Posts Tagged ‘melbourne’

Gigs, big and small

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

This thing always seems to lag behind things somewhat, so most of you will already know in the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen both Nightwish and Iron Maiden in concert… both were completely awesome -

Nightwish played at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda, which is a grand old place, (think like the Theatre Royal in Chch) and totally appropriate for their gothic overtones :) The new singer, Annette, though not as operatic as the old singer, was great, they did mostly stuff from the new album that she sings on, but she handled the old classics very well too. Also, she’s hilarious. (more…)

Melbourne week two (and three, and four…)

Monday, January 28th, 2008

I’ve been here a month now.. I really ought to have kept this more up-to-date. Seems every time I should be doing an entry, I’m just too tired out and ready for sleep…..

I started my new job on the 2nd of Jan.. I was pretty much launched right into the thick of things… they had me working on bugs in one of the main apps by the first day. I’m working right in town for a private contracting company, but located right in the offices of the state govt agency who are responsible for managing the wildfires across the state. There’s an emergency co-ordination centre right next to where we’re working (it’s all a bit mission-control) and quite exciting to look at :) They’ve recently had me working on Ruby on Rails apps, which has been quite a rapid learning experience, but it has been surprisingly quick to pick up. My impression has been that rails is cool, but still quite immature.. with time I expect it will improve. (more…)

My face is melting off

Friday, January 11th, 2008

Both literally and figuratively – It’s insanely hot (it’s just after midnight and it’s still 29 degrees… it was over 40 during the day), but Melbourne is pretty much rocking my world right now…

Bit of a recap as to what I’ve been up to…

Got off the plane, got though customs very quickly, then messed around with my phone for at least an hour, at which point I asked the girl at the vodafone shop if there was an issue with NZ roaming… there was. Turned out the problem didn’t get fixed until at least a week later. Good one Vodafone NZ.. f’ing idiots…
Got the skybus into town, which left me a block and a bit from the backpackers where I was booked into. Got set up there with not too much fuss. Managed to phone people via a nearby payphone to let them know I had arrived. (more…)

No backing out now

Monday, December 24th, 2007

Well, I’m officially all packed and moved out of my house.. I’m staying with Chris and Fran for a few days. My plane leaves for Melbourne on Thursday (wow.. 3 days away…) afternoon. I’ll be staying for the first week at the King Street Backpackers, and who-knows-where after that ;)

I start work on the 2nd of Jan, and have been told to turn up to a client’s site first thing, so it looks like it’ll really be a trial-by-fire – should be exciting.

Had my leaving party on Saturday, thanks heaps to everyone who came along, I had a good time catching up to you all (and drinking waaaay too much). James took heaps of photos, they can be seen here.

New Job!

Saturday, November 24th, 2007

Looks like I have a new job in Melbourne! I start on the 2nd of January at Stock Software.. They are a small contracting / consultancy type place, and it sounds like I’ll be working on some cool J2EE stuff as well as some Ruby on Rails, which I should have some fun learning. Windows based desktops though.. I might end up having to use…… Vista.. Ergh.

I should be heading over just after Christmas, so there’s a little bit of time for me to get myself all packed and organised. I’ll probably typically leave everything until the last minute :)

Got a new Nokia N95, mainly for the GPS feature so I don’t get too lost… Oh how I do like the new toys :)

Going to see Muse tomorrow night, that should be awesome.