Working in IT is an experience, I know that much. I can't be the preacher of everything about working in IT (or in general) but I can tell you that I have learnt that the Information Technology industry is a very colorful world.. Including shades of grey.

Just in case you weren't aware I am a Network Administrator for a medium sized company... and I need a little venting today.

If I had a nickel for every time I had been threatened, sworn at, accused of sabotaging things or not doing my job I kid you not I would be filthy rich. I'm going to go through a few examples of these situations.

Threats
I don't get these much, I guess because they are generally the result of a staff member's breaking point. But here is a couple:

• Kyle, if I lost this email there's going to be trouble.
• If I lost this document you're dead.

Nine times out of twenty these threats are uncalled for, said out of frustration. I have only personally been the result of a handful of lost data situations.

Swearing
This is a good one, every one swears, shit I swear all the time. Most of the time it is out of frustration in not being able to do something that until they ask me, is driving them crazy. The swearing is generally not aimed at me (but sometimes is) but nonetheless is abundant. Here are two popular ones:

• This system is SHIT!
• Kyle, its f*cked!

Both of those will usually stream out of an employee's mouth when using a particular piece of software that unfortunately, as some will understand, cannot be NOT used. But you have to love it.

For the most part I swear a lot too.

Accusations
These ones are rare, but they are situations that actually do get on my nerves a little. I'm a very calm person, ask anyone, but there is always only so much one person can take.

Generally most of the accusations I get are demonstrated in a positive manner ( I suppose ). What happens is something goes wrong on a user's system. Now they will either ask me to come and see it, or troubleshoot over the phone. Due to the magnetic energy of IT guys the result is that as soon as I begin to assist the problem does not exist. This while exciting the particular staff member, leads them to assume I was doing something to their computer/account to stuff them up just so I could fix it.

I have to admit the thought it amusing, but pointless.

All in all the point of this entry was really just to vent, it can take a lot of patience to cop some of the insults and loss of patience that staff have with the "IT Guy".

That's it for now.

I hope you all had a great Easter Weekend! .. mine wasn't too bad.

Fiona and I decided this weekend that we would go away and get out of Townsville for once, along with a couple of our friends. I think it was a well deserved break for everyone.

We drove up there in our friend's car on Good Friday, it was a good trip, and the girls had a laugh listening to some old CD's that they used to like. I think we were in the car for about 4 hours until we got to Cairns, taking a short break about half way for something to eat and to stretch the legs.

Once we got there no one knew the way to where we were staying, fancy that, so after a few phonecalls and talking to a guy in some shop we found our way to our resort. We stayed at The Lakes, somewhere Fiona had stayed before and we had been meaning to go to for ages. First impressions were great, and as we made our way through the resort after check in and took a look at the room those first impressions were backed up. Unfortunately we forgot the digital camera this time, we took the digital video camera, might try and get some shots off it. Till then no photo's of the actual places we went.

We had lunch/afternoon tea and then after a few drinks went to the resort's main restaurant for dinner. Over a few spirits and glasses of wine we all had some of the best meals we have had in a long time. After dinner we took an extra bottle of wine and went for a swim (shh don't tell ! ) . After that we got yet another bottle of wine sent back to the room, I had a good go at that :-)  , 8 glasses of wine and two glasses of rum later I went to bed.

Saturday we went shopping................. horay for shopping... (I hope the sarcasm is visible somehow), the Cairns shops are so much better than Townsville though, on the upside I bought Fiona a new handbag as an easter present, I already gave her early chocolates. We went to the designer stores too (Luis Voiton, Prada etc), the ladies were snobs in there. Once we got home we all went for a swim before getting ready to go out.

We went to the Casino for dinner, it was a buffet, but so much better than the townsville one, the food actually tastes good. There were some good shows on that night including one of those "statue-people" or whatever, dressed up as a barnacled sea captain he scared people that went near, everyone had a laugh. Fiona and I aren't much of gamblers so we managed to only spend $20 at the casino. The people with us had some good luck at the blackjack table.

Easter Sunday Fiona and I woke up and exchanged gifts, she then claims I went back to sleep right away but I think she did too. Once we got up we got ready, checked out and had a great breakfast at the restaurant in the resort. It was straight home after that.

The trip home was a long one, but we stopped at the Frosty Mango for a bite to eat, no one finished their ice creams, in my own oppinion they dont taste that great.

Well thats it, we got home and it was all over, we had a good weekend away from Townsville and I have now picked up a new found love of pin ball machines (from a pub we had a few drinks at). Ill remember the digital camera next time.. heh. 

Well, as goes my standard attitude to all things design, it's time for a revamp of the site. Something fresh, something new!

I cant reveal anything yet... because I have nothing! hah.

Over the next few days, amongst some other projects I will be trying to make this site look better. It's a little boring at the moment. So we will see what I can do. I want it to look very different, but using the same architecture.

Here's to some good luck to me! 

Oops! ^.^ I think I have been neglecting this blog, my bad.

Just an update for now I think, I havent got too much going on to say at the moment as much as I would like to.

Work has been busy for me, as usual, but fairly busy at the moment. I've been dealing with an issue that is one of those "Everyone know's about it but no one can really *fix* it" type things" ... a Microsoft thing, it's funny how one of the most important entities in the world can be one of the most troubled. I'm pretty resourceful though, and I am sure it can be resolved before too long. I just hope everyone at work still likes me.. heh.

Personally my life is a little bit messy, Fiona and I are going strong which is great, but family issues have put a huge weight on not just my shoulders, but most of the people around me. I have been through a similar situation before and will get through this one too. Just a matter of time, and the support all around from everyone has been really good.

Well, I will keep this updated on the above but have to go. Bye all. 

For the guys:

Don't. I repeat. Do NOT get a girlfriend, get engaged, married. Just don't do it.

For the ladies:

Please, leave him be, that's all I ask.

Ok off to town.

Finally, the elusive "weekend" has arrived, and so far... no wait for it... I don't have anything on besides going out with Fiona and my friends. No work for work, no work for clients, not even any for myself. Just a nice relaxed weekend.

Too bad I won't have too much to spend (at least tonight) as I am putting most of my money away for Fiona and my holiday at the end of the year :-( . But at least it will be a good holiday.

I was thinking before I wrote this that I havent really put any pictures into my blog, which I know is what most of you want to see. So this weekend I will try and take some snaps (be warned I am not very photogenic). Oh also I decided to include myself on the "2000 bloggers" blogger montage. Take a look , but be warned the page will take a few years to load, 2000 photos is a lot! ;-)

Well, better get back to some other stuff. I will update on how my weekend was soon. I think tonight I am going to Bombay Rock for a Lerve Party (Love heh) and tomorrow night I am going to a work dinner with Fiona and then into town or something...

Cheers

Hello again,

Today’s topic title is all about my dinner on Saturday night, but before I get into that I'll go over my weekend too... all and all pretty mundane at times.

Fiona and I went out to dinner at Cactus Jacks for something simple as neither of us felt like cooking. I love it there! I couldn't say anything better about the place even thought I have been there nearly every weekend for the past six months (sometimes even twice :-P). I got some money out for the bar because we had to wait for dinner and Fiona had a couple of the Strawberry Margaritas she likes, I had about five rums and two shots, I think one was an undertaker and the other was a strawberry doughnut. Needless to say I probably shouldn’t have drank that much before dinner, but hey, it was Friday.

Dinner was good and gave us a chance to relax and the rest of the night went well. Got a cab home and walked/staggered (depending on the person) off to bed.

Saturday was just some birthday shopping so won't get into that, but Saturday night was the night we originally intended on going out, down to Palmer Street (for those of you who don't know it is Townsville's "restaurant" street. We decided on the Bistro One restaurant to give them a second chance from the last time we went and they lost our order after 45 minutes. This is where my advice starts...

DO NOT GO TO BISTRO ONE RESTAURANT EVER. The service, bar man and food were all terrible. I can't comment too much on the food as Fiona said she liked hers but the duck was crap. Here are my down points about them:

• Slow to give us menus after we had sat down: about ten minutes
• After finishing a drink we had to ask  (yell out to) a lady to serve us for more.
• That same lady forgot my order twice before she got to the bar and when the drinks finally came she gave me the orange juice and Fiona the rum (um. duh).
• The bar man, to whom which we were sitting close, looked like he was either: 1. Going to pass out from boredom or going out the night before 2. Taking something not so legal.
• Drinks were either too strong or too weak, made wrong.
• Entree took about 30 minutes to come out, mains came out a few minutes after.
• My meal, the duck, was crap, it was chewy and tough. Fiona had veal, I didn't like it but she did.

Good points:

• Sorry can't think of any

Okay I think that’s enough of my complaining and you get the point.  After that we were going to go to town but it was too early so we went home.

Sunday we went to my brothers house in the city and spent the day there, towards the end I wasn't feeling too good but the day was good, I was sick for the rest of the night with a migraine and whatnot but just went to bed. I'm still sick today (Monday) but got to go to work just in case they need me.

Well I think that's it, sorry if anyone likes Bistro 1, but they really do suck now they have let me down twice. My advice, stick with Cactus Jacks at Cannon Park.

Me again,

Seem as though most of you (namely my friends) seem to navigate straight to the gallery and look at photo's I thought it fit to add some more photos to the gallery for you all.

There are quite a few now, I will keep adding more of course, but enjoy what is already there. I've made two albums, one is just a bunch of funny pictures and the other is more personal pictures containing photos of Fiona and I, my friends, family and events that I go to.

Ill link up the two galleries directly here:

• Funny Shit
• Personal

Bye bye, gotta go feed some animals and have some more drinks.

Well I think the title of this little entry summarizes my life at the moment. I woke up this morning so unbelievably hungry and tired this morning, going to bed the night before at 1:00 am didn't help I guess.. but I did eat a pizza before bed.

Work has been really busy for me this week, so far I’ve hit a 52 hour week, which doesn’t seem like that much, but its all involved either staying up late (between 10:00pm and 3:00am) or getting up early, which I suppose is what has contributed to my tiredness. All the overtime I have done has been spent upgrading our phone system to cope with growing demands for more phones. A lot of my other "spare time" has been spent getting this site up and running too.

I am looking forward to spending some time with Fiona this weekend and  having a few (or copious amounts of) drinks with my mates if I can, should be fun!

Well I'm done for now, just wanted to write a "real" entry really, even though it was boring.

Cheers and bye all.

Hi there,

This is my first post on my blog just to get things rolling. I'm not going to post much because I don't have the time but rest assured I will use it quite alot in the future.

In the mean time you can take a look around the rest of my site, I hope you enjoy it.