Over the past few months my scepticism at the reality of human induced climate change has increased. I own no stocks in oil or coal companies, drive a small fuel efficient car. I generally try to reduce my usage of resources, not out of an environmental fervour, but out of an effort to not waste things. As an engineer, a designer of things, I spend all day making things efficient and cost effecitve. I reduce waste without reducing the utility of the thing. I do the same in my personal life as well.

I might cop a flaming for this, but the climate has changed in the past. It has been warmer when coal wasn't being burned in the furnaces of industry, and it has been cooler as well. What piqued my scepticism about anthropomorphic climate change was the almost religious fervour that people were beating up a frenzy about all the ills that would happen, and how mention of climate change was in the news on an almost daily basis. A lot of mentioning that "the consensus of scientific opinion" says certain things. Science is not about finding a consensus but about having a scepticism and seeking to find the truth, however unpopular it might be.

When any dissent gets shouted down, you move from science to religion.

been putting in long hours at work - getting there before anyone, leaving after everyone. Getting the desired effect, namely that a particular project has no charged time accrued against it, despite it needing about half my time in a given week.

I do hope this gets recognised when salary review time comes round, as it's pretty draining to spend all the light hours of the day inside, and having to balance time in "office hours" on this project with hours out of "office hours" that actually get charged onto my timesheet.

Upside is that unpaid overtime does get registered on the timesheet so the hours (about 15 a week) do get logged somewhere. It may not be massive hours compared to the mad hours that IT / law / medical people do, but it's enough to make a big difference to your day.

Getting frozen meals to eat at work courtesy of my girlfriend. it makes it easier to eat properly and avoid the junk food if you have a proper meal.

i've started putting in lots of unpaid overtime (directive from boss)so that i can put an entire job into unpaid overtime. it's been a struggle, as i'm getting in to work well before anyone, leaving after anyone, and barely keeping my head above water with project work.

I'm hoping it is only for a month or so. I'm only into my second week and already my sleep is getting disturbed by working so late that my mind doesn't disconnect from work while asleep.

I'd not mind much if i got a little gratitude or thanks, or even just a little acknowledgment from anyone in the project team. I'm taking one for the team (inspecting concrete pours at 6am, lodging inspection reports before anyone else is in the office) and seemingly nobody notices or appreciates it.

Effectively i'd like to work on this project totally out of hours so i could put in the profitable hours when i am most productive, but this project generates about three crises a day, which HAVE to be resolved in that day. I have no idea if it is my causing that the crises pile up like that, but nobody comments on the tidyness of the solutions, or even that i've dropped everything to work on their particular crisis.

i make it a personal habit to be thankful when somebody helps me out, even when i'm stressed out and not in a happy space, but man it is hard going when you just get flack and you don't get much time to relax.

This too shall pass.

Work his recently required some long hours (overtime is rare and often only needed for short periods). Starting at 6am and going through to 8pm. My girlfriend noted that I am unlikely to find time or inclination to cook after a very long day. She then set about planning, cooking and Subdividing into meal sized portions. I now have a fortnights worth of meals frozen down. I could have readily subsisted on what I could prepare (Subsist being the key) but was deeply touched at her thoughtfulness. Both in seeing an area where she could show love as well as taking the effort to do it (better than I would have done in normal circumstances).

It makes me feel much more encouraged in doing these hours of overtime knowing she is on the sidelines barracking for me.

My grandad is in his mid 80s, not too frail, but not saved either. Being a christian, there is a desire to see all people saved, but there is a personal desire for those close to you to be saved especially.

I heard early this week that he was in hospital with heart pains, and was being kept there for observation. The hospital is a distance from Grandma, and she can't travel (has never held a drivers license). I'm in a different country to him, so i couldn't pop by either. I thought that i would do what was next best.

I emailed a local church and asked them to arrange a pastor to visit him. I figured that being in hospital may have driven home his mortality, and made him more receptive to the gospel. I've heard back that they're arranging it. Really pleasing.

If nothing else, a pastoral visit will give him some company.
I can only do so much. Beyond taht it is up to him to choose. We all have free will.

Found in my signature file (you don't often look at your own sig) a verse from 1 John in the bible. Reread the book of 1 John, and rediscovered that in it John spells out clearly and succintly the case for christianity. Not a big book at all, but a good read.

Went to a seafood festival at Paddington on Sunday. Superbly Sunny weather but the majority Of the stalls were selling a limited range of beers, and the height of imagination is seafood seemed to be baby octopus. Prawns by the ton. A few Morton Bay bugs and the ubiquitous fish & chips but nothing like seafood curries or things that people would not have seen a hurdled times before.

It was billed as a beer, wine, and seafood festival, and on all fronts it flopped. The beer was narrow in its range, the wine was "white", "red" or "sparkling". The food, while edible certainly pushed no boundaries. As a day out, it was relatively nice, but there were not enough chairs for the crowds, and so many people would have been more squeezed and less comfortable than would have been nice. It was not as if there were a grassy area you could sit down if you wanted to. It was run in the middle of a road.

were it not for my girlfriend, and her workmate being pleasant to be with, it would have been a complete write off. The same effect could havebeen had in a park with a packet of fish and chips, a six pack of beer, and all for less stress and less crowding.

Something to miss next year.

I bought an HP rx1950 in october/november last year to help organise my life. I love HP gear as they make the ultimate in rock solid calculators for engineers. their consumer lines leave a lot to be desired though. One of the main things which i wanted in a PDA was that it would synchronise my calendar, email and contacts from the PDA onto my desktop at work.

Problems I have had:
1. microsoft XP, service pack 2, closes out many ports and programs with its firewall settings, and our corporate IT guys had to specially open up those ports just for me, as i was an early adopter of the model of PDA which got blocked by it.

2. The synchronising bit of software is very temperamental. Some days it will synchronise, and other days it will not. this is the ultimate in frustration as problems are harder to diagnose if they are only sporadic ratehr than an ongoing problem. HP know well about this (it is logged extensively on their inhouse forums from other users), but between them and Microsoft, have done nothing to date. I have emailed their support system, and their CEO to express my frustration at this, but have yet to get a real solution which works every time. this is my biggest annoyance with the rx1950, as this is the one thing which you would expect to work perfectly first time every time.

3. The operating system is very unstable. On a daily basis, i have to soft reboot my rx1950 two to three times as it will lock up, and this only gets cleared when you soft reset. On a PDA this is the equivalent of having to reboot your desktop PC several times a day. Something which would have been kind of OK back in the dark ages before later versions of Windows, but something which should not be needed any more.

4. The bible study software I use (e-sword) will not work properly on the windows mobile 5.0 that the PDA uses. The program runs well enough, but some bug in the operating system prevents you from cutting and pasting from the bibles into your own notes. I have spoken with the developer of the software, and he has no idea why or how windows mobile is breaking his software. That it's a bit of religious software is beside the point for the atheists among the readers. Operating systems should accommodate backware compatibility well enough to not choke on software that used to run without drama.

All in all, i do like it when it does work, but it doesn't work far too often. It is not the delightful piece of kit which just sits in the background of your life, and is more like the bit of kit which works only jsut enough to stop you from hurling it out the window in frustration.

HP have inflicted the beta testing of the rx1950 onto the public, and I would be very reluctant to buy another ipaq based on how buggy this one is, and how slow HP have been to fix it up.

A housemate moved out last weekend. Did so quickly to move into a new place. The landlord wanted assurance that the last couple of weeks rent would be paid so i said that i'd pass on the money and if the guy was a day or so late, i'd cover it til then.

Big mistake.

The guy left his room a bit messy as he was intending to come back during the weeks rent of notice and tidy up then. The landlord found a new chap to move in tomorrow, and wants the room "bond inspection" tidy. The housemate doesn't want to pay rent if someone else is in the room already, and the landlord is at the end of their tether after the guy habitually paid his rent late to them. Mention of lawyers was made.

Sigh. I really didn't care much, except that i didn't want to have to carry that rent if the guy didn't pay me, and as a man of honour I paid the landlord.

Lesson for the day = don't guarantor for anyone who isn't a blood relative. It may end tidily or it may end messily, but only family will owe you enough loyalty to not leave you carrying the can if it goes bad.

Had my hair cut this morning. nothing too eventful in that - i can tell the barber what i want in a single sentence "number four on the sides and back and tidy up the top".

Had the option of a hot or cold towel afterwards. never had a cold towel before, and it was amazingly refreshing. The joy of small things, indeed.

discovered that a cheap coffee table i thought belonged to one of the other tenants belonged to the landlord. Cold drinks of any sort will sweat and gather condensation when left anywhere, and coasters are only so good in terms of stopping flat surfaces from getting wet. some wetness had affected the varnish of the table. a sheet of paper had got stuck to the table (tv guide improvised as a coaster that had (surprise surprise) got wet, and had largely come off but a couple of bits of paper left. nothing which a minute of elbow grease couldn't have fixed if we'd known it was an issue to anyone.

Came home last night to find the table gone.

Not sure if it's related to the kitchen table going as well, but decided that i was happy for a cheap table of mine to cop the minor damage of furniture which happens without any malice or neglect, so have put in a bid to get a new table on ebay. $25 for a new table is easier than having to deal with petty mind games. no note or explanation of why the table had gone. felt much like a kid would feel if punished by parents without explanation. i'm past that sort of game. happy for a table to get glass stains on them as it's difficult to avoid without elaborate table cloths which aren't really my scene.

furniture in share houses i've owned lots of before. it's never flash as stuff seldom matches and is never new.

kinda disappointing, but given how some of the thinking of the people is i shouldn't have really been surprised.