The lesser mabinogion

Went to a social club function last night….a farewell for a whole bunch of people.
It was basically a piss up – finger food, and a tab that even covered spirits…
I’m not sure I really have much to say about it though
I went, I drank, the club closed at 1:30, so a few of us went to a pub round the corner…and the last two of us left at 4:00am…or 3:00am…I dunno…somewhere in the middle of all that daylight savings ended, so I was rather confused by the time I stumbled into bed at (4/3):30…

Today has been a fairly slow day as a result…very slow….slow and deliberate and careful….though probably not quite careful enough, as I maanged to kill my server in an attempt to reboot it. Fortunately the rebooting service provided by managed.com worked and it’s up and running again.
I spent most of the day battling with PHP. I have only just managed to tame it now.
I wouldn’t have even bothered if it weren’t for the fact that pretty much any ready made web application out there is written in PHP, whether it be log analyser, CMS, webmail, etc…it’s annoying…PHP is such a horrible language and such a horrible package.
But it’s done now.

Edited to add:
I’ve been instructed that I have to mention that part of my recovery today involved spending a period of time soaking in the bath surrounded by strawberry bubbles.
I’m not sure why that’s important, but apparently it is
So there you go.

I’ve spent the last few days trying to set up a server…
I took the plunge and invested in dedicated server hosting…after hunting around a bit, and reading reviews and stuff, I decided on managed hosting services who’s name is a misnomer, since they only sell unmanaged hosts. Not that it bothers me, ’cause that’s all I wanted…heh
They’re probably not the best in the market, but from what I can tell they’re certainly not the worst, and they don’t have many complaints against them compared to what I’ve read for others in the same price range, and the complaints that people did have were mostly a result of their own stupidity.

Anyway, eventually I’ll be moving cumulo-nimbus.com, shadowsandice.com and this site (which will become stuartherring.com) to the new server, as well as setting up herringfamily.org.
But first, I’m battling with postfix, cyrus, mysql, apache, and everything else….
I wonder how long it’ll take me?

There’s too many things I want to buy that are in the $300 and up range…which means that I have to save for them….and then I only get one….and then by the time I get one, there’s 3 more I want….
But that’s life…it’s always been like that, and always will be…only the price threshold will change.

My current list includes (in no particular order).
* A decent audio card for my music computer. – the SB Live just isn’t cutting it any more
* A full length leather coat – my old woolen trench coat is pretty much had it – time to move up in the world.
* A Sony Ericsson P900 phone – smaller than a PDA with phone capabilities, but still PDA enough to be useful.
* An iPod – sure, I could get another portable digitial music jubekox, but it just wouldn’t be the same..
* A new fast computer for games and messing around with – It’s about time I had a computer I could just fiddle with, without fear of losing my life’s work in the process.
* A Cello – just ’cause. I’ve always wanted to learn Cello.
* A Bass Pod, or Bass VAmp – probably the Bass VAmp Pro, I’ve got a PodXt now so I don’t have anything to prove by paying too much for line 6 gear…but then, in light of my recent Behringer experience, maybe the VAmp is not such a good idea…we’ll see.
* A Digital Camera – I was looking at the Cannon IXUS 400, but I don’t think I need to now, since small size was Tessa’s requirement. I might look for something a littel bigger, but cheaper.

I’m sure there’s more…but it’s slipped my mind right now.
oh, and the number 1 thing I DIDN’T want to buy?
A New Bloody Mixer!

My mixer died.
I just wanted to record some flute…and I actually did a take, but it didn’t record. Which was because I’d forgotten to turn on the phantom power.
So I turned on the phantom power (after first muting stuff and turning stuff down like you’re ’sposed to) and all the lights on it went out.
Bugger.
It just died – completely. no go. dead.
After poking around a bit I found where the fuse was – but by this point it was 6:30 in the evening, so there was nothing much I could do about it.
So, I go and get myself some new fuses the next day, and replace the one that was in there and…….
nothing. not a bloody difference.
Bugger.
So I look around for my receipt…..can’t find it.
Bugger.
I look at the warranty info anyway – I hadn’t filled out the warranty card – which was silly of me – and even if I had, the closest place I’d be able to send the thing was Singapore….
Bugger.
So I was tharted for another day (thwart, thwart – I don’t know what you’re talking ’bout Shads there’s nothing difficult about thwart).
Saturday I go out to Pro Audio to see what I can find. I was hoping to pick up another Behringer – the UB802. It’s a tiny little thing, but would see me through, and only costs about $130. However, when I got there, they didn’t have one – they only had the larger ones, that were going to cost more like $400.
Bugger.

But what they did have, was a little tapco 6306 which is pretty much identical to the UB802, except that it’s not made by Behringer (which I consider a plus right now) but cost $295. Oh well, I was desperate. Tapco is a Mackie brand, so hopefully it’ll have some level of quality behind it. I’ll be happy if it at least lasts a year this time.
On the plus side, I can register it for warranty via the web, and they have an Australian address for warranty stuff too, so if this one breaks I’ll be able to get it fixed.
Hopefully.

Had the little one’s birthday party last weekend, which went pretty well. On the Saturday, she had a party with her friends from school at “The Enchanted Room” which is a shop that sells dragons and fairies and similar stuff, but also has a children’s party room. It looked like the kids all enjoyed themselves, which is good.

That evening, I picked Tessa up from the airport, and we had the talk we needed to have..played Wrath, then headed to bed.

On the Sunday we went into Civic so Tessa could buy a book, and so we could go to Impact (which is a necesity for anyone visiting Canberra – especially those who have lived here). I came away with Within Temptation’s Mother Earth DVDs and two Kate Bush albums. After that we went round to the little one’s grandparents’ place for a family party / afternoon tea thingy, where I gave her the bike I had bought her. The bike seemed to go down pretty well, as did the books Tessa bought, and the afternoon was pretty good in general.
We went to see Once Upon A Time In Mexico that evening – which was good. Kind of strange, but very good.

The next day (Canberra Day), Tessa went to visit a friend, so I took the oportunity to check out my new DVD. It was fairly worthwhile – it was pretty much just a concert DVD, so there’s not really much to say about it, though the second disk was full of interviews and stuff, which would have been great, if it weren’t for the fact that it was all in Dutch, with no subtitles. I watched a few of them anyway, all I picked up was that Robert likes Wagner, and I think a few of them like LotR.
There was also a “Making of the CD and Cover” segment which turned out to be dedicated to a little black and white kitten that featured quite a lot in it, and aparently died at the age of 2. Watching it a second time with Tessa was actually too much for me and made me completely fall apart.
I’m not sure why, I think it was just a combination of my current emotional state, and that I found it so touching that somone had loved that cat enough to turn a fairly normal collection of random “behind the scenes” video footage into a permanent and beautiful tribute, and sad at the thought at the same time.
I don’t know…maybe I just have a previously unknown soft spot for cute little kittens. It still kind of affects me thinking about it now.

Anyway, after “The Kitten Incident” we spent most of the rest of the evening talking about pets…looking up dog breeds for Tessa, and cat breeds for me – since Tessa starting trying to convince me that I want a cat.
Whether or not I do, I don’t know yet…but I guess I’m considering it. Though knowing me, I’ll still be considering it in 10 years time ;)

The next morning I took Tessa back to the airport to see her off, and all I want to know is, how come Virgin Blue have a much nicer departure lounge than Qantas?

Not much to say these days….
not much happens.

I sleep…I work..I read…I sleep again…
There are brief moments of light, when I get to talk to Tessa again…or when I am inspired enough to work on some music, but other than that……there’s pretty much nothing.

I rearranged the lounge room a bit on Monday….with some help from the little one…and it looks quite a lot less forlorn now than it did. But I’m not sure it really matters…I hardly spend any time in there now.

Overall I don’t think I’m coping too badly; There have been couple of days when it has been bad enough to bring on nausea and dizzynes, but only if I let myself get too drawn into a morbid exploration of “what ifs”….mostly, it’s just a constant dull ache and a feeling of pointlessness.

I’m constantly aware that there is a part of me missing….a vital, irreplaceable part.
You can’t live with someone for 4 years without it having some effect on you.
Every part of your life is influenced in some way – their goals become your goals, their friends become your friends, their tastes become yours (to a certain extent anyway :P).
I don’t know…I guess that my main goal in life, was..IS…to be the foundation from which Tessa can reach her goals….to be her support and encouragement, and give her everything I could to let her get to where she wanted to be.

I just didn’t think that where she wanted to be was without me….
Though in reality, that’s being a little melodramatic…..it’s not about being with me or without me…it’s about having her own life, and making her own decisions, and dealing with her own problems…and I understand that – at least academically – and I support her in it, even though every part of me wishes that it didn’t have to be this way.

hmm……my mood has improved quite significantly since I started this post..as I’ve had my daily chat with her in the mean time… so I’m not sure if I can finish it now…I’m not even sure what I was trying to say :P
But for some reason it feels wrong to delete it, so I’m gonna let it stand…..so much for nothing to say.