge reading a magazine, and thought to myself "I could do that exercise!", we kept going, got to the pasta place, only to find that it's closed on Mondays.

The sysadmin suggested that we get a pizza or something, since there are a few more food places not far from here. We walked around there, past a pub, past the kebab place (that the chick works at), to the pizza place.

Before we went in, we kept looking, there's a tattoo place (no food there!) and a Yummy Noodle, and the cinemas.

We went into the Yummy Noodle, looked at the menu. I'd rather something from here than a pizza to be honest, so we decided to get this instead.

I worked out what I wanted, ordered, and then the sysadmin ordered, and I sat and read the paper while I waited for my food.

We got our food, and went and sat outside to eat.

While we were eating, some cops turned up, went in, picked up a bunch of food, and left again. When they got back in their car and left, they just pulled out, without indicating, and then went around the roundabout without indicating. Typical.

We finished eating, and then just sat and chatted for ages.

While we were sitting there, it started raining, heavily.

We didn't want to walk all the way back in the rain, so we sat there chatting a bit more, and then when it started to lighten up, we got up, and wandered around a bit, under cover.

We went and looked in the cinema, I noticed a sign for HHGTTG movie, wow, didn't know they'd even made that.

We wandered around a bit more, there weren't session times displayed anywhere, so we left, and continued wandering.

We went into the kebab shop, and the sysadmin was telling me about the lebanese sweets they have, so we got some and sat and ate them, they were pretty good.

We left there, and wandered back through the town, looking in the shop windows on the way.

We got back near the pub, but we decided to go for a wander along the river for a bit. When we went to the carpark, the sysadmin checked that all his car windows were up, because of the rain, they were fine.

I wandered over, and looked in the window of the music shop, I still haven't had a chance to get in there.

We walked back to the street, and spent some time looking in the real estate windows. I was bored with that, but the sysadmin wanted to, so I just stood there.

I saw the music shop advertised in one of the windows, the shop will be for rent.

We finished looking in the real estate windows, and then went into the pub, it was about 8.40pm.

We went upstairs, to where the rooms are, there was some guy sitting there watching the end of Pizza, on the tv.

I sat and watched that, and then he went away, and South Park came on. The sysadmin and I sat there and watched it, I had a cup of tea.

When that finished, I went to bed, at about 9.30pm. Crud, I forgot to go and buy shorts. I put my ipod on.

I went to sleep, but had a stupid dream about being awake and not able to sleep.