Dan Makovec’s blog

Storm clouds

They say bad news comes in threes.

In the past hour:
- Brian phoned to tell me he didn’t get a job we’d both really been looking forward to him having. We thought he had it nailed.
- The sky turned from a cloudless brilliant blue to black, with torrential rain and storms ensuing. I have no umbrella and am relying on the bus
- My computer crashed while I was attempting to demonstrate a new system feature I’ve been working on to my boss. It’ll take over an hour just to get the system back up to the point it was.

Time to go home.

Christmas break

Not a bad Christmas break. Finished up work on Christmas eve, and went out to a couple of pubs with Earnest and one of his workmates. Got home pretty late and enjoyed Christmas day by having a sleep in, watching TV and cleaning the house before flying up to Brisbane to meet Brian at 8pm. I only just got to the airport in time after missing the train I’d aimed to catch. I bit of quick thinking had me running to a station on a different route and intercepting the airport line just in time.

Brisbane was fun. Brian showed me all around his old haunts, and we hung out at the Gold Coast for a day, body surfing some decent waves and working on a decent tan (which, of course, turned red later on). The city itself has been through a lot of changes since I last visited about 15 years ago. Loads more buildings and there’s evidence of much money in the town. Adelaide, by contrast, hasn’t changed much at all. I got to meet Brian’s brother Shane, who seems pretty cool. Haven’t met the parents yet - maybe next time.

The two of us got back to Sydney on the evening of the 30th, and on the 31st went down with Earnest to the Opera House to watch the New Year’s fireworks over the Harbour Bridge. Very pretty, very large. We can now say we’ve been there, done that. While nice, it’s not worth the bother of negotiating the (literally) million-strong crowd who flock to the area around Circular Quay for the event. We decided to go home afterwards rather than hit any parties, since all the venues charge at least a 400% markup for new year’s bashes.

New year’s day we organised to go to a progressive trance night - and turned up to the venue to find it cancelled. After a bit of wandering around, we hit a pub on Oxford St for a couple of hours, then went to a different club, Gas, at the bottom of Pitt St by Central station. We had a great night there, and finally left when the place closed, around 4.30 (it was meant to be 6 but they cancelled the last DJ due to low crowds - even though the dance floor was full). It was the first time Brian and I had been clubbing since London, and while it’s not something I want to get back into on a regular basis, it was great to let off some steam and have a good time.

Back at work today. It’s dawned on me that I can actually make something real out of this job, as opposed to my last place where I was just marking time. There are some political hurdles to negotiate, so going will be tough and I’ll be treading water for a few months before I can make a big impact. With the right motivation however, there’s a chance I can hone some skills in some previously unexplored territory.

Feeling a bit weird. I can’t tell whether I’ve caught some sort of bug, or if I’m just having a physical down after the up of the rave. A good night’s sleep tonight should decide the answer.