I enrolled in a Food Safety Supervisor course, which later got cancelled due to lack of numbers. They offered to reschedule me for a month later, but work is on my back about needing this certificate.

A friend of mine did the course online, through the TAFE website, and I thought that would be a great way to go. Trying to enroll, it tells me that I’m already enrolled int hat course (the course I was enrolled in would have already ended by now, and it also got cancelled).

Today I’ve done the ring-around where everyone tells me it’s not their area, and transfers me to another person.
When I worked at iiNet, if I received a call that I could help, I fixed the problem, whether it was my area or not. That’s good customer service.

So apparently they’re not able to un-enroll me before they give me a refund for which I have to print out paperwork, fill it in, FAX IT TO THEM(?!), and the refund may take a couple of weeks to process.
I’ve had a bit of a whinge to an older lady that I spoke to, and by the sound of things, she’s going to try and ‘handle’ this for me. When I say handle, I mean I gave her my details on the phone, and she’s going to try and perform the refund right away, so that I can get un-enrolled.

I don’t fancy the $320/day fine that comes with not having this certificate, and seeing the council has spoken to me about it already, they’re pretty serious.

Crawling involves 1:10 scale 4×4 vehicles, and following them around tracks or through the bush, sometimes up to four hours. That’s a lot of walking, but it falls in to place with my wanting to get a little more exercise, so I thought ‘Why not?’.

Here are some build pictures:

As you can see, it is still a work in progress, but I’ve come a long way with it in only two days. Now I need to go and buy some paints and some soap-free detergent to clean the shell up. After that, a motor and ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) and it’ll be ready for action.

For those who don’t know my sign-name, you can check it out here: http://www.auslan.org.au/dictionary/words/storm-1.html

So.. The house got struck by lightning.

Unfortunately, the damage list is quite severe.

All lights and power-points have now been restored.

Laptop – Charger fried (thank heavens it wasn’t the laptop!).

NAS – Fried.

Media center (a Mac mini) – Fried.

Router – Fried.

Wifi – Fried.

HD Set Top Box – Fried.

My sister dropped by today with a ladder so that we could replace the broken light globe above the stairs.

Timmmb Supplied me with a replacement router and wifi access point (THANKYOU!)

Kyle loaned me a charger for my laptop.

Sitting here the last few days, I’ve come to realise that what I do with my life, is sit in front of the TV (which survived), and I watch movies or TV series.

Without a media center and a NAS, I am unbelievably bored. If you know anyone who has a Mac mini (core 2 duo or better) for sale, please let me know.

Fascinated, we both watched for a while, and something inside me told me that this was the difference in RC Cars that I had been waiting for.

I’ve had RC cars on and off during my childhood, but there was never really a goal.. Driving them in the cul-de-sac out the front was fairly boring, I drove in circles, mainly. My cars were almost always electric on-road cars, so there weren’t many places I could go, and when I did drive them somewhere, I pretty-much just ended up driving around in circles. It bored me.

When I got to Queensland around a month ago, I stopped to hang out with Rohan, as I always do, and while looking through his room of toys, I spotted a neglected Tamiya TT-01D. He’s run the car a couple of times over two or three years, and got bored of it pretty quickly. We agreed that I could borrow the car, try some drifting, and if I enjoyed it, I could have the car for $100. Car, charger, battery, radio gear and all.

Another mate in Brizvegas, Chris, was already in to RC cars, so when he found out about what I had bought, he invited me along to drift at Wynnum. I took Rick along, and we met up with Brenden, Chris and a bunch of other people.

My car didn’t drift real well, compared to the others, but when Brenden lent me a set of drift tyres, it made all the difference. I was hooked.

Brenden, Rick and I then headed over to Driftmas at Cannon Hill where there was an entirely different class of drifter, the skill level that I want to reach oneday.

It was at Driftmas that we met Marty. Marty showed off some donuts for us in his drift car, and after some chatting offered me an alloy drive-shaft for my TT-01D.

Couple of days later, Rick and I dropped in to Marty’s place to pick up the shaft, and what he had waiting for us was a close to complete Tamiya TT-01, which I gave to Rick, to help him get started.

Getting Rick started was easier than I thought, because Marty also gave me a brushless motor and speed controller, as well as some shells (some of which went Rick’s way also).

New kit in hand, we dis-assembled both cars, and started the build processes.

I’m sure there were more Ice breaks on the table before the photo, and certainly by the end of the night.

By the time the night was over, my car looked like this –>

Unfortunately Rick and I never got the chance to drift together, as I was leaving for the Gold Coast.

On the Gold Coast there are two drift nights a week (Wednesday and Friday nights) at a place in Upper Coomera, called The Compound.

The Compound is a warehouse set up with bike and skateboard ramps. It was here that I met Ridwan and Neale, both of whom run CS (counter-steer) cars, and let me have a drive of them.

It was a great evening drifting with these guys, I learned a lot from Ridwan in particular.

How I’ve missed driving this thing.

The other kind is that I’m travelling again. I’m currently sitting in Morayfield, Queensland, having recently been to the Coffs Harbour, the Gold Coast, Bundaberg and Maroochydore.

I’m kicking myself for not installing cruise control in the TX5, though. I bought the setup from Scott, and it’s sitting in my garage. The TX5 is considerably smaller than my XR6, and as such, cramps are much more common. Cruise control would meant hat I could move my foot and leg around a bit without worrying about pissing off other drivers.

When I get back to Sydney I’m going to install both the cruise control, and the better suspension package (shocks/springs/swaybar). That will make the TX5 handle a lot better, and be much nicer to drive for long periods of time.

It’s starting to cool down outside, which I’m glad of. It’s been 33 degrees outside most of the day. Hopefully we’ll get a little rain, too.

I don’t miss Sydney in the slightest, but I do miss the 20 degree rainy weather down there.

Auslan:

My Certificate 2 studies have finished, and I really think I’ve come a long way in learning the language. While I can’t keep up with a full speed conversation, I have a half-decent grasp of grammar, classifiers, and basic vocabulary. Enough to get by, anyway.

I’ve really enjoyed my studies, and I’ve made a lot of awesome new friends.

The plan is to enrol in Certificate 3 next year, and again, hope I pass. A few people have already told me that I sign at a Cert 3 level, but personally, like all the things I do in life, I’m not really sure of my own abilities.

My opinion doesn’t really matter, though. I’m sure the people around me will let me know how I’m doing, and a certificate in hand means the world to me.

Auslan is the first studies that I’ve undertaken since I left High School, so I’m somewhat proud of myself for completing the course.

Violent Crumble:

Broke the gearbox drag-racing, A new gearbox is going to cost a fortune. It’ll take a while.

TX5:

The TX5 goes for yet another blueslip attempt tomorrow morning. If it fails again, I’m going to be pretty pissed off.

If it passes, I’ll be off to Queensland on Wednesday.

Self improvement:

The main thing I’ve been concerned about this year is my crooked teeth, and on Tuesday I will be taking the first major step to having a beautiful smile.

Braces don’t interest me. Too much pain over too long a period, so I’m having things done surgically. Sure, it means a lot of pain for two weeks, and eating through a straw for two weeks, as well as having a semi-permenant retainer for god-knows how long, but at least when I smile, my teeth will be nice and straight.

I’m also having two extractions done. The two back teeth at the bottom of my mouth need to go. The dentist said it’s not important to replace them, because they’re fairly useless anyway. Not used much with chewing, and apparently I’m not going to miss them at all.

Mum:

A massive chapter has come to a close, and after two years of shit-fights with too many people, I’ve finally managed to buy mum’s house from the estate.

I have a few people to thank for helping me out with this. They know who they are, because I thank them repeatedly.

Finally I am comfortable in my own house. I own it. I have a mortgage. I can do what I want now, and I never have to move house again if I don’t want to.

Now I need to sort out work life and personal life. Life is not too bad at the moment, but if those two got sorted, I’d have everything I ever wanted.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

We (NSW) have a yearly roadworthy inspection called a pink slip. It’s not a big deal, even for modified cars to pass this inspection.

If your car has been out of registration for more than three months, or you’re bringing an interstate car to NSW, you need a blue slip. Blue slips are considerably more thorough, sometimes taking more than four hours to complete.

My TX5 was purchased from a friend in Victoria, and recently failed it’s blue slip. Yesterday it was towed to a detailer to get the engine and gearbox steam-cleaned so that they’re not covered in oil, as the car failed on “engine and gearbox oil leaks”.

Once that’s been fixed, it’s off to SX Developments to fix all the other issues on the list. There was an A4 sheet of paper attached to my blue-slip, and it was near-filled with other things that need to be fixed before the car will be allowed to be registered again.

At least my Deaf friends won’t need to move to the kitchen.

If I had to do it again, I would probably go with 10-12 watt for the loungeroom.

I’ve been for a trip to the local lighting shop today, and picked up assorted LED light-globes, most of them being 6.5watt, and all of them being cool white in colour.

LED lighting in the house is now as follows:

Loungeroom – 20 watt oyster-type wired directly to power.

Master bedroom – 10 watt LED globe in socket.

One other bedroom – 6.5 watt LED globe in socket.

Bathroom – 6.5 watt LED globe in socket.

Upstairs hallway – 5 watt LED globe in socket.

I’m not sure that I like the 5 watt globe in the upstairs hallway. It was a cheaper globe, and for good reason, from what I can see. It’s chunky and ugly.

Soon I will buy more of the 6.5 watt LED globes for the other upstairs bedrooms, the stairway, downstairs hallway, laundry and both toilets.

At $35 each, they’re not cheap, so I’m starting with the rooms where my flatmates don’t turn off the lights (The house has gone from one light constantly on at night to 5-6, which with only three people in the house is silly).

I’ve never considered myself particularly “eco-friendly”, but I am very aware of the cost of energy, and how much a power bill sky-rockets by leaving just one extra light on. Hopefully the LED lights will soften the blow just a little.

Until now, my experimenting with LEDs has been very limited, as I don’t want to invest money in to a home that I may not be able to keep. I have a 3 watt LED ‘globe’ in my bedside table and a 7 watt ‘globe’ in the light socket of my bedroom ceiling. The 7 watt globe is really strips of LEDs on the outside of a cylinder-shaped piece of plastic, with a few pointing downwards also.

The one in the bedside table has opaque bulb-shaped plastic over the LEDs to diffuse the light, and it works well.

Both of these are performing great. The 7 watt globe is very bright being that you’re looking directly in to naked LEDs. It lights the room extremely well, though, I would compare it to a 100 watt incandescent globe, only a lot colder.

Tomorrow will be the first serious step that I take.

The chandelier in my lounge-room belongs to my sister, and an electrician is coming along to remove it (and fix a few other things around the house). While he’s here, I’ll be having him fit a new oyster-style light.

Total power consumption for the unit is rated at 20 watt. There are 288 LEDs, warm white in colour, 1200lm (luminous flux).

The unit is far from fancy to look at, hell, I wouldn’t even say it’s interesting-looking, but it’s going to be the first LED set-up that I have permanently wired in to the house.

More importantly, replacing the chandelier with an oyster-style light means that I will be able to use the kinect on my Xbox without smashing my head in to a lamp all the time, and that if the light is on while watching TV, it’s not sitting just above line of sight tot he TV (which is considerably more annoying than you might think).

My first real step on the path to a more eco-friendly house will soon be complete, and if I like this light, I’ll start changing others.

I’d bragged to my friends, I’d compared dyno figures on cars, weights and estimates, and I KNEW I would be the fastest of us. Hell, I had a feeling in the back of my mind, that I’d be one of the quicker street registered cars on the track tonight.

Unfortunately, that’s not the way things turned out.
According to my friends, I was still quicker than 75% of everything that raced, but I was certainly nowhere near as fast as I should have been.

The culprit? The gearbox. I’ve been warned over and over by pretty-much every workshop that has worked on the car that I shouldn’t race with the standard gearbox because I’ll break it, and so I did.

My run times in order:
13.369@92.44mph (148.77kph) Hit the brakes and slowed down at around 1000 foot.
13.139@96.11mph (154.67kph) Hit the brakes and slowed down at around 1000 foot.
13.131@108.46mph (174.56kph) Stayed on the accelerator the entire run.

I retired after the third run, as there was close to no acceleration in fourth gear, and there was a huge metallic rattling noise in both third and fourth gears.

Congratulations go to Pete who ran a 12.5, and Adam with a 12.8.
Thanks to all the friends who came out to see me race: Adam, Emily, Liam, Meredyth, Travis.
A special thanks to Shannon for being both my crew person, and the talent behind the video camera.