Catching Up

So One is once again faced with having to catch up on happenings by having a catching up post which details all of One's catching up of recent times and should, hopefully, catch us all up on all things catch-upable.

We start our Tale many weekends in the past...

Suits You to Catch Up

First was the occasion of a fancy suit fitting in preparation for the incoming nuptials festival for Pirate Dave. It was an enjoyable endeavour but one does have to bak at describing it as excellent service when such terms as concealment, de-accentuate, hide, and work-around, were used so extensively during One's segment of the fitting.

Catching Up with Dromana Queen

The very next day Salsa Girl and I made a long haul drive to assist Hulk in attending a peer's birthday party. There was food and fun and also our first, and last, beach frolic of the summer, accompanied by the chatter of the teeth of many tweens that refused to exit the water.

Continuing into the next week...

Caught up by printers

One has been relieved to be entering the final stages of one's infinite printer rollout at work. However one did, after a hard days printering, find oneself caught up in a troubleshooting visit to attempt to deal with Freeloading Mum's home printer conundrum. Needless to say, an episode of madness ensued.

And the weekend...

Gardening catch up

One has gotten behind in One's maintenance of the garden and so it was that one caught up on the task by the expediency of having BestFriendSincePrep scour away the existing garden and commence a complete rebuild.

A Birthday board game to catch up on plays

For One's spawning celebrations this year I exercised the well known rule that guests must play whatever game I choose - whether they like it or not! In this case I rolled out Falling Sky a game of Caesar and the Gauls, for the first time since 2019. Pirate Dave won again - even though he had gone home and his tribe ran as a scripted opponent - so I shall be putting it away for another four years.

The gaming to dos...

Catching the Space Bug again...

The Tuesday Knights roleplaying group that meets on Wednesdays, commenced a new game that is a return to one's favourite - Traveller.

Catching a moment...

One, sadly was at a commemorative for a work associate - a fellow IT Man In LibraryLand - who passed far too early. One had bantered IT on many, many occasions over the years with him and sought advice on many a topic when in tricky IT situations. His full life story was quite a humbling experience and one can see that his family and friends will miss him dearly. Vale John.

The weekend again...

Catching the imagination...

One has long imagined reclaiming a part of one's desk from the accoutrements of working from home that have long laid claim to such prized realestate. Thus time was finally found to undertake a desk rearrangement and now the WFH things are the temporary items moved into and out of place as required. And now the gloriously revealed desktop space is finally awash with piles of gaming paraphernalia.

A quick catch of the fleetingly in town...

Circumstances aligned well enough for One to make a catch-up with Lord of the Small Fries. This was also blessed with the attendance of The Administrator, Supervisor Grand Chief K, and The Fox. Much was discussed in a throwback to our great days and it shall have to happen much more frequently.

And back at the old stomping ground...

Catching the changes

One attended an IT in libraries meeting at ones old home in Sandringham. While there One was lucky enough to catch up with Criket Cutter, Sonja Roster Queen,  Country Girl, and The Maple Maverick. One decided to head North and stomp around Brighton some as well, managing to catch Longstride L and The Historical Menace in the building.

So there you have it. Did you catch it all?

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Freedom Days

 One is pleasantly surprised to see so many celebrations of freedom these past weeks.

It is quite humbling to see what seems like the whole world turning out to celebrate one's two year anniversary of being freed from the dictatorial control of Supervisor Grand Chief K.

Yes, it's hard to describe the sense of relief one can feel when such a yoke is removed and one has to no longer kowtow to the completely unreasonable demands that actual work be done and projects be completed.

It is sad to no longer be "working" with the likes of Sister Serials, Psycho Chicken, Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, The Maple Maverick, Lord of the Small Fries, Longstride L, Bomber Babe, LibraryBFF, Sidekick, Days of our Libraries, The Administrator, Roysgirl, Sonja Roster Queen, and Mr Prada - but they too had their incomprehensible demands that things be fixed, technology be made to work, procedures written up, and could one please stop eating all the cake in the staff kitchen.

So, here's to one's freedom, may it be everlasting!

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The Holiday is Over

 So, One's holiday break is over and it's time to apply oneself to the task of getting The Tales ticking over again and hopefully reach the heights of last years 13 entries (and then on to top 2008's one hundred entries you prompt? Madness I reply).

Since One's last communique many things have passed:

• One's first XMAS gathering for the new workplace, wherat Sis drafted one for table wrangling duties as apparently "other duties as required" also applies at this workplace.
• A hybrid remote and in-person boardgaming session for the birthday of BestFriendSincePrep
• A zoological XMAS gathering (a gathering at the Zoo as opposed to a Zuulogical gathering which would involve the underling of demon Gozer the Gozerian)
• A traditional Legion XMAS with the wider Legion clan.
• More boardgaming with in-person guests, instigated by Hulk who left the game after turn one to do something else. instead
• One's annual beaching.
• A return to Zoom, I mean work, including zoom-training the whole workplace prior to upgrading.
• Bunnings-ing up some minor repairs on the household.
• Seeking Sanctuary in Healesville where Hulk rushed Salsa Girl and I from exhibit to exhibit in order to get to the nearby playground as soon as possible.
• Upgrading the work system without leaving one's home office
• Marking the return of footy with a visit to The Great Sandro wherein he could not stop remarking, over the top of the footy broadcast, about how "doesn't look right mate" One's lockdown beard was.
• Attending the celebration of the life of Fifi who had finished her 29 year battle recently outlasting the predictions by a measly 26 years. It was this quiet determination that, during one's 6 or so years of sharing an office space, caused one to fix Fifi's problems pronto and also imbibe many a team coffee run, lest one fall afoul of those looks of portent. The celebratory tone was enhanced by also being able to reconnect with the likes of Sonja Roster Queen, Big J, Lord of the Small Fries, Longstride L, Days of our Libraries, and the increasingly incorrectly named Supervisor Grand Chief K
• And finally a relaxed, run of the mill, odds and ends weekend.

So, as you can see, there was not much to write about and no stories lost to the vortex of not being got around to writing them down.

Hopefully some interesting times shall arise this coming year...

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Four XMASes and A Picnic

The week just past has been a whirlwind of celebration from which one has barely survived.


It kicked off with the annual user group XMAS lunch which is always interrupted by the meeting that "has" to occur beforehand.
Lunch and meeting were ably supplied by Jeza, Nicks Fan and Vivacious Em.
Although one was amused that one's two-glasses-of-red-deep attendance at the post lunch executive meeting was met with surprise by President S, given one's reputation for professionalism in any state. Luckily Sis attended in a state of solidarity with my choices.
However one may have to give some credence to kharmic debt as said executive meeting consumed the remainder of the afternoon.


XMAS the second was a lunchtime celebration of our Strategy Teams achievements for the year. Whilst Sonja Roster Queen ably led appropriate celebrations the Strategic absence of Mr Prada and Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum were noted for their permanent records.


With a days rest one was ready to tackle XMAS the third - Library XMAS!!
It was wonderfully organised by Sonja Roster Queen and Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum in just the style one approves - laden with food and drink.
Much conversation was had including a sizable investment in time debating the finer points of Star Wars canon with Nemesis and Psycho Chicken, who I'm sure have both now corrected their obstreperous views.


On a smaller scale, XMAS the fourth was the raising of the XMAS tree at home with Hulk taking command. The placement of the first present beneath the tree was nigh immediately followed by pleading to open it and see why it felt the way it did. Having secured an earnest promise that this would be the only early opened present I deigned to allow the opening. Suffice to say one was not pleased with the post opening: Is that all! Do you have another one?


Which brings us to the Picnic. The annual-ish picnic organised by Spare Legion, this time at the delightfully Pound Bend. Also in attendance were Badger, Hector the Nazi, and Legion3.

All in all a busy time which is why one is looking forward to a Sunday involving only shopping and visiting Freeloading Mum for her annual birthday computer support session.
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A Tale of Four Parties

Well, except one of them was a gaming event - but I am not one to let facts stand in the way of a blog entry.
And in any case, said gaming event did involve more drinking than one of the parties!


The celebrating kicked off on an unknown day with a Grand Final watching extravaganza. The event was hosted by The Wiggs and was only a short drive from work - and therefore long drive from home.
The day involved no less than three costume changes from yours truly as beginning the party in one's Collingwood jumper was against the rules of MrRogers and The Electric Tiger; and then one's lesser-of-two-evils coloured attire seemed rather pointless after, oh, 10 minutes or so of footy.

Lack of exciting footy action did allow one to have a catchup talk with Mrs BestFriendSincePrep and also indulge ones fondness for snacks.



The very next day saw another long drive to the vicinity of work. This one was in order to attend a milestone soirée for Supervisor Grand Chief K.

The event marked Hulk's introduction to high society as she, and Salsa Girl, fit perfectly into the Spring Racing garden party theme - oneself also fit perfectly into the sub-theme of car park.

Along the way to being shown the finer points of Croquet by Hulk - just hitting the nearest ball is apparently how one does it properly - one was able to pass pleasantries with the likes of Devil's Advocate (or should that be Devils ), The Administrator and Sonja Roster Queen.



One's third party was the regular all staff training day of which all I can bear to bring myself to mention is the provision of merely adequate amounts of food. Oh Mr Prada why to you torture me so!



Gaming Sunday, being the final of  the parties, began with Hulk's first board game - The Little Mole Who Knew it was none of his Business - big thanks My Guitarist for the poo-themed book, game, and plush mole bundle.
Gaming partying continued with a plethora of games and attendees - Legion2, Pirate Dave, Amoeba, and Miasmakat finally putting in an appearance after 15 years on the invite list - all of us dosed with lashings of the finest whiskey.


All in all a grand series of good times - and a jolly good reason for not posting anything for a month or more.
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The Missing Weeks. Part the Second

Continuing on in my attempt to document what happened to me in those missing weeks we come now to the biggest event in the library social calendar:

The Library Xmas Party
This year the extravaganza was held at The Administrator's demesne with many of the usual party planning committee being involved in the orchestration of yet another gastronomic triumph.
The theme of the night was apparently "unfinished renovations" as we all had to carefully tread across a floor replete with stiletto catching drill holes and marvel at the true to life renovation look of the party setting.

It was really my kind of party. There was plenty of home carved Days of our Libraries pizza to start and just when you thought you were full out came not one, not two but three kinds of lasagne courtesy of Days, Sonja Roster Queen and others!
And then to top it all of there was a dazzlingly table-collapsing number of deserts whose claim to fame could well be "not even Phill could sample us all".

To top it all off in it's perfection there was a decided lack of librarian karaoke antics throughout the night.


The Knee Update

When the Monday after the party finally arrived it was time for the three week check-up on my knee. According to the specialist all is well.
Below are some pictures taken by the camera that they forced into my knee.
Top right is the before shot where we can see a lovely blossom of cartilage material floating freely around the joint just waiting to catch in the worky bits and cause problems.
Middle right is the after shot with the clean smooth surfaces just waiting to get back into unrestricted moving.
And finally in the bottom two we can see the shadowy lines of future arthritic troubles for our hero in decades to come.

up next: drinks and a 40th
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... The Long, Long, Long, Long, Long Week

So one of our branches was undergoing a re-carpeting and installation of a new circulation desk this week.

You would think that there would be no need for an IT Man to be on site at the beginning of such an enterprise - let alone for a 6am start.

But you would be wrong.

You would also be wrong if you thought that the first day would be the only day where such an esteemed personage would be required extra early as the second day also required such supervision.

And if you also thought that early starts would entail early finishes, thereby maintaining some sort of balance then you would be wrong once more.

You would be at your wrongest if you thought the three day quote which became four and then stretched into five once the job began would not impact on the time and opportunity to restore one branch-ful of IT equipment to it's correct places and in perfect working order.

There were, however, some good things about this week that lasted forever.

• I had fellow sufferers in the form of Sonja Roster Queen and Big J.

• I was able to muscle in on many a morning tea and cakes and the final pizza lunch. All under the pretence that I'd been working all that time that I'd been present at the library.

• I received an immense amount of help from Ms Magpie in the last afternoon which helped shave hours off the time I had to stay behind with naught but cleaners for company. Without her contribution I'm sure I would have seen midnight and beyond.

• I was far too tired at Wednesday night roleplaying to notice the maliciousness with which The Viking Hat GM disposed of my character (ironically a Viking) in his latest game. Instead I attributed it to fatigue marring my judgement.

• I had the perfect excuse for a long, long, long, long, long sleep-in this morning

In other news I have had my flowing locks pared back as part of the tarting up one must do before partaking in a Libraryland conference such as the one I shall be attending next week.
It also allows me to look my best when I am off away down South tomorrow with Redneck Ben on a drive of over an hour to attend the christening of My Guitarist's spawn.

You would be wrong if you thought this event would happen at an acceptable hour rather than 8.30am on a Sunday.
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... The Free Food Frenzy

So I spent most of the last week in training sessions in the heart of our beloved city.

Many and varied was my company including: Devil's Advocate, Sister Serials, Sonja Roster Queen and Miss Amanda for the majority of the time and special guest appearances by Mr Prada, Days of our Libraries, Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, and The Pragmatist.

All of these exciting training companions were overshadowed by the fact that this particular round of training was accompanied by an incredible four days of free lunches!!!

I don't believe I have ever had it so good. I didn't even mind heading out for a girly shopping expedition on behalf of Svetlana.

On top of this bounty of brunches came the Friday farewell party for a libraryland associate of years past - complete with free drinks and circulating snacks!


However, as with all good things, the universe had to right the cosmic karma imbalance and, during my Saturday attendance at the footy with Legion2 and The Great Sandro, my hunger got the better of me forcing the purchase of sustenance in the form of one $20 pie.


Things did swing slightly back in the other direction today when I was able to take advantage of a free trip to NSW care of BestFriendSincePrep.
I was recruited for my excellent company on the long drive and possibly to put my strength into lifting the package we had headed North to collect. Many hours of great conversation and camaraderie was had before we returned to his abode and he 'remembered' an IT issue he had that required urgent proffessional attending to.
Sigh.
It seems I can never escape IT on my weekends.
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... Lollies, Lunch, and Cake

Thursday dawned bright and early with an eager IT Man trekking to Beaumaris for the last Strategy Team meeting of the year. The meeting went well with two types of lolly bowl circulating and only one call out to work my magic on misbehaving machines.

The celebratory Xmas lunch was a little dissapointing - the phrase "at your own expense" causing me much pain and going against my whole ethos. However I did fare much better than Big J and Sonja Roster Queen who were both voicing their displeasure at the surprisingly small size of the portions of their menu choices. Alltogether Heather amused all when she refused to believe that a dish with Porterhouse in it's name could be anything other than a steak.

After lunch I found some IT reason to remain at the branch and was "lucky" enough to be there for The Beaumaris Ballerina's birthday cake. It just got better when she handed out bags of lollies and mine had a Caramello Koala in it! It's like she researched and found that I like chocolate and caramel!

The day took a turn for the worse however, when I inadvertently bonded with AntagonisticAl whilst we were both working late trying to get our work done without any other staff around. I ended the day thinking nothing bad of her, particularly as she gave me the rest of her lolly bag. I wonder if I'm coming down with some illness?
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... A Very Library Xmas

Well the big event of yesterday was the library staff Xmas Party.

Sonja Roster Queen had foolishly offered her residence as the venue. It was a miserable day with constant downpouring rain but I was determined to get my free complimentary drink and dinner. So I made my way across town through the monsoon rains to eventually arrive on the doorstep only mildly bedraggled.

I had barely swigged my first Cointreau Kiss and started on the dips before Supervisor Grand Chief K, making a brief cameo, officially opened proceedings with a big thank you for the years work to all staff and especially the IT Man who had been working tirelessly all year.

Food was very good and a strangely cowboy hat festooned Kiwichick was quick to claim credit although I suspect food that good can only be the work of Days of our Libraries.

There are not too many crazy goings-on to report - the usual karaoke accompanied by The Administrator's fine air-guitar work featured for many hours, with a bonus Mr Prada and Days of our Libraries Bonnie Tyler duet this year. There was also the yelling contest that is the kris kringle ceremony. This years unexpected fall was Devil's Advocate's collapsing chair mime-routine, complete with unspilled champagne glass.

I spent a large part of the evening cloistered under the veranda roof keeping out of the rain with the dirty-smokers as that was the place for contemplative conversation. It has been so long since I came home with the stench of smoke upon myself that I don't begrudge anyone for the remainder of the bad old night out side effects.

I completed my night with my usual taxi duties dropping Beeby and Groovy Spirits off in quick succession before taking The Maple Maverick on the long haul back to our neck of the woods.

Oh and AntagonisticAl did absolutely nothing to be ashamed of all night.
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... A Lazy Weekend

I've been enjoying my first lazy weekend for ages after surving the tail-end of my anniversary week.

I do think that I have to point out that box cake might come from a box but it is still stirred (by hand I might add) and bunged into my oven. I want to squash those rumours of my bringing cake straight from the shop, as we all know that shop-cake means reputation death in the library staff room.

Anyway, thanks to random computer and borrower failure, I was only able to have one piece of the cake as it was naught but crumbs by the time I got back to it at the end of the day. Oh well, I can just say that it's a part of my renewed fitness program.

Friday started off well with an invigorating pre-work walk/jog. Things soon took a turn for the worse when I arrived at Brighton to find that Sister Serials and I had "worn the same dress to the ball". It turns out that when Svetlana gives you a green polka-dot shirt it's part of some cosmic joke and SS will be there in her red twin of your shirt the moment you enter the building and you'll have to put up with Xmas themed humour at your expense all day.

In any case I soldiered on and, with the help the disturbingly Miami Vice like collarless Mr Prada, proceeded to run yet another 2.0 remedial class. Sonja Roster Queen, Sister Serials, Nurse Janet, Devil's Advocate and a new casual were the victims of the day. From some points of view it was successful as yet more staff finished their 23 things before there IT Man.

Friday was finished off with a surprisingly dinner-free Sandringham Xmas dinner. Still it was good to be home again although it does sound like I'll have to give them an anniversary cake of their own. Hmm, I wonder if etiquette allows me to buy this one?

I was going to make a one sentence post saying that a lazy weekend leaves me with little to write home about but I seem to have blathered on and filled my quota.
And blather is what it is compared to some of the heartfelt blogging I've read recently from the likes of LittleBigGirl re her and BigBen's horrible health issues; and Tooticky's farewell to a monster I knew in passing; not to mention The Viking Hat GM's world/people saving efforts. Still, I am famous, judging by LittleBigGirl's blog, so I must be doing something right... right?

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... The Lunchless Launch

Now that a few days have passed I have had time to recover from the severe lack of lunch at Monday's RFID launch.

The day started badly with Sister Serials having snuck in over the weekend and processed a huge mound of new magazines which yours truly had to load onto the tagging machine so they could be put away before the launch event happened.

The launch itself went without a hitch which is surprising given technologies usual reluctance to work properly under pressure. I was surprised to learn from the assistant to the minister's copy boy (or something like that, the minister couldn't make it) that up until RFID we'd been tagging books with up to seven tags! But then I'm not a librarian so what would know.

Now to be fair to Supervisor Grand Chief K there were some nibbles and bubbles supplied but there also appeared to be some sort of conspiracy to keep me busy and away from the table as guest after guest was trotted out with questions for me to answer. In the end I did manage to wash down a few crumbs of cheese with the dregs of the last bottle of bubbles - all under the pressure of Devil's Advocate hovering around to reclaim my glass like I was some sort of thief. Suffice to say I wasn't able to complete my set of champagne flutes.


Also this week:
Monday night I once more foolishly subjected myself to The Viking Hat GM's torture disguised as game. Perhaps it the abundance of snacks that keeps me doing it?

Tuesday night I had eight blokes pretending to be cowboys as our latest game - a supernatural western - began with some crazy hijinks on a train.

Wednesday Sonja Roster Queen and I began blasting (or zapping if you're SGCK) the Brighton collection to activate the RFID tags. I don't think I will every tire of the "blasted books" joke.
As it turns out blasting is not nearly as exciting as it sounds. The process involes waving an antenna wand over the books until they are all done - it actually feels more like you're caressing their auras than blasting them.

On Thursday The Administrator and I tag-teamed to train the public for a day consuming couple of classes due to trainer illness.

My week ended on a high indulging in a small after-work tipple with Groovy Spirits, Shirl, and Nurse Janet after the days duties were done.
Once Home I watched the footy until I was joined by Pirate Dave dropping off some cards for the next tournament. We tried to puzzle out his new World of Warcraft boardgame until late in the evening. Eventually he left when he guessed I was tired from my subtle move of passing out from exhaustion.

... RFID Tour Day

Yesterday was a day of visiting several westerly libraries to check out their RFID setup and workflows.

The first stop on the tour was a Sydenham library - a return for me after last years visit.

Wisely deciding to avoid Supervisor Grand Chief K's suspect driving I took the train to meet the group at Sydenham. It was quite a site seeing Mr Prada, Big J, Sonja Roster Queen, Groovy Spirits, Torchwood, Ms Magpie, and Devil's Advocate disembark from the bus and swarm into the library like a school of bibliographic piranhas.

After much investigation - and no morning tea - we took our lives into our own hands and boarded the bus to head on towards our next stop - Caroline Springs (or, in Torchwood parlance, Alice Springs. tsk tsk tsk oh the Welsh.)
Once there we once again swarmed through the library devouring their RFID and other IT set-ups and no morning tea - in a moment of desperation I had to buy myself a mocha at the library cafe.

It wasn't long before we were once again on the bus of death and heading for Sunshine library.
Along the way we made a short stop at this little local attraction.

Sunshine was more of the same but also included a rather unsettling moment of thinking the same thing as Torchwood when the locals replied that they hadn't done any yet to T's question about communicating with the borrowers about their new system which went live last week.
Anyway, after my eyebrows eventually came down again, Supervisor Grand Chief K announced that we were finally going for lunch. Oh, but what a cruel announcement that was. Picking a delightful little wine bar we discovered that lunch would be out of our own pocket!!

After lunch I made up a plausible reason to catch the train rather than spend any more time under the vehicle directing "skills" of SGCK.


I made my way straight home, pausing in the city only long enough for some gaming-related shopping - having the latest edition of Traveller being a requirement to put me back ahead of The Viking Hat GM in the collection stakes.


After some well-earned rest I headed out for the semi-annual soccer night out consisting of some lovely dinner and conversation at a pub along with free drinks from the match payment kitty.

... Bowling with the Bayside Babes

note: this posting is sarcasm and nastiness reduced, as some people think that I never say anything nice.

This Friday last Mr Prada and I had the extreme luck to be out in in public ten-pin bowling with a bevy of the best Bayside has to offer. We were the envy of all around for the company we had while we lobbed spheres down the lanes.

It was all thanks to Torchwood's brilliant idea and excellent planning skills, and as a thank you for everyones work at the Literary festival. Of course, as I spent most of the festival at the corporate centre, I was just freeloading along for the night as was Sister Serials showing up only for the free drink.

There was much fun had by all with Big J's sparkling laughter a frequent backdrop, most participants striking at least once - which is important as Innocent Em said to me - "Scoring is what it's all about Phill!", Groovy Spirits, Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, The Administrator, and Lord of the Small Fries all plugging away diligently on the aisles.

Of course I blitzed the field in the first game, despite re-injuring the knee last Thursday at soccer. My sense of honour prevailed in the second game and I stepped aside to allow others to claim the glory (there's a chance it may have been several drinks that prevailed actually now that I think about it).

We all played with a spirit of cooperation, encouragement and fair play. With the experts - Sonja Roster Queen, Days of Our Libraries and yours truly - imparting our bountiful bowling wisdom to all who asked and ensuring a much improved second game from both Big J and Kiwichick.

The food was good and Kiwichick came up with the fantastic idea of improving access to the sour cream for the wedges by smearing it all over the table.

All in all it was a grand night out and hopefully there will be many more occasions of it's ilk where I can spend an entire evening in the treasured company of those I work with.

... The Bus Man's Holiday

The highlight of my last week would have to have been the Bayside RFID Investigation Team boarding the Council Youth Services mini-bus and cruising down the highway to the glorious sounds of Best of the 80's Volumes 1-4.

We were off to experience another RFID tenderer demonstration. This one came with morning tea and lunch which I managed to partake in despite my mild nausea from Supervisor Grand Chief K's erratic "driving".

My one mistake for the day was to do some actual work and ask technical questions. That little slip-up lead to me forgetting to have any of the cakes!! Luckily for me Sonja Roster Queen had stuffed her bag full of wedding-esque cake parcels and I was able to savour the delights of a caramel slice sugar rush on the journey home.

My time at the wheel finally came after we had dropped SGCK off for another "important" meeting. Repaying Sonja Roster Queen's earlier kindness I drove in a manner that caused her to scream her delight at my driving skills.


The rest of the week included: my scoring again at soccer; BestFriendSincePrep forcing me to eat far too much pizza on Saturday night before a board games evening with SpawnOfBestFriendSincePrep playing his newly acquired copy of Mousetrap; a Geektogether memorial Gary Gygax Dungeons & Dragons game; a late night phone talk with a very fluey Svetlana; finished The Urth of the New Sun Gene Wolfe's slightly lackluster sequel to the books of the New Sun; and far too much wrangling of the new printers.

... An RFID Afternoon Tea

Today, after the delivery of snazzy new printing equipment at all my branches, I headed off to an RFID demo by one of our tenderers.

The cakes for afternoon tea were particularly delicious, although Groovy Spirits did nab some of the chocolaty ones I'd earmarked for myself so I had to settle for lemony ones for thirds and fourths.

There were some inciteful questions asked by Miss Amanda and Sonja Roster Queen but I was too busy ruing the loss of all that hedgehogy goodness to take much in.

The session ended quite well with my being able to go home early.

... The Trade Show Dinner

After my first day of work consisted of hacking my way through a jungle of email to the bottom of my inbox it came as a welcome relief to see that Supervisor Grand Chief K had remembered to invite me along to the VALA trade show this time. She now realises that taking your IT man to an IT focussed event is probably a good idea.

I also had an invite to a dinner put on by our LMS supplier. I agonised for all of one second about skipping gaming night for a free dinner before accepting the invitation.

So yesterday morning, after an interesting meeting with representatives from a printer and PC control company, I was able to take off in the early afternoon to head home and prepare for the impending fun.

Once home I freshened up, donned my trusty excursion bag (see Svetlana, I told you it would be useful once I was back!), gave The Tiger a quick few minutes of stuff-chasing fun, and caught the next train for the big smoke.

I decided to walk from Flinder's street only to discover that the event was not actually at Jeff's Shed but across the river at the convention centre. Upon my eventual arrival I met up with SGCK and Mr Prada and we began the great stuff hunt.
I may be becoming a little blasé but not much of the stuff was that interesting. Most of the pens were flimsy plastic affairs and I already have popping tins and such-forth from Information Online last year. I did pick up a great pen from Civica, and my drawing of a tree earned me a lovely green watch which was far too small for my wrists made rugged from years of keyboard pounding. I was disappointed in the stands that thought a brochure about their product counted as free stuff but what can you do?
I may also have accidentally gained a little first-hand experience about different RFID products along the way.

Our little Bayside triumvirate managed to evade expulsion from the hall and was able to stay for the cocktail reception which was up to the usual beer or wine is a cocktail libraryland standard.
Mr Prada and I tried to find the optimum point in the hall for food tray interception bumping into Madame President and several other of the usual suspects before joining the SPUN friendship circle and heading off to the dinner.

Dinner was at Breezes restaurant in Crown which is a delightful place to relax with dinner except for the hourly huge explosions just outside the window.
The service was of the much appreciated bottomless wine glass style - except for the strange neglect of Sonja Roster Queen's glass which lay barren for the first half hour. I was a little suspicious that they were making fun of me when they produced a double-sized glass for my use for the second half of the evening.
SGCK was flitting around enabling everyone, The Flibberty Gibbet fell off the wagon but was surprisingly well behaved, and I even managed to have a civil conversation with Dubrovnik Hater.
All in all it was a good evening and we left at a reasonable hour as there was nobody with a hotel room and mini-bar to raid.
Fighting off jet-lag on the train I narrowly avoided missing my stop and was home before midnight.


This morning sees me coming into work for my birthday day of work - brightened immeasurably by the presence of Days of our Libraries birthday cake. I also received a wonderful card from Sister Serials - ever the pinnacle of card selection - featuring one dog saying to another:
"I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking."

... the Week of Free Lunches

What a long and busy week it's been.

I've spent most of it Training up on the new Library Management Software at our suppliers HQ in the city. Four days of catered lunches and far too many lollies from the bowls on each table! Supervisor S was with me all week and we had guest appearances from Mr Prada, Sonja Roster Queen, Miss Amanda, Genealogy Jane, chanlib, Vikki, Sister Serials, Ms Magpie, Devil's Advocate and a few others.

At the same time I was dealing with settlement on the current house and pre-settlement non-disclosure of upcoming costs on the new flat. It's going to be such a holiday when the property stuff is over and I can relax with the major system upgrade at work.

Thursday night's soccer was a wonderful flashback to my childhood career as the heavens opened up and we were lashed with rain for about half of the game.

The final day of training was topped of with a night of farewell drinks for Jemima from the IT Helpdesk. CC was there as was The Polster and another Canadian CC acquaintance with a J name, coincidentally drinking CC (Canadian Club). Many xx and cokes were consumed but I made it home fine and the ice in the drinks kept my hydration levels at a safe level.

In four days of Train Travel I managed to be affected by a Connex Train delay every day - the worst was 35 minutes sitting at one station on my way in to drinks last night.