Dan Makovec’s blog

Eclipse rocks

Is it just me or is Eclipse the best IDE out there at the moment? There seems to be a plugin to integrate just about everything with it! I’m currently using it for editing Java, PHP and C++ source out of an SVN repository, with lots of MySQL connectivity. It’s pretty quick too.

A bit of travel

After finishing up at Yahoo, it was time for a bit of RnR.

Guy invited me down to New Forest for the weekend to stay with his folks, so early Saturday morning we met up at Waterloo and caught the train south. We had a great time picnicing, travelling to the coastline of Dorset and enjoying home cooked meals (my first in over a month!) for a couple of days.

An interesting thing had happened just before I left Yahoo. It was my last day at work, and I received a mail from an old uni and Motorola colleague, Dave. He’d heard that I was thinking of returning to Australia, and wondered whether I’d like to come to Sydney for work. He also pointed out the rather large pay packet attached to the position. I called Brian and Brisbane and we’d discussed it, and I decided to apply for the role. As a consequence, one other thing I had to do on the weekend down with Guy’s folks was get to work on my 2 year old CV so I could post it off to the company.

Emailing proved difficult. There was no broadband down there, and no internet cafes. My CV was on my laptop (which, after being put into storage at Guy’s 4 days before, had to be pulled out again and dragged down to New Forest with me), and the only net connection was his sister’s, on an ancient laptop with no floppy drive, no means of getting the file from my laptop to hers, and a forgotten dialup password. After I finished the editing and much frustration, the only way I managed to get the CV sent was to rename the .doc file as a .jpg, bluetooth it over to my phone, and send it as a “broken” graphic MMS mail through the phone’s built in, very limited, email app to my potential employer, hoping my phone-keypad-typed explantory note as to the reason it was in the state it was would be satisfactory.

As Sunday night rolled around, we said goodbye to the folks and caught the train north. I parted with Guy, who kindly took my laptop back with him, at Waterloo. Then I tubed up to Euston, where I caught another train to Newcastle on my own. It was only once I got on that train and pulled out my Lonely Planet that I realised that Newcastle was at the very northernmost point of England. So in 7 hours total, I crossed the country by rail South to North!

I found Newcastle to be a pleasant, if quiet, town. After the local coal mines were closed down in the 80s, and the ship-building industry went offshore to cheaper nations, the city went into decline. But in recent years it’s bounced back in grand fashion. Some of the architecture there was the most innovative I’d seen in years.

The social scene is in a bit of a state of upheaval, with entire blocks of what used to be pub/club areas being demolished and rebuilt, and the local socialites reestablishing themselves in a less concentrated fashion in new parts of the city.

I spent a total of 3 nights up there and took in some great sights (The Balkan area is worth a look - the city’s new Arts hub around the Tyne river, as is the Life Centre (Interactive Science museum). The bridge that was built by the same people who built, and looks like, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was very impresseive. There were also some good pubs there and some nice places to grab a bite to eat. Oh, and the metro was really efficient, with platform announcers that sound like they’re on ecstacy
By Wednesday afternoon I’d seen all I wanted to, and hopped on another train west to Manchester. The city certainly lives up to its hype (or rather, probably beyond it - since many may not have heard much about it). While not visually beautiful to look at, Manchester is England’s “other” capital, with a reputation for an exciting nightlife, music, partying, and an overall more laid back lifestyle than London while maintaining the cosmopolitan feeling of a large and diverse city. The shopping was as good as London, but cheaper. The gay district (centered around Canal st - which reminds one of wandering around the smaller streets of Amsterdam) was warm and inviting. The Urbis art/exhibition gallery had some excellent interactive displays relating to real life (when I was there it was all about city living around the world).

Guy came up to Manchester on Thursday and joined me there for 2 nights. We spent our days wandering around town, sitting in cafes and perving at the local population. We came to the conclusion that in Manchester, they round up all the old and ugly people late at night and shoot them, or send them to Birmingham. There certainly weren’t any in that town!

We had an amazing Friday night out at a couple of bars and clubs and drank far too much. I began to discover how friendly the locals can be on the dance floor, before Guy slapped me and reminded me I was married. Overall though we had a heap of fun, and next time I’m in the UK I’m definitely returning to Manchester, hopefully with Brian in tow!

Saturday came around and as the crowds from all over Britain descended on the town for the England vs Wales football match at Old Trafford, we went to Piccadilly station and travelled South to London, in order to arrive in time for Guy’s friend Stephen’s 40th birthday party.

The party was themed pink, so being fresh out of pink clothing, my bleached blonde locks were pinked up, with a lovely big clip on hair flower to finish off the effect. Guy has photos and is holding me to ransom over them. The night was a debaucherous affair, with much alcohol and other substances flowing freely (At one stage, somebody thought the kitchen would look like a bakery if they sprinkled white powder all over the counter. Others thought it would look better if the powder was vacuumed up).

One particular fellow, feeling rather happy after taking a mixture of alcohol, viagra and god knows what else, decided that he was an exhibitionist and stripped off in front of everybody. He must have spent a good 4 hours masturbating and attempting to get everybody to have a go at helping him out. Nobody offered. Under normal circumstances I’d say we would have been rather disgusted by the scene, but by the time he showed up we were so far gone that we just took it as being as much a part of the entertainment as the Moulin Rouge and Cher in concert DVDs playing on the big screen in the living room.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep at all that night, and come 10am the next morning (24 hours before my flight home, without breakfast, with all my luggage to re-pack, a hotel to move to and a life in the UK to say goodbye to), I wasn’t feeling so hot.

I crashed at Guy’s house for a few hours, then after swallowing half a dozen Neurofen, slowly and painfully mounted my 25kg backpack, grabbed my wanker’s wheely bag (I’d always sworn I’d never get one of those things - you know, the mini suitcases with the extendible handles that all the yuppies drag behind them onto the trains from the airport - but it was the only thing that could fit all my overloaded hand luggage in it), and made the torturous tube ride from Brixton up to my latest hotel in Paddington (situated by the station so I could jump straight on the Heathrow Express the next morning).

I don’t know how I made it to the hotel, or how I managed to climb the four storeys to my room with all my luggage. But somehow I did it, and laid down for a few hours in the afternoon before my final London event that night.