It's a bit sad to leave K5 really, it's been two years and three months since my first K5 diary. But it's now reached the point where I regularly read 10 diaries here, with only one left on K5 that I think is worth reading (cam's diary).

Another week in Sydney

I spent last week in Sydney, assisting with FAT (factory acceptance testing). It went reasonably well, with no nasty surprises. I didn't do much work all week, but I spent a lot of time standing around waiting for something to happen. Occasionally I helped out by pressing some buttons. We didn't work as many hours as we thought we might have to, having realised early in the week that things were going smoothly. We had a few two hour lunch breaks as well!

The flight over to Sydney wasn't very enjoyable. The movie (Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star) was poor, and there were lots of families on the plane with screaming (and vomiting) children. It wasn't made any better by our circuitous approach into Sydney in order to land from the north, which had us going through turbulence for about 20 minutes. Then it took about half an hour for our luggage to come out.

There was a huge queue for taxis when we finally got out of the airport. However, what most people don't realise is that there are actually two queues. It's hardly a secret considering the big sign that says "dual queue system - join the shortest queue". But that didn't stop one queue from being ten times longer than the other. I'm not exaggerating here. So we got in the shorter queue and took about ten minutes.

On Monday night I went out for dinner with one of my mates from uni. We went to a little restaurant in Newtown called South. It was inexpensive, with a good atmosphere, and the food was great. Can't ask for more than that. We talked about work, my engagement, and photography amongst other things.

On Wednesday night I went out for dinner with one of my mates from the Europe tour I went on a couple of years ago. There were meant to be two others there as well, but one piked due to work and other due to forgetting. This time we met at the Slip Inn in the city. They have a very pleasant beer garden, and $5 meals. I had a $5 chicken schnitzel. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was a good size and excellent value.

Work

Today I was back to work as normal. I spent about half my time educating myself about some new functionality that I'll be working on soon. Interfacing with this thing should be fun. The remainder was spent on unit testing and discussing the resolution of a nasty problem we have integrating with a legacy system.

There's a possibility that I might have to go be in Sydney from Wednesday until Friday this week. I wouldn't mind that much, even though the work (problem report verification) is nasty. It's a nice length for a trip, and it would guarantee that I reach gold status on Qantas Frequent Flyer. That would mean access to Qantas Club, which is a Very Good Thing.

Holiday planning

My holiday planning for the trip to Europe in March/April is coming along nicely. All the flights are booked, on no less than six different airlines.

• Qantas from Perth to Singapore and Hong Kong to Perth.
• British Airways from Singapore to London and London to Madrid.
• Ryanair from Edinburgh to Dublin. This is unfortunate.
• British Midland from Dublin to London.
• Easyjet from Paris to Milan.
• Cathay Pacific from Rome to Hong Kong.

The accommodation is mostly booked as well. I got quotes from the travel agent, but I've been able to find cheaper and better accommodation in every city I've looked at. We're sticking mostly to centrally located cheap hotels.

Today I added up how many days I needed to take off work, and I was a bit shocked. Thirty. Considering we accrue 20 days per year, this seems like an awful lot. I think I currently have about 11 days saved up. I'll hand the form in later this week, and see what happens.

Weather

It was bloody hot yesterday, 40.5C, with no sea breeze at all. This is the hottest day since I moved into my current house without air conditioning. It's normally not too bad in the heat, but yesterday I certainly felt it. Going out for lunch didn't help, the restaurant's air conditioner wasn't very effective and the car air conditioner wasn't doing much better.

Today was only 34.7C, which felt very pleasant in comparison.

Next time

I might write a bit about my favourite (and least favourite) movies of last year, of the 45 that I saw. If I remember. I've only seen one this year, Tais Toi. It was thoroughly enjoyable. We dragged some of my friends along (they normally stay away from the alternative films) and they all enjoyed the experience. Maybe they will come again sometime.