in gravyland

Run 6km in a Santa Suit

Oh don’t you love this silly time of year.

My mate Andy from work is doing his bit to raise some money by doing silly things. So, please go and sponsor him so he’ll run 6km wearing an apparently pretty cheap Santa Suit.

Go on.

Web2Thing to scouta

A milestone, for sure:

We’ve cast off the web2thing.com moniker for our web application startup in favour of scouta.com, and we have moved the web2thing blog over to blog.scouta.com, where Rich and I will now be talking about the next part of putting together our new web web application.

From here it gets really interesting. Watch the scouta blog to keep an eye on happenings.

perthblogs ’stolen’ and broken

Seems like the perthblogs.org domain didn’t get renewed and somebody has squatted on the URL so the perth blogs feeds hosted there are moribund.   I’ll remort here when we make another plan.

Was anybody still reading the feed anyway?

Fireworks and life

Here in the South-East of England, the tradition of burning things and setting off lots of fireworks is alive and well and thriving around Guy Fawkes night. There’s this manic gleam in the eyes of those with fireworks as the light the fuses. There must be something deep and pagan about all of this.

We were going to go up to Lewes to see the fireworks display there; however people kept warning us off by saying there would be too many people, too much fire, not safe for kids etc. So we took the advice and headed off to a little village called Poynings for a nice gentle HUGE BONFIRE and over the top fireworks. A great night, made better by no long death march back to the car and a nice easy trip home. Mind you, the food was rubbish. But the bonfire was good and so were the fireworks.

Big bonfires work well when it is cold. And it was. Night are close to freezing, and the grass is crispy with frost when I head out the back door and across the field to the station early some mornings.
Life is good. I’m in the rhythm of work and lots of commuting and using some commute time to work on our still-secret web application which is accumulating funding and is building into a new real business steadily. I’ll write some more about that when we have something public to say.
I’ll tell some commuting stories here one day, too. There’s plenty to tell.

Two months of catchup

A long gap between posts. But you know that, don’t you. Sorry. Many reasons, most to do with holidaying, visitors, finding work and then actually doing it. Here’s the quick two month summary:

• We spent a wonderful week in Italy, on Lake Como. Wow. Thanks Rob!
• We are just back from a week at the Buddhafield “Everyday Magic” family retreat. Amazing and transformative, as it was last year.
• I now work for UBS Investment Bank in London amongst a great bunch of people doing interesting stuff. It means a long commute each day which I’m still getting used to. However, I get to work in the city of London proper, which is something like a dream for me.

Um. What else. Not much, and everything too.  We are making the most of summer, getting outdoors whenever the sun is out.  Brighton is treating us well, as is the UK.  We came back to find some ripe apples on the tree in the backyard.  I stewed some for breakfast.  Tart but yum.

The container arrives…

We now have all our things.  The container arrived on Wednesday.  We had three hours to clear it  and place the stuff in the house and we did it. Huge thanks to John and Peter and Chris the truck driver, who all worked like dogs to get the stuff out and into the house within the 3 hours we were allowed.

So now we live in a sea of boxes until we get them unpacked and things put away.  Funny, we’d been getting on fine without all this stuff, and now here it is.  That said, really nice to have my office chair and my bed back again.  Ah. My spine says thanks.

technorati tags:brighton, move

new car

Lib worked tirelessly (tyrelessly) last week finding us a car to buy. Well, a million phone calls and a thousand pieces of paper later we are now the proud owners of a totally gorgeous VW Golf. Very similar to our last one, except silver not black and a little more snuggly inside.

That’s another thing off the list. Oh, our container is now on dry land in Southhampton, so the next big thing is to get our stuff to the house. More phone calls and paper shuffling and peculiar english customer service.

Rambling - Beachy Head

We spent the middle of the day having a ramble followed by a pub lunch. And what a day. A full day of sunshine and blue sky and not a hint of a cloud at all. Now this is more like it.

We headed off for Beachy Head - a little east of Brighton on the coast, and parked the car at the Tiger Inn. Then we struck out for Beachy Head itself, missed the track, ended up on the road, walked down there a bit, back into a field and then up onto the proper path. By then it was time to head back to the tiger to get a lunch order in before 2pm.

Magic.

ahhh

Ahhh. That contented feeling when the broadband gets connected at your new home. That happened today, ahead of schedule and was without a hitch except for the weird fact the phone stopped working for a bit.

And I’ve got a new mobile number as of today here in the UK. Could have ported the old number, but it takes five days to port it (how silly) to the new service and I like the new number more. How vain. Here it is… 07894 122 604.

“Why change?” you ask. Well, the local coverage of Orange here in Brighton was just not up to scratch. Locals recommended O2 for good coverage around here, so that’s what we’ve gone with. Lib has got herself a new cameraphone, so I guess her flickr account will be heaving with new photos shortly. Can’t wait.

New home photos

I’ve just added a set of photos to flickr that show off our new place.

New Home

Ah.  We moved into our new home yesterday.  This after nearly two weeks of the three of us living in a bedsit flat in Hove.  And boy, now we have space and light, and have exchanged the view of the angry ocean for the green fields.

Lots of moving stuff around and getting set up yesterday.   We are pretty organised with just a few small hitches.  Like the fridge doesn’t work that well and the washing machine isn’t even connected.
But this morning the sun is out.  Long shafts of warm rays filled the front rooms of the house.  Yesterday afternoon was all mist and fog. Bea and I were running around in the field at the bottom of the garden, so today is welcome yellow warmth.  We’ve just opened up everything to air the house and my feet are now freezing :-)

There is still Africa out there somewhere

We made it to the UK finally.  Lots of adventures on the way.

And now it is evening.

We’ve checked into our holiday flat in Hove and i’m sitting here looking over the ocean across the road.  Strangely, it is not at all unlike where we were on Marine Terrace in Fremantle.   I’m looking South, Africa is far over the horizon to the south.  Back in Freo we were looking west, towards Africa again.  Interesting.

We’ve travelled well.  Lots of practice from the big jaunt last year I guess.

And our new lives begin from here. Tomorrow we start looking for work, a home, a car etc.   Just a couple of little things :-)

More soon.  Back a bit closer to the Internet again, so I’ll be posting more often.

Google maps shows where we are: Corner of Kingsway and Hove St.

Hong Kong

We’ve made it to Hong Kong. Just having a quiet few days here sitting by the pool, wandering about a bit and visting good friends here.

The trip here: uneventful; except for a huge excess baggage bill. Uh, what were we thinking showing up with all that luggage! So we are shipping a bunch of stuff directly to the UK now, rather than go through the horror again.

Art and museums this afternoon, after a relaxing morning by the pool.

Packed. Almost.

The container is packed and gone.  We’ll see all that stuff come out of the container again at the other end, sometime between four and nine weeks from now.  Phew.

Packing the container took a long time; I planned on it taking a day.  It took most of two days to get all the stuff well packed and into the container.  If we’d prepared a bit better it would have happened more quickly.

Huge thanks to the packing team that support us all the way along; either packing boxes, taking Bea on adventures, lifting heavy stuff, advising on container packing, delivering cakes and dinner, loaning us a trailer, taking care of our pot plants…. The list goes on and on. Thankyou all.

However, in the end it was all packed and packed well.

So, tomorrow we get on the plane about midday for a seven or eight hour flight to Hong Kong.   South to North: as in Southern Hemispere to Northern Hemisphere.  Three nights in Hong Kong at the Harbour Plaza Hong Kong.  Looks nice.

Now, how is all this stuff going to fit in the suitcases.

The Plan

Here’s the plan for the next few days:

This week:  Work and packing.

Friday:  Container arrives.

Saturday: We wrap everything and prepare to pack the container.

Sunday:  We pack the container.  A big jigsaw puzzle.

Monday:  Container goes — and gets put on a ship.  We hang out a Lib’s mum’s place for a few days.

Thursday 4th:  We fly to Hong Kong.

Not long now…

Preparations for travel

We can’t really put it off any longer.  Gotta start packing in the next couple of days because the container arrives (for our packing pleasure) on our doorstep in five sleeps!
Busy today.  So here’s a point form update:

• Registered our UK company, Presence Labs Limited.  More on that on the Presence Labs blog.
• Spent a lovely couple of days down south around Margaret River and Dunsborough catching up with old mates and drinking too much of the local cordial.
• Working away on a few projects and tidying up a lot of old paperwork that is worth sorting out before packing files into archives or leaving the country.
• The Philosophy Cafe podcast for the ValuesHacker podcast didn’t quite work.  A great debate, but no recording to podcast.  More podcasts on the way sometime soon.
• On the way to the UK, we are stopping in Hong Kong for a few days, then in Italy for a week or so, before arriving in our new home, Brighton, on May 16th.  Not long now.
• While on the road, you might be able to work out where we are from this link at plazes, which ought to give a map of where the laptop has connected from.

That’s enough for now.  More later.

One month to go

So one month from now, on May 4th, we leave Perth for the UK.  One month!

We’ve been planning this move since September, so is feels great that we are getting close; but as you can imagine, this last month is going to be busy, and it will be sad to pick up stumps and leave here for at least a few years.

Fun stuff coming up this month includes packing our own container and sending it off into the giant box-moving machine called ‘international shipping’.  I’ll try and find some time to write about that process as we do it.  We’ll be back living out of suitcases again for between five to nine weeks while our stuff catches up to us.

Before the container gets packed, a lot of paperwork needs to be done.  A lot of sorting and  chucking out stuff.  A few more bits of furniture need selling, even after our “Classy Bargains Galore” garage sale last weekend.

And amongst all that, a trip down south for a few days to catch up with mates before we head off.  My normal work continues in the interim, and I’m turning 42 next weekend.

So, this is a time to sort stuff out and prepare to leave.  I’m getting excited now there’s onluy a month to go…

For sale…

Here’s some of the stuff we are selling… All of these are in Fremantle. If you are interested, leave a comment or email me at grasuth /at/ presencelabs /dot/ com. There are photos of all these, can email em if you like.

Go on, buy something, make my day.

These are all real furntiture with real wood and real history, not build-it-yourself chipboard and mdf:

• Teak table (round). Brand new bargain. Better than Ikea! Elegant
  polished design. Seats 4. $250 ono.
• ANTIQUE DRESSING TABLE - Better than Ikea! Circa 1890. Elegant
  design, classic piece, three drawers, bevelled mirror and curved shelf,
  honey pine, good condition. $450 ono.
• ANTIQUE ENGLISH OAK TABLE & 4 CHAIRS - Round, Elegant.
  Medium size. Bargain. Needs some restoration. Would cost over $2,000
  restored. Sell table $750, chairs $250 or $900 for the set.
• Antique English sideboard. An elegant bargain. Circa 1900s, french
  polished mahogany. Three horizontal drawers, two shelved cupboards,
  bevelled mirror backboard with curved line. Antique shop selling $1,200
  plus. Offers over $700.
• ANTIQUE JARRAH PARTNER’S DESK - Classic piece, two drawers,
  excellent condition, good size. From antique shop $850. Offers around
  $550 please.

[UPDATE:  these have all been sold now!  So, thanks for the interest...]

Perth Craigslist

I never realised that craigslist has different country and city editions.  There is a craigslist for Perth.   Let’s start using this thing:  A lovely, simple, doesn’t get in your way classified ad thing.

And the online quokka is such a painful thing to use.

I’m posting a bunch of for sale items up on perth craigslist.  — things we are getting rid of before travelling overseas.  I’ll post the list here as well shortly.

Meetup this Wed, 7pm, Little Creatures

Meetup sez:

Just a quick automated reminder that The Perth Weblogger Meetup
Group has an event tomorrow and you said you’d be there! Here
are the details:

What: The Perth Weblogger March Meetup

When: Wednesday, March 15 at 7:00PM
Where: Little Creatures
40 Mews Road Fremantle
Perth  WA 6160
61-8-9430-5555
See who’s coming or update your RSVP:
http://blog.meetup.com/14/events/4854976/t/rem_c

Come on down. In this weather Little Creatures is the place to be, and on Wednesday nights it isn’t too busy.

Oh, something to think about — maybe we ought to move meetups to upcoming.org because it is free.  I’ve been funding the meetups for a while, and starting to think we need another funding mechanism.