Dan Makovec’s blog

Officially a Sydney-sider

Myk SMS’d me last night to tell my this blog was getting dusty.. or was that rusty? Oh well. The truth is the past month has been pretty boring. I’ve been working pretty hard, getting back into jogging once or twice a week, seeing a couple of movies and not much else really.

This week things started getting interesting. The best news is that I’m now calling Brian my paper boy. After a few months of no work, then a month of temping with Russell Investments, he finally got the call he’s been waiting for on Wednesday. Starting in a week, he’ll be HR Advisor to the Fairfax group. Most Australians know of these guys, but for those overseas, they’re basically the southern hemisphere’s equivalent of Reuters. They own some of Australia’s biggest papers (Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Age, the AFR), a bunch of magazines, pretty much all of NZ’s printed media and a bunch of news-related websites. In working for these guys he’s finally made the jump from public service to the private sector, in the media. Not only that, but this is among the top 50 companies in Oz, so it’ll look great on the CV
The biggest bonus as far as I’m concerned is that he’ll be working in the building *right next door* to mine! In fact, his building is blocking my view of the harbour *grumble grumble*. Still, it’ll mean we can go to work together.

Mardi Gras season started a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t really gotten into it. Part of me wants to go out and rave with the screaming queens (of which there are a disgustingly high number in this city), but there’s a larger part of me that just can’t be bothered. The big fair was held just down the road from us at Victoria Park on Sunday, so after we finished furniture shopping I popped down for a quick look at 4.30 but didn’t find anything that exciting. About 30 minutes after I turned up and met Dave, the sky turned an evil black colour, gail force winds, lightning bolts that actually hit people and the fun of flash flooding ensued (for the second day in a row). I’m glad we moved into a first floor apartment! Seriously, the weather in this city is nuts. It’s not tropical but it’s humid most of the time. And one day it can be 35, the next 20.

My sister’s coming up on Tuesday till the end of the week. The big parade’s on Saturday and apparently she hasn’t missed one in 4 years or something so she’s eager to stay (how much she’s actually coming over to see me I’m questioning, but you get that). Still, it’ll be good to catch up. I’ll see the parade, but will not be paying the $120 required for entry to the after party. There’s plenty of time for that next year.

I am however starting to get back into sharemarket dabbling. I’m attending a day long E-Trade seminar set about various sharemarkety things, and I’m stepping up to more work on Venice with Graz. I’ve already written a few additions to the system which I’ll need to check in soon. I’m also looking at getting a Powerbook soon. With salary sacrificing and a corporate discount I’ll get about 45% off the price, so given the fact that the Vaio is starting to get too slow for the work I’d like to do with it (and the fact that Brian’s always hogging the thing), it’s time for a new machine. I just need to wait till pay day! Shame about Java 5 not being available for OS X yet. Hopefully soon.

Better news

This week’s looking a lot better. I haven’t been updating my journal much lately because of the pure volume of work I’ve been wading through since new years.

To update:
- I’m on a new project, playing with some cool software technology that is nicely filling some gaps in my CV that I’ve been meaning to attend to for about 4 years
- Brian started work yesterday in a temporary role at Russell Investments, with a view to possible permenancy. He’s also got a few other roles in the pipeline with one interview next week. I don’t want to jinx that one, as he seems keen on it.

We had amazing lightning storms last night - they lasted from about 7pm till at least 2am when I fell asleep. Very bright, very constant and very loud!