Unshared

Nobody shares these interests with me on LJ:

beto burger: Is in fact a breakfast burrito from Betos. I don't remember why they are referred to as burgers. Tyler originated the term. Best served after midnight, on a school night.

bx4: Is a breakfast bacon beto burger, which is essentially a beto burger (see above) with bacon, which is essentially a breakfast burrito with bacon.

driving the taconic: Is dangerous with it's narrow road and speed demons, but it is fun to drive! When I was taking classes at Dutchess Community College I would drive up the Taconic every day after work. I miss that.

roger wilco: Is the hero/janitor of the Space Quest series (belonging to the genre of Sierra Interactive Fiction, see below). In the first and second games (The Sarien Encounter 1986, and Vohaul's Revenge 1987), the player was allowed to choose his name, and if left blank it was set to Roger Wilco. In the Pirates of Pestulon and all games after that (including the 1991 remake of The Sarien Encounter) the hero was simply referred to as Roger Wilco, with no choice offered.

shiny sector: Is the north east corner of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Located in shiny sector, at least during the late 90s, was the CD Despot, Taco Bell, and Coldstone.

sierra interactive fiction: Interactive fiction is described by Wikipedia thus:

[S]oftware containing simulated environments in which players use text commands to control characters. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as computer games.

What was special about Sierra On-Line, is that they were one of the first and most successful (early on) publishers of interactive fiction or adventure games with graphics. Although the quality of the parser took a hit in the process, and is vastly inferior to Infocom's parser that only supports simpler graphics and only long after Sierra On-Line did. "Interactive fiction usually relies on reading from a screen and on typing input" (also from Wikipeida) - this lead to the commercial demise of interactive fiction, although there is a vibrant hobbiest movement involved in producing new interactive fiction today.

It's Beginning

I officially began moving to Sydney today. I packed two small boxes and threw out a video tape TV recording of Return of the Jedi I made in the 80s, which is not of much value to me anymore. Disposing of that which you do not need is always part of moving. I posted the boxes to Salt Lake City. I realize that isn't Sydney, but some of my things are going to end up living in Utah since my mum has tones of space there. I need to figure out what I taking with me, what I am sending to Utah, what I am selling, what I am giving away and finally what I am just going to trash. Big items include:

• Lots of books. Those that I do not take away with me I will be giving away
• Furnature
  • Sofa, loveseat and coffee table, in good condition, less than two years old
  • Sofa bed, I will give this to the Salvos if they take it.
  • Dining room table 6 chairs, all well cared for, less than two years old
  • Three book cases
    • two full sized, one half sized
    • I will probably donate two of these to the Salvos, the other one I will like to sell or keep
  • Media center - very old and worn will either give away or throw out
  • Queen sized bed, including mattress, sheets, etc. Very good condition, very comfortable. I will be sorry to see it go.
  • Chest of drawers and matching nightstand
  • Desks
    • Writing desk (small) - my iMac (Ripple sits here and plays music during parties)
    • Computer desk (large) - this takes up about half of my computer room.
• Electronics
  • Sony 15" TV (I'm guessing on the size, may be 14"), mono
  • RCA VCR
  • Sony DVD player
  • Sony stereo
  • Sony 5 disc CD player
  • 2 speakers good for parties !!!
• Computers (I'd like to keep all of these, but practically speaking, some of them will have to go)
  • Republic - Sony Vaio notebook
    • Intel Pentium II; I forget the speed, memory and disk configuration. It's at least 7 years old.
    • runs Windows98
    • 1024x768 in true color mode, higher resolutions when you attach to a monitor
  • Ripple - iMac DV
    • 500Mhz PowerPC G3 processor
    • 40GB HD
    • 768MB RAM
    • Dual boot: OS X 10.2 / Fedora Core 4 pre-installed
    • Has always been very reliable
  • Tanagra - personally built by me... I'm debating on keeping this computer.
    • Dual Intel Pentium III 866MHz
    • Dual head graphics output
    • 1GB RAM (max 1GB)
    • 2 HDs (unsure exactly how big they are think about 40GB each or so)
    • Windows 2000 and RedHat Linux 7.3 pre-installed
  • Oldskool - another system personal built for me.
    • Designed and built solely to play Second Reality, although it runs other applications
    • Windows 98 pre-installed.
    • AMD Duron
    • Memory ??
    • 10GB HD
  • All monitors must go:
    • 17" CRT (white)
    • 19" CRT (white)
      • up to 1600x1200 24bit color
      • has a dead pixel in the center of the screen, although hardly noticeable
    • 21" CRT (black)
      • IBM P260 (sold by IBM, but actually a Sony Trinatron)
      • up to 1600x1200 24bit color (higher resolutions can be used, but I don't have graphics cards to drive it)

I will be keeping most of my computers. I will be keeping all of my camera equipment.

So Why Again?

Good question. Long winded answer: I was in Australia in February, and while I was there, I was looking at schools. For the last week, I was staying with my great aunt, who lives closer to the city than my grandma, with whom I usually stay. She is two blocks away from the beach, and I would get up each morning, watch the sunrise, take the bus into the city, talk to one of the professors at the schools that I was interested in (I did this for two days), take the ferry to Manly (which takes you past where Botany Bay opens up into the Pacific Ocean, and is gorgeous), take the bus back to Collaroy (where my great aunt lives), go to the beach and cool off for a hour in the surf (in February it is HOT in Sydney) and finish the day off by watching the sunset. It was wonderful. I took these two pictures while I was there:



Back then I was still caught up with the idea of going back to school and one of the professors I talked to said that I should look into going to school in the United States if I was interested in "this stuff" because the American's just throw all kinds of money at these problems, and Australia is a small country with fewer resources. But being in Sydney was so wonderful that I told myself that if I didn't get in where I wanted to in the US I'd move to Australia and find a programming job somewhere. When it came down to it though, I didn't get into the schools that I wanted to and the schools that I did get into don't really have strong programs in the things tat I am interested in. I felt like it was silly to go off to Australia in a huff without giving it a few months to think about it, and to be honest when I got back to New York in March, I felt very much at home, for the first time since I'd moved to New York.

So I'd be talking to my mum since she moved out there and she'd be saying, "We were at Terrigal today, went swimming and had fish and chips..." and I could almost feel the warm breeze at Terrigal (this gorgeous beach community near where my Grandma lives) and taste the food melt in my mouth. I wanted to be there. A picture taken at Terrigal (this one not taken by me):



A friend of mine quit IBM a couple of years ago, and moved to Boston to be with her boyfriend. She didn't have a job to go to, and it took her a little while to find one, but she eventually found a job where she was pretty much doing exactly the same thing, but for a much smaller company, which she liked, on both counts. On one of her visits to the Hudson Valley (which she does often because the friends she made here, which are more or less my friends as well, are awesome), I confided in her that I was thinking about it, and it surprised me how much I liked the sound of the idea while I was talking to her.

I'd given it a few months, and I still really wanted to go to Australia. I've talked about it with a few of my friends, but most people do not know that I have decided to go. I'm planning on moving in February, which is when my lease expires and will allow me to save a bit more money to live off of until I can find a job.

Actually I am planning on spending February in Salt Lake City since the skiing three is awesome and its plain hot and humid in Sydney... but that is a detail :)

There will be lots of things I will need to get used to, like calling it petrol instead of gas, and flat instead of apartment, and even less availability of decent Mexican food (read: green chili) than what I can get here, but the food (mmmm... Vegemite), the beach, the ocean, the blue mountains and the laid back lifestyle (in STARK contrast to New York... heh) will be worth it :)