Happy New Year!

Carla and I just finished watching Sydney's New Year's fireworks. We had to watch it on TV as we had just flown in from Adelaide, but next year we will have to go downtown and go for the full experience.

If you have never seen the Sydney's New Year's fireworks, make sure to go to youtube and search on sydney fireworks. They do a pretty good job.

I will tell you one thing for sure. If you had told me a couple of years ago that I would be in Sydney for New Year's fireworks and living in Sydney, I would not have believed you. How many more great experiences are ahead of us? Can't wait to find out! :-)

It's a Panda-monium

Yesterday, we went to Adelaide Zoo to visit Wang Wang and Funi, the newly-arrived Chinese panda bears. The pandas had arrived to the Zoo three weeks ago and are still in quarantine, but we we able to go see them.

The attendance to the zoo has doubled since the arrival of pandas, and it was evident in the line-up to see the pandas. We lined up and stood there in 35 C sun. HOT!!! Pack water and then drink a lot of it, as you are losing litres of water in that heat.

Back to pandas. They were Cute!!! The male and the female are kept in separate cages, and are only brought together for mating, which supposedly does not happen very often.

It was great to see pandas up close. They are big, fuzzy, and keep eating their bamboo. It was really hard to take a good picture as pandas were behind thick glass panes. You can find the pictures below.

Funny Name of the Week

This week's pick is:

WOY WOY

Got my geek on/Backup warning

I got home from work pretty late tonight, again. Since I did not want to spend another evening home alone (as Carla is in Adelaide), I decided to go for a walk. Luckily, the stores happened to be open until midnight (due to Christmas shopping season) so I wondered through the mall. And walked right into an ELECTRONICS store.

Ahhh! Just seeing all those new, flashy gadgets makes my knees go weak. Got to play with shiny new laptops (thumbs up for the ASUS UL80vt (light, fast, LONG battery life) and the HP dm3). Currently looking for a wireless keyboard/mouse set, but needs to have a "unified" tiny USB transciever. 24" monitors are looking tempting, especially with prices around $200.

And then there are the mobile phones. I played with an HTC Diamond 2 and was surprised how quick and easy it was to use. HTC does a good job of making user friendly phones, even though they run Windows Mobile.

Last, but not least, there seems to be a plethora of portable hard drives available for backing up your data and moving files around. I would like to give a short public announcement regarding computer backup (especially since my bosses laptop crashed and would not start up Windows when I was installing a program for him. Luckily, I had all his important files already backed up to the Internet.) Backup, backup, and then backup your backup. Data loss WILL happen. Hard drives last on average 3 years. Computers get stolen, kicked, dropped, lost.

The best backup strategy has the following qualities:

-easy to do, or even better, happens without you having to do anything

-backs up data off-site (if there is flood or fire in your place, your external hard drive with your backups is also gone)

-easy to restore data when needed

I have looked at a lot of different solutions, and the one that I like the most is JungleDisk. This service works on Windows, Mac and Linux computers and is so easy to operate, plus it is inexpensive. All you have to do is: a. sign up to their service, b. install software on your computer, c. select the folders you want backed up and that's it. It may initially take a while to upload everything, but once it's all there, you're safe.

You even have web access to the data, so lets say you are on a business trip or vacation and your laptop dies. What if you need some important files urgently off your computer. No worries, just log into your JungleDisk online account and get your files. Too easy!

JungleDisk will also keep deleted versions of your files for a specified number of days (I keep mine around for 60 days) and will also keep last x versions of your file (10 in my case). This feature really saved my bacon a few times as I had compressed some pictures (which drastically reduced the quality of the pictures), and only later realized what I had done. I needed to get the uncompressed pictures back, and viola, there they were. Phew!

As we accumulate more and more digital data, it becomes really important to protect your data properly. I backup my pictures and documents to JungleDisk, while my music and movies are backed up to an external hard drive. External hard drives will provide you with a decent level of protection, but for the ease of use and complete backup protection, use JungleDisk.

Funny Name of the Week

Today's pick is:

WIRAGULLA

Learning is fun!

I spent three hours today at my neighbourhood Borders (bookstore). I would have stayed longer but I forgot to pack water when I left home so I was dying of thirst! Since I've come to Australia, I try not to leave home without a bottle of water. Even the police carry a bottle of water in their belt, along with capsicum spray (pepper spray), handcuffs, flashlight, gun, and spare ammo. Talk about a large belt.

Back to my Borders visit. I love going to libraries as there is so much knowledge that can be obtained, but I prefer bookstores. Bookstores have the newest information and, especially when it comes to business and technology, it is all about the new information. I ended up reading (cover to cover) two Linux magazines, one PC magazine, one computer security magazine (skimmed), and two business magazines. Yes, my head was spinning after all this reading, and I guess it did not help to be dehydrated as well. :-)

I believe that it is important to continuously learn. The world is changing all the time, and we cannot succeed in tomorrow's world with today's knowledge. We need to gain new techniques, new information and new skills all the time. That is why it is so important to have a place to get this new information. We need libraries, bookstores, and above all, a good, high-speed connection to the Internet to continue to learn.

The best example of needing to learn quickly in order to succeed is my current job. My job description is pretty fluid, but could be summed up with "Do anything AND everything to get the job done." That kind of job description ends up covering a lot of different tasks, which I am not expected to know how to do in advance. Luckily, I am willing to learn and able to learn so that is 2 out of 3 factors that are required for success. But, if the books and the Internet were not there, I would have accomplished only a tenth of what I have done so far.

There are people out there who believe that internet is the worst thing that has happened to humanity, because it promotes porn and piracy to a large userbase. Well, every other form of media did the same, from newspapers and magazines, to TV and DVDs. The people who oppose internet on moral grounds fail to realize the great benefits that are enabled by internet. What I think is the greatest benefit of internet (and this can be debated to great lengths) is freeing of knowledge. Knowledge is not sitting in a book or a magazine on a shelf in a library. When this book is taken out of the library or destroyed, the knowledge in the book is withheld from everybody else. Internet is different. Internet is an endless fountain of knowledge.

The internet does not care if one or a thousand people are reading certain content. We all have access to it. We can all learn, do better, grow. We all have access to the same information and can now do and learn that in which we are interested. This may be hard to believe for those that are under the age of 20, but things did not always work like this. In the past, knowledge was held in expensive books, or in organizations like corporations, governments and universities. If you were not part of the club, it was really hard to get the knowledge.

Luckily, things have changed. The only thing stopping your from learning and doing better is YOU! With the help of books and internet, you can overcome even that stumbling block. :-)

Funny Name of the Week

This week's pick is:

TURRAMURRA

Another great weekend

We had another fun weekend! Yesterday, we decided to try a new beach. We chose to go to Dee Why beach, which is probably the closest beach to our apartment by bus. It took about 45 minutes to get there, and the bus ride was worth it.

The beach was pretty long, at least a kilometer. The beach was not very busy at all even though it was a Saturday. The temperature was around 27 C and it was just a perfect day to be out. For lunch, we took a 10 minute stroll to a nearby town centre, populated with shops and restaurants. We even found a Croatian food store. I know, I seem to be finding them everywhere I go. I even found Vitaminka ajvar! It's the best, but since they were selling it for $9 a jar (while it is only $4-5 in Croatia) I had to pass on this opportunity.

After grabbing a quick lunch, we went back to the beach and spent three more hours enjoying the sound of waves and the warmth of the sun. It looks like we did not do a good job of applying sunscreen lotion. A few patches on both of our bodies were really sunburned. Well, I think we will have to enforce a better sunscreen lotion application procedure next time. :-)

Funny Name of the Week

I remember, when I first moved to Saskatchewan, how I thought that a lot of towns had funny names. Good examples are Swift Current, Moose Jaw, Waskasiu, Pasqua, etc.

Well, Australia takes it to a whole new level. They have so many funny-named towns that I have decided to do a "Funny Name of The Week" post every so often.

I figured I should start with a pretty good name, so here it is:

WAHROONGA

Network setup

I am having really FUN at work. One of the first things they needed me to do at work was to setup their computer network. No problem.

I did some quick research and came up with a super setup. I ordered a Dual WAN router (Draytek VIGOR 2910) and set it up with 4 Linksys GigE switches so that our whole network is on Gigabit Ethernet. For most of you this is a whole lot of gobbledygook, so let me translate. Our company now has two different connections to the Internet. If one of them goes down, we automatically switch over to the other one. The users would not even know that one of the networks is down. Actually, one connection did go down the second day I had this setup going, and we merrily continued accessing the internet through the other link.

The router also supports VPN connections so we are utilizing that feature heavily. VPN allows us to connect to our work network securely from anywhere. This feature comes in handy when you are on the road and need access to internal network resources.

I am using Google Apps for our corporate email. This greatly simplifies email management, and as a bonus, we get shared calendar and document capabilities. It is a very powerful setup, and, best of all, it is free! As a startup, we like free things.

For backup purposes, I setup JungleDisk on each computer, with private and shared folders. So, people's private files are being backed up into their own vaults, and shared stuff is also backed up but available to all users. I am also going to have shared capabilities on the network for bigger files and for use when in office, but I don't intend to backup this setup. Backup aspect is important, but it is also important to know what really needs to be backed up.

For simple file and print sharing within the company, I am installing SMElinux. Setup is quick and easy, and configuration is done through a web browser. KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle.

For our code repository, issue/bug tracking and project wiki we use JIRA by Atlassian. They have a very good solution, and they also provide hosting for your projects if needed. I opted for the hosted version of their software, to reduce the setup and support aspects on our side. We don't have time to be fiddling with this kind of stuff. I like setup and forget type of solutions.

For our phone setup, I intend to go with the powerful and very cost effective solution from Talkswitch. Their PBX supports analog and VOIP lines, and offers many capabilities, like voicemail to email, auto-attendant, IP phones, remote extensions, VOIP trunks, etc. It is super!

Feel free to share any alternatives to this type of setup. I am in the process of implementation, so I can still change if I see a better solution.

What did YOU do last weekend?

We went to the beach this weekend. A BIG improvement over what we did on this date two years ago! Water was cold, but definitely not as cold as Ottawa right now. :-)

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/ivanonthemove/2009Nov3?authkey=Gv1sRgCKW9xqCPtt_RswE#slideshow/5406305219212023938

Google Streetview car

I had an experience today which I would equate to a celebrity spotting. I saw a Google Streetview camera car! (It's the car with a large orb-like camera on top, taking pictures that you can view in Google Maps' Streetview mode).

Luckily, the car was not taking pictures (if it were, I would have been asking my coworker to tail the car for a kilometer or so for posterity). The big 360 degree camera on top of the car was covered. The day was overcast with drizzling rain so it was definitely not the best day for taking pictures of Sydney streets. Best to save picture taking for sunny, clear days.

It is HOT!

I knew that today was going to be hot but not this hot. Temperature reached 43 C this afternoon, and it FELT like 43 C.

We had friends come over to our place today. After lunch we took them around Chatswood and it was crazy outside. The heat was oppressive! Luckily, we were able to get into a mall quickly, and enjoy the free air conditioning. :-)

After the mall tour, we took the friends on a 'bush' tour. They LOVED it! All three of them had spent last four months living downtown and studying law, so this tour was just what they needed. They said that they've finally seen the 'real' Australia.

Some pictures

November has been a busy month for my camera. I sensed that I was going to get a job pretty soon, so I took a few day trips around Sydney and took a lot of pictures. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/ivanonthemove/2009Nov?authkey=Gv1sRgCITa4P6Mg6nPQw

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/ivanonthemove/2009Nov2?authkey=Gv1sRgCPPi7-PDwNuwBg

Good news and good news!

I have two pieces of good news to report.

The first is that our couch has FINALLY arrived. It only took them 9 weeks to deliver the couch. Now it actually feels weird to sit on a couch and watch TV. We are used to just lay on the floor and watch like that. :-)

The second good news is that the board of directors of my company has approved my position. That means that my temporary contract will be converted into full-time employment next week. We also get to move into new office space, giving us more room, as we are currently pretty squished.

I guess the only bad news is that I have not been getting enough sleep! I am still getting used to going to bed early and getting up early. The tricky part is going to bed early. The alarm clock takes care of getting up early. :-)

Loving my job!

I have spent only two days at my new job, but I feel like I have been working there for several months. I am getting involved in interesting projects, my input is solicited and valued, and people treat you like they've known you (and liked you) for years.

I can't tell you how much I enjoying working. It is really a feeling that I have been looking for. I have worked for good managers, with good colleagues, and on good projects, but have never really had all three come together. I really think that I am getting the whole trifecta here!

My role is not very tightly defined. The company, being a startup organization with about 8 people, has a lot of things that need to be done, and are happy to see people doing it. They have three different roles for me to take on over the next few months, and I can see this evolving into an engineering/business type of role later on.

It's been a while since I have worked in a hardware design group, so seeing FPGAs, power supplies, oscilloscopes and voltmeters all around the lab/office has a soothing effect on me. The office is the lab, and vice versa. Ahhh, geekland!

We are currently squished into small quarters, but we should be moving into larger area in a week or so. The company is located in the Australian Technology Park, which means that we are in the same building with all kinds of startup companies. It is really interesting to have these guys walk into our office and start talking about what they are working on. There is lots of brainstorming going all the time.

Even my commute is amazing. I take the train (which is Sydney's version of subway) to work, and then walk about five minutes to the office. The train ride takes me right over the Sydney's Harbour Bridge, giving me a perfect view of the Sydney Opera House. I really can't believe it. I have been hoping, praying, and planning for something like this for years, and I am FINALLY here!

Starting a new job!

I heard back from the startup that I had talked to last week, and I will be starting with them this Thursday! Exciting times!!!

It's been a while since I have had to go into a workplace. I have been primarily doing work from my home for the last year and a half. I hope I get used to it quickly.

The guys (it's all guys in the company) seem to be smart and easy to get along, so that should make it a good working environment. Getting paid will be a good thing, too! Our pile of savings has been melting like snow in Sahara, so this job has come just in time.

Well, I should start picking out work clothing. They are pretty easy going here, but I should still not come into work wearing shorts. Even though I would really like to!

Picture time

I put together a collection of pictures from the last month and posted it on Picasa for you to enjoy. I even took some pictures this morning to show you the amazing purple Jacaranda trees. They really look great. The whole neighbourhood looks purple.

Sydney also has a nice collection of weird and wacky birds, of which I was able to photograph only two species. One is a sulphur-crested cockatoo, and the other one I still have to figure out.

Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/ivanonthemove/2009Nov?authkey=Gv1sRgCITa4P6Mg6nPQw#slideshow/5401904300841517234

New web host

Few weeks ago, I talked about having problems with my web server. Yesterday, I decided to switch over to a more reliable provider. After some research, I decided to go with www.fivebean.com.

The greatest thing about Fivebean plans is their price. I am paying US$13 for a full year of service! At the same time, I get 5GB of storage, 50GB of transfer a month, and a full complement of features on the web site. For $13 a year, you could just get an account to play with and learn.

I switched over my domain name to the new server and all the DNS changes seem to have propagated. Changing servers is always a tricky thing, as the changes do not happen instantly, but may take up to 48 hours.

I am also playing with Google Apps for Your Domain. It allows you to setup gmail to work on your domain, and at the same time have all other google features, like docs, calendar and contacts. I believe I have it working on a test domain, but I think I will stick with my current gmail address to handle my main email.

I was actually getting a headache yesterday, as I was configuring two servers, using three DNS hosts, configuring three domains, and setting up two Google Apps domains. A lot of things that can go wrong, but luckily, everything seems to be working!

Hitting the beach

I decided to enjoy my last few days of unemployment. What a better way to celebrate than to head to the beach! I took a bus to Manly Beach around 9:30 am and got there about an hour later. People were just starting to come out but the temperature was already getting up there.

After I got to the beach, I could smell the salt in the air, hear the ocean waves and feel the sand under my feet. After a sizable application of sun screen (sun is really strong here!) I enjoyed the next couple of hours reading a fiction book. Good times, good times.

After spending several hours on the beach, I decided to walk the length of Manly Beach and find my way to the neighboring Curl Curl Beach. I know, the names of places here are really interesting. Anyways, to get to Curl Curl I had go over a very steep hill. Once I got to the top of the hill, I realized that there was another hill to go over. By this time, I was hot, thirsty and tired. And I had at least 30 minutes of walking back to the bus station. I decided to leave the conquest of Curl Curl Beach for another day.

I checked the temperature when I got home and it looks like it hit 37 C today. Yup, that's hot! It is a really good thing we bought a watermelon yesterday and had it sit in the fridge over night. On a hot day like this, a cold watermelon is perfect!

Negotiations

Hmm, I think I have just been offered a job, but I am still waiting for the formal offer.

I just came back from a two hour meeting. The meeting was with the startup that I had interviewed with a couple of weeks ago. They want me on their team but for a different position from the one that I had applied for. That is not what usually happens when you apply for a job, but I am not complaining.

The position that they are offering me is a bit fluid (no, it is not a plumber position!) but would cover areas that are of interest to me. It will take them a couple of days to get back to me with the details of the offer. In the meantime, more waiting.

I think I should just head for the beach tomorrow. It is supposed to hit 33C. Nice!

Another interview

Yesterday was a busy day for me. I was to have an interview with a company regarding a short term contract. The interview went really well. The hiring manager said that he is not sure if he is going to hire anyone at all, but needed to see what skills the available candidates had to offer. I will know more about this opportunity later next week.

One bad thing about this job, if I get it, is that the company is located far from where we live. I would have to spend an hour on the train, and then walk for another 15-20 minutes to get to the office. At least I will never have to walk in blizzard conditions. :-)

Another thing that happened yesterday was that I got a call from the company that interviewed me last week. They want to meet with me on Monday because their CEO is unavailable this week. I get a sense that they want to hire me but may have a different position in mind. It will be interesting to see what they propose. I will keep you posted!

Haxored!

My web site has been haxored (h4x0r3d or hacked)! Not my blog, but my personal web site. I only noticed it recently, even though it looks like the site was breached in August.

Luckily, nothing was destroyed. Whoever did it, only planned to use my site as a host for infecting other unsuspecting users. They put a ton of infected files in one of the publicly accessible directories on my site. Then they submitted that address to the Yahoo search engine to get people to click on the infected files.

As I have been preoccupied with other more important things over the last few months, I did not even think of checking my site for intruders. I am renting space on a shared web server, and there is so much misconfigured software that crackers exploit the bugs in software to dump their infected files on unsuspecting users. I was able to pinpoint the exact time they gained access to my site, but could not figure out which way they came in.

I have now cleaned up my site, removing most of the old and unused files, just so I can detect another intrusion more easily. I have also setup automated tasks to run in the background and check for ANY new files that are created. If a new file gets created on my server, I will know about it. That's the beauty of computers. If something is a repetitive task, just automate it and get an email sent to you if something out of the ordinary happens.

As for my personal computer, I have two antivirus programs running and a firewall that notifies me of every new program execution. Kind of slows down the whole computing process, but prevents the baddies from getting onto my computer. A word of advice, update your virus definitions and put up those firewalls because the internet is one infested environment.

A walk, and then some

Several days ago I noticed an advertisement for an event to be taking place this Sunday in Sydney. Seven Bridges Walk is what it was called, and just like it said, it consisted of walking around Sydney Harbour and going over seven different bridges. The walk was to cover 25 km and you could do it between 8 am and 5:30pm this Sunday.

I saw this as a great opportunity to see more of Sydney, while taking part in an organized event. Carla decided to partake as well, but as she is studying for the finals, she could commit to only doing a part of the course. One problem that I anticipated for the walk was the rain that was forecast to start in the morning and go on throughout the day.

We started the walk early to get in as much walking as possible before the rain started. We walked the Harbour Bridge and the Pyrmont Bridge together, and then Carla had to head home. The weather was still nice and dry at this time, making the walk a really fun activity.

When Carla left, I continued towards the ANZAC bridge, which is one of the newest bridges in the area. For more on the history of the seven bridges, go to here. Just as I was getting off the ANZAC bridge, the rain started coming down hard. 'Oh great,' I thought to myself, but continued as I was committed to covering all seven bridges.

I braved the sun, the wind and the rain, and was able to cover all seven bridges. If you take a look at the map of the course, you can tell that there is a LONG walk after the Fig Tree Bridge until the Harbour Bridge. By the time I got off the Fig Tree Bridge, I was wet, sore and hungry, and to top it all, could feel several blisters, making it REALLY difficult to walk.

I hobbled up and down the hilly terrain of Sydney's northern suburbs, stepping into a water puddles on several occasions as it was getting hard to find dry land, even on dry land! I stumbled on the Wollstoncroft train station, which was conveniently located on the route that I was trying to complete. I could not resist the temptation of the train choo-chooing me back home. By this point, I had been walking for 5 hours, and had covered over 20 km. I had been walking in the rain for the last three hours. It was time to go home.

The walk had been a great experience. I would love to do it again, preferably on a day with clear skies and 0% chance of rain.

Sleep will do you good!

That interview I had yesterday really wiped me out. I slept 10 hours last night! I woke up refreshed and relaxed. Then I went for a workout and for the first time in my life was able to do 35 push-ups in a row. May not be a big thing for a lot of people, but it is my personal best. I seemed to have more energy as there was nothing to fret over. It is interesting how these little/big things have an influence on our performance at home and at work.

The weather has finally improved from the 'cold' spell that we've been having for the last couple of weeks. September was supper warm, with temperatures reaching into 30s, but since the beginning of October temperatures have been hovering around 20 C. Now we're back to nice 26 C and I hope it stays that way.

I'm off to watch Gray's Anatomy. Can't wait to see what happened this week!

Interview

I just came back from an interview with a small high-tech startup here in Sydney. They seem to be working on a really cool product and are just starting out. The whole team is made up of four people including the CEO, so they are TINY! This is exactly the environment that I am looking for.

I would love to get on with a firm that is just starting out. The challenges during the early stage are very different than what you would experience in a big company. You have to be creative, resourceful and be able to make magic happen!

The company is still interviewing other candidates, but I think that my meeting with them went pretty well. I have not done a technical interview in a LONG time, so a few questions did trip me up. The good thing is that they don't expect you to know everything. As long as you know where to look and how to look it up, that is sometimes enough.

I fared much better on the behavioral part of the interview. I've had to practice the answers to standard questions so many times for all the jobs that I had applied while working for the government. Well, I should hear something from the company by the end of next week. Wish me luck!

Time for a walk

Yesterday was a beautiful day (like we don't get enough of those here) so I decided to go for walk across the Harbour Bridge. It is one of the main sites that you would see when you visit the Sydney Harbour.

The Harbour Bridge is a host to the world famous New Year's fireworks show. Check out the last fireworks show at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7UbL4nfeJE

I took a few pictures during my stroll across the bridge. You can see the pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com.au/ivanonthemove/2009HarbourBridge?authkey=Gv1sRgCPb5s9n3rMXNxAE

Finally, getting more for less!

The introduction of competition in Australian overseas data cables has improved pricing of Internet services in Australia. Costs are going down and these savings are being passed to consumers, most notably ME!

Early this August, I found out that Australia was getting a new undersea optical cable that connects Australia to Guam (and from there to USA and Asia). Before this cable was introduced, there were only two companies providing overseas connections, and the prices reflected this duopoly environment. Introduction of the third competitor has already pushed the prices of an overseas connection down by 30%.

My interned provider (Internode) had announced that they will be offering larger quotas as soon as the new cable is light up. The official start for the new plans was October 8th, which means that as soon as my new monthly billing cycle starts, I will be eligible for the new quota. I have already chosen the new plan that I am switching to. Take a look at the picture below!

10GB more for $5 less a month?! Sure, I'll take that!!!! Ahhhh, I love competition. 40GB was just not cutting it, so 50GB might do the trick. Another good thing about Internode is that they don't count uploads. Since I am backing up my pics and docs to an online server (JungleDisk), it really helps that I don't have to pay for uploads.

Unlike in North America and Europe, where you primarily pay for the speed, in Australia you pay for the size of your monthly quota. You get the same speed as others, but pay differently based on your download profile. As such, I get a 20Mbps download link, and a 1.5 Mbps upload link. FAST! It is amazing to see downloads come at blazing 1.5MB/sec (the server can't give it to me faster even though my connection can take it). Crazy, I tell ya! The trouble is that even though the prices for Internet access have come down, they are still pretty high, as witnessed by the picture above. Oh well, I think my 50GB should last me through the month. If not, I can pay $15 for extra 10GB. At least there is that option.

Australian immigration changes

Australia is a place where laws and policies are updated frequently. No policy changes more frequently than the immigration policy. With the latest update, only people with specific and select experience can hope to get a permanent residence in Australia.

Carla and I have been following Australian immigration policy for the last couple of years. It is truly surprising to see how often they tweak this policy. So far this year, there have been three major changes to the immigration policy, with at least one more change to come this year.

First, the number of immigrants that Australia accepts was cut by 20%. Then, the immigration department cut a number of positions off the list of eligible professions for immigration purposes. Two weeks ago, a priority queuing system was introduced to help eliminate the large number of immigration applications. Later this year, more professions are supposed to be cut from the eligibility list and the English language requirement is about to be made tougher.

The recently introduced priority queuing system makes it pretty much impossible to immigrate to Australia without a profession that is not on the Australian Critical Skills List (CSL). Majority of the professions on the CSL are medical professionals, engineers, teachers, accountants and computer professionals. Everyone else not on the list, don't bother applying because your application will be processed in three years or so.

That means that I need twelve months of recent (within the last 24 months) experience in a CSL profession to be able to apply for permanent residence. I need to get this experience before Carla's student visa runs out in three years. No pressure! :-)

Looking at startups

I visited a local startup company yesterday and had a great meeting with the management. They are currently hiring so we will see what happens.

I have been looking for hi-tech startups in Sydney and have not had much luck. Then, I find a posting on the local job site advertising an FPGA engineer position at a small local startup. I googled them, found very little information on the company and decided to go visit them before I send in my resume.

It took a bit of searching to find their physical location but find them I did! I met the hiring manager early in the morning and we ended up chatting for over half an hour. Not bad for coming unannounced. I met the CEO, too. He was sitting in a cubicle next to the manager, so I got a chance to talk to him for a while.

The company looks very promising. They are small, but that is the best time to be getting into a venture like this. Sounds very exciting!

Buying contact lenses

We realized that Carla had only a few sets of contacts left, so we started looking into buying contacts in Sydney. The contacts are really expensive here, at least if you try to buy them from an optometrist. Sydney does not have a Costco store where, like in Canada, we can buy contacts at a great discount.

The only way we could buy contacts seemed to be through an optometrist. It has been over two years since Carla's last eye exam, so she needed to go for an eye exam. To get an eye exam and a prescription for contact lenses costs about AUD$120. And for what? For an optometrist to give us the same prescription that we had received last year. No thank you. Our eyes have not been changing for a while now, so paying $120 was out of the question.

After a quick search, I found about 10 websites selling contacts online in Australia. Then, I removed the expensive websites and was left with 8 websites. Following that, I removed websites requiring a proof of current valid prescriptions and was left with three websites. Not bad at all. I then picked the least expensive website (including shipping) and ordered the contacts. Five days later, we have our contacts and have not had to spend any money on the eye exam. How good is that!

We will go get an eye exam in a year or so, but the plan is to by then have health coverage that will cover eye exams. Until then, online ordering it is. By the way, we got the lenses for 50% off from what we would have paid at the optometrist's!

Re-mapping keys on your keyboard

I just found a handy utility and thought it would be good idea to share it, as you too may be looking for the same functionality.

Carla's new laptop has a non-regular keyboard (something everyone with a netbook is going to experience). Her PgUp/Down keys were also cursor Up/Down keys. To use the PageUp/Down you had to press and hold a Function key and then press cursor Up/Down. As PgUp/Dn keys get used a lot in word processing and web browsing, this two-handed gymnastics was not very user friendly. The nice husband that I am, I thought there had to be a better way.

I came across SharpKeys, a utility which allows you to assign any key function to any position on your keyboard. You may find this really handy, especially if you have one of those new multimedia keyboards. Make sure to backup your registry (if running WinXP) or to create a System Restore point (if in Vista or Win 7) before making any changes with SharpKeys.

The utility is really easy to use. Just click on Add, and find the key whose function you want to assign, then find the key where you want to assign this new key. After all the key mappings are chosen, write the settings to registry and reboot. One more thing, don't call me if your computer won't start up. :-)

Hmmm, yummy chocolate

Friday was a good day. I finally found a couple of stores that are supposed to carry Croatian products, so I decided to go and check them out. Luckily, the two stores that I was to visit were only three train stops apart, so I would not have to spend much time traveling between them. The only problem was that it took me 1.5 hrs to get to the first store. :-(

The first store (Ivan's Butchery) was amazing. It felt like I was inside Konzum (a Croatian grocery chain). These guys had lots of Croatian products (Kras, Dorina, Podravka, etc.) along with tons of various smoked meat products hanging throughout the store. The smell was good. Too good!

So I did what every Croatian in a new country would do. I loaded up on Dorina chocolate (cooking chocolate, rice chocolate, hazelnut chocolate - now you understand the real reason for my trip), Podravka ajvar, Podravka chicken soup, Fanta hamburger mix, and lots of other goodies.

I made sure to buy everything I wanted in the first store, as I did not know how good the second store (Pronto Small Goods and Butchery) would be. It is a good thing that I loaded up at the first store, as the second store was tiny. Not worth the trip, but I am glad I went just to know.

We are now well stocked with our Croatian goodies for a month or two . Chocolate, anyone?

Tennis courts

Carla and I went for an exploratory walk around the neighborhood, and found two locations with 6 tennis courts each. One set of courts is barely a ten minutes walk from our apartment, so we should really get ourselves a set of tennis rackets.

Nothing seems to be free here, so playing on the tennis court for an hour costs about 16 to 22 dollars, depending on the time you play. You can buy a membership and then you can pay for free, but we will first try pay-to-play to see if the membership is worth it. The one good thing about a tennis membership here is that you can actually play all year long, unlike for the short summer period in Canada.

Sand storm

Freaky! I woke up early this morning wondering why the bedroom was lit orange. Then I looked outside and could not figure out if it was night or day. Had to take a picture to share with all of you.
Later, I found out that this was a red dust storm that moved in from Northern Territory and enveloped the whole city. Flights in and out of the city were grounded until noon. The sky is clearing up now but the whole city is covered in a fine layer of red dust. Time to clean the balcony!

Staying put for a while

I looked back over the past 12 months to see where I have lived and traveled and I was truly surprised. In the past 12 months, I have spent 4 months in Croatia, 4.5 months in Australia, 2 months in Canada, 1 month in Malaysia, 2 weeks in Hong Kong/China, and about 3 weeks in USA. That means that in the last year, I have lived or spent at least a month on four different continents! That's a LOT of traveling. I think I would like to stay in one place for a while. I know I will get the travel bug soon but, for now, some rest is in order.

We have been living in our new place for three weeks. The apartment is really coming along and now that our kitchen table has arrived, eating meals together is much easier. We used to eat on my tiny laptop table, which could barely fit two plates. The sofa should be here in a few weeks and then we can sit and enjoy the TV at eye level. Presently, we have to lay on the floor to watch TV. Not so comfy!

Swimming

One of the nice things about our building is that it has a pool. And it is a really big pool, not something tiny. It is about 25 meters long and about two and a half swimming lanes wide. It gets crowded pretty quickly, so I am sometimes swimming/navigating between grannies and rowdy kids.

I try to go to the pool at slow times, so I have been able to use the pool with no one around. Feels like a private pool! It is located on the 19th floor with floor-to-ceiling windows, so you get a beautiful view of the neighbourhood.

I can swim for quite a few laps if I stick to breast stroke, but as soon as I switch to front crawl I'm done. I can't even do a full lap! Practice will help, but when I see Carla doing 15 laps with front crawl , I kind of think to myself "What's wrong with me?" I don't think any amount of practice will get me to Carla's level. For now, I will set my goal to do 2 laps. That's a 100% improvement over current performance, nothing wrong with that.

Online at last!

I have been without a working, high-speed connection for too long. Today, the Internet was finally hooked up and I can tell you that I don't think I would have been able to make it one more day without it.

I kept checking the connection every half hour from 8 am hoping that it would work. And then, at 12:15 pm (ok, so I checked every 15 minutes) the miracle happened. My DSL modem made a connection and I could browse the Internet. At a snail's pace! My modem was telling me I should be getting 20Mbps (FAST!) but all I could get on my laptop was 800 kbps (slow). Five hours, one firmware update and a lot of wireless network tweaking later, Carla and I are able to surf the 'net at 19.2 Mbps. Not too shabby!

I have already used 10% of my monthly quota in 3 hours, so I think I should step away from my computer and eat or sleep, as I have been neglecting both. :-)

It feels so good to be back online. You don't know how much you depend on it until it is gone.

Settling in

One more week without the internet. Usually, that would not be a problem, but when you are in a new area, new city, new country and without a phone, it helps to have a fast internet connection. I have all the equipment on the floor, just waiting for Sep 15 to get the DSL link!

Last week was busy. Our fridge/washer/tv delivery got delayed until Thursday. Four days without a fridge. Bad, but not as bad as couple of weeks without the internet. :-)

We love our place. It is small but very cozy. This week we plan to pick out a sofa, and the kitchen table will be here in about 5 weeks. Settling in slowly but surely.

Moving

Today was the day to do our shopping at IKEA. We ended up changing our mind last minute about some of the furniture as we got a few new ideas about furnishing our apartment. We still need to get a sofa and a TV stand, but the bed, computer desk and chest of drawers are on the way. Some deliveries are due tomorrow and some on Monday.

We found a really nice kitchen table, but the delivery will take seven weeks! Yes, that is a long time to go without a kitchen table. I saw a nice patio set at Bunnings (Home Depot equivalent) so that will serve as our kitchen table for the foreseeable future.

While shopping at IKEA, we picked out all these kitchen items but then realized that IKEA does not deliver small/breakable items. So we ended up leaving a cart full of things that we like, because we could not take it home. We will rent a car in a week or so and go to IKEA for our second trip to get everything else we need.

We are moving to the new apartment tomorrow morning, 7 am! I will take two suitcases and take the bus/train to the new apartment while Carla takes the rest of our things with our host in their SUV. We are VERY excited to be moving. The only important thing lacking at the new place will be a working Internet connection. They told me that it will take several weeks to get the connection going (as I am getting a specific type of a connection), but I hope that that is the worst case scenario. I'm sure I will figure something out in the mean time. :-)

Tiny beds

For the past six weeks, Carla and I have been sleeping together on a single bed. I don't mean ONE bed, but a SINGLE bed. As in, big enough for only person! As you can imagine, I have not been having great sleeps, though they are better than when each of us slept on a separate single bed.

There are several reasons for my bad sleeps, not all of them due to the bed. For one, this neighborhood is really noisy. Nearby grocery store gets deliveries at wee hours, trains pass by in the middle of the night and create an incredibly jarring noise. Then there are the birds, the roommates (one of which was banging a ball against the floor at 2:30am!), and the construction on the street.

The part where the size of the bed comes into play is that there is no room to move. When one of us tries to turn, the other one has to turn too. I have woken up in the middle of the night quite a few times to find myself right on the edge of the bed. If there was a fan on in the room, it probably would have tipped me over and I would have landed on the floor! Dangerous! :-)

Still, even with all these troubles, it is still better to share a bed than sleep by yourself. In a couple of days, we will be sharing a double bed in our new apartment. I am looking forward to that!

Life's a beach, and then it ...

Continuing from the previous post where I said that thou shalt enjoy every day, the weather on Sunday was a sunny 25 C. I thought the weather was great, but decided to go to the beach the following day as Monday's forecast called for 27 C.

Monday came around and the early morning was beautiful. It took me a bit to get ready for the commute to the beach and by the time I showed up at Bondi Beach the sky was overcast. "The clouds are not going to stop me", I thought to myself and plunked myself on the sandy beach. Not long after, a strong wind started blowing and had I continued lying on the beach, within several hours I would have looked like a sand dune. Just another bump on the beach.

To avoid all this sand flying around me and getting into every pore of my body (and into my phone, my poor phone), I moved to the grassy part of the beach. "Ha, now I can enjoy the view of the beach without getting harassed by sand in my eyes", I thought to myself. That lasted for about 10 minutes and then it started to rain. Sheesh! I have been going full force and working on getting us setup for the last month without taking any breaks, and now when I take one day off for myself, it starts raining. At any other time in my life I would have been seriously peeved about the situation, but this time was different. I realized that I can come to the beach 365 days of the year. In the past, I could do that only when I was on vacation. Now, I have at least 30 beaches within an hour bus/train ride or car ride from home. Ahhh, life is good!

A successful day

The big and expensive part of shopping for our new apartment is almost over. Today we bought a TV, fridge and a washing machine. In Australia, you have to bring your own washing machine and fridge when you rent a place. Local custom, I guess.

We decided to get a bottom freezer fridge, as this is something we had in Canada and had really liked it. It just makes sense to have the fridge part on top since you use the fridge side most of the time. The freezer is on the bottom, so there is a lot less daily bending over. When you are 6 feet tall (183 cm) you want to minimize how often you have to bend over. It is really not good for my back.

The second expensive shopping trip will take place this Saturday. We will go to IKEA and buy a bed, sofa, chest of drawers, and a few other things. I found several nice furniture stores in Sydney so we are debating whether to go cheap and buy IKEA furniture or to spend a bit more and buy quality items. I think we will end up buying most of the items at IKEA, but select few will be purchased elsewhere.

I am having a heck of a time finding cutlery that we like. Cutlery sets are really different here. Most cutlery sets that I have seen here have 8 different serving items. Three forks, three spoons and two knives. There is a dessert fork, a dinner fork and a fruit fork, then dessert and dinner knives, and three more spoons of varying sizes! I did find a few sets with only a spoon, fork, knife and teaspoon, but the fork and a spoon were way too big. For some reason, standard cutlery size here is HUGE. I am going to a specialty cutlery/dishes/pots store tomorrow with hope that I will find something more to our liking.

I know, I know. It seems that I have been really picky choosing not just cutlery, but most of the items for the house. I think I am being so picky because I finally know what IS and what IS NOT important to us. I also know what I like and don't like. This time around, I want to setup our place as close as possible to what we want (within the budget, of course).

I do think that we will stay in Sydney/Australia for a while and I want that experience to be enjoyable. Life is too short not to enjoy every day.

Shopping - where the deals are

You know you are an expert shopper when you can advise locals on where to find deals in Sydney! I have been running around and looking for deals that now I know all (or almost all) the places to find good, inexpensive items.

I have found the best place for cutlery, knives, and other kitchen necessities. Peter's of Kensington http://www.petersofkensington.com.au/Home/ has the lowest online prices in Australia, and is located in a suburb of Sydney. I will pay them a visit next week and load up on some cutlery and knives.

Kmart and Target are good bets for buying any household products. MYER and David Jones (the local department stores) are too pricey. Bing Lee and Harvey Norman are the equivalent of FutureShop or Visions in Canada. You can buy your computers and kitchen appliances there, but the prices are still not that great. Wait for a sale, or even better, negotiate. It seems that all these stores will negotiate the price of any electronic item. I've even had them offer to lower the price without me even asking. Nice!

The places for deals in Australia are what they call 'Seconds' stores. These stores sell appliances, and electronics that have been lightly cosmetically damaged, have been discontinued, or have had the packaging damaged during transportation. I found quite a few deals in one of these stores and will be purchasing a washer and a fridge there. Shopping in a store like that will save us $300-$500. Works for me!

Grocery stores are pretty much dominated by Coles and Woolworth's. Coles has better prices, and is much closer to our new home so that is where we will be doing all our shopping. There is an ALDI (German grocery store) nearby. ALDI has some amazing prices on food items, but it is touch and go, so you always have to finish your shopping with a trip to Coles.

We bough one of those 'old-lady grocery carts' as that seems to be the thing here. We will be walking a lot, and not having a car, all these groceries have to get delivered to our place somehow.

Not taking a risk is RISKY

On Friday, I went to IKEA for the second time in two weeks. As I like to be efficient (i.e. do two things at a time), I was listening to Anthony Robbins' "Choose Your Destiny" audiobook while shopping. So I ended up listening to Anthony Robbins for five hours!

I love Anthony's audiobooks. They give me such great ideas and inspiration to keep going. In this audiobook, Anthony was talking about how people have a need for certainty. People want to know what is going to happen, that they will have a job, that things will work out. But if you have too much certainty, how much fun is that. Would you really be happy if you knew everything that was going to happen to you over the next 30 years? Not really! Life would be boring.

So, even though people have a need for certainty, they also have a need for uncertainty. People want to be surprised; they want things to change; they want to try something new without knowing how this new thing is going to feel/taste. That's when Anthony said the statement that really made me think: "The quality of your life is directly proportional to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with." I wholeheartedly agree with the previous statement. I do recognize that not everyone will agree with the previous statement but it is something that I have embraced in my life over the past couple of years.

I/we have been making decisions over the last couple of years that have involved increasing levels of uncertainty. Even though not all of our decisions have gone the way we planned, I feel a lot more confident about our abilities to make things happen. We are more flexible, resilient and ready to make 'risky' moves. I hear people ask us how come we do all these 'risky' things, while at the same time they do not realize that NOT doing what we are doing is also risky.

I believe that there is a not a single safe, guaranteed thing in the world. (Dying is guaranteed, but definitely not safe.) Staying in your current job is not safe since you could be laid off, miss on a great opportunity by not changing, or stagnate personally. I understand that what we are doing is risky, but so is doing nothing.

I just realized that I have never really verbalized what I had just said. The idea has been in my head all this time, but this is the first time that I have actually put it in writing. Please comment on the the risky/non-risky decision thinking. I would really love to hear your comments! Remember, nobody is wrong, we all have a right to our opinion, and I would love to hear yours. This applies to my Croatian/Bosnian readers too. Don't think I did not know. :-)

Signed the lease

We signed the lease for our new apartment and are moving in on August 30th. Woohoo! Just a few more weeks.

Now we need to pick out some nice furniture at IKEA. The IKEA store here in Sydney is really good, so we should have no problems getting most of our furniture there. For non-essentials, like TV and other items that we can live without for a few months, we will wait for the sales. I have noticed that everything is expensive here, but if you pay attention to the sales and wait, you can find some real deals. It also helps to shop in non-prime locations.

Renting an apartment in Australia is a bit different that in Canada, as you have to bring your own fridge and washing machine. I know, it is weird! What happens if your fridge won't fit in the new place?

We also had to put one month bond (rental deposit) which is held by the government. I prefer the government holding the cash, rather than the landlord. But it is a good scheme for the government as they get to hang on to all this rental deposit money for the whole city and use it for free without paying interest. Sneaky government!

Speaking of interest rates, I am currently getting 3.5% in a savings account, and there are a couple of other banks where you can get 4%. That is not bad, especially since I am getting only 0.75% on my savings account in Canada.

We will miss the place that we are staying in now, as the host is a really good cook. On the other hand, we are looking forward to having more privacy and customizing the place to our own taste.

Australian language

You would think that moving from Canada to Australia you would be able to understand folks down here. Well, almost, but not quite. :-) They have quite a few words and expressions that differ from what is used in Canada.

For example:

-if you want to turn someone in, in Australia you call the dob-in hotline

-you buy capsicum instead of peppers, and the police use capsicum spray

-they eat rockmelons, while in Canada we eat cantaloupes

-if you are a bad driver, you are a hoon

-if you a gay, you are a poofster

-Australians greet you with: "How you going?" which usually makes me wonder how to respond

-they go to uni, which is shortened university

-they put their luggage in the boot of the car, as opposed to a trunk

-they have a lot of roundabouts, while it is hard to find traffic circles in Canada

-you plug in electrical devices into a power strip, instead of a power bar

-instead of buying brown bread, you buy wholemeal bread

-you alight of a train, while in Canada you get off a train

-after a divorce, the ex-husband was paying her maintenance (child support)

-paper money is referred to as notes, not bills

-TV has an in-built tuner, not a built-in tuner
-the preferred flooring in Australia is timber, not hardwood (but they mean the same thing)
-you go to level four, not the fourth floor
-you take a lift instead of an elevator
-you try on clothing in a fitting room instead of a change room

-you lift the bonnet, not a hood of your car

-diapers are called nappies

-lorry is the semi (truck)

-in Canada you pay property taxes, while here you have to pay rates

-sunnies are sunglasses

That's it for now, but I am sure I will hear a new one next week.

The new apartment

I was waiting to blog until this Saturday because we were supposed to sign the lease on that day, but no luck with the lease yet. This was the first time that Carla had seen this apartment. She was really concerned about the lack of cupboards in the kitchen. I had shown her pictures of the apartment but the pictures did not convey the whole story. There is also an issue of the current tenant wanting to stay a few more days, so we have delayed signing the lease until Monday.

Carla is feeling a bit better today about the lack of storage space. We came up with alternative ways of storing dishes and food, and will look for more ways to optimize what we have to work with. The apartment is only 59 m2 (600 squared feet) which is not much, but you don't get much space here in Sydney. You CAN get a larger place, but as usual, the larger the place, the larger the rent. Our apartment is located in Chatswood, NSW, if you are interested to see where it is in relation to Sydney.

I think that the apartment is pretty nice. It is roomy enough, and since there are just the two of us, there should be plenty of space. The apartment has two balconies, which we can use for storage. There is a long swimming pool at the top of the building with a beautiful view of the neighbourhood. The gym room is tiny, but sufficient for what we need. The train station is only three minutes away, and a large grocery store only seven minutes away. There are two huge malls less than 10 minutes walking distance from our place so we are going to enjoy that. Not that we are big shoppers, but there is a Borders store (Chapters-like bookstore) in one of the malls and I can see us spending a lot of time reading magazines there. :-)

We also have Kmart, Target, Aldi (cheap German grocery store), and several electronics stores in the vicinity/mall. Since we are not planning to get a car for the first next while, it is nice to have all these amenities within walking distance.

Carla's school is about 27 minutes by train, and then another 10 minutes by foot. The good thing about taking the train as opposed to the bus is that there is usually enough seating room on the train, and the train ride is a lot smoother. Carla can sit and do all her required reading on the train. Well, maybe not ALL the reading as she has A LOT of reading to do. Carla is pretty much spending all her free time reading, even weekends are reading days. Reminds me of my MBA days. :-)

I am really happy to see Carla enjoying her law program. She is really getting into it, and is totally eager to learn and understand the material. There is an added difficulty because she is not familiar with Australian legal/legislative system, but she is picking up that knowledge very quickly. I am SO PROUD of her! Go Carla!!!

Our homestay

We are currently living in a homestay here in Sydney for the first month. It was difficult to get any other kind of accommodation on short notice and for short term so homestay was a perfect solution. A homestay is a household where an Australian family hosts international students. Each student has their own room is are provided with breakfast and supper. This particular homestay has eight rooms, six of which are used by international students.

Students get up at different times so we usually don't see anyone in the morning. In the evening, all the students and the Australian family members gather for supper. It is an interesting mix at the table, as there are students from Saudi Arabia, China, Thailand, Japan, Jordan, the host's wife is from Taiwan, and now they have a crazy Croatian/Canadian too! :-)

The stories we hear are amazing, especially since the host was born in South Africa and has traveled all over the world. Then, we compare how in/expensive things are here or at home, or we compare customs and laws between countries. I was trying to explain to them how cold it gets in Canada in the winter, but I don't think they got it. The only way to understand -40 C is to experience it. Brrrr!!!!

We are getting really spoiled here as our host's wife is a great cook. It is great setup for us, we come home and the supper is ready! Almost makes us want to stay here a little longer and not hurry to find an apartment. Not to worry, I am working on finding us an apartment and will probably have one reserved for us this weekend.

I am really looking forward to having a place of our own. It has been almost seven months that we have been living like nomads, sleeping at friend's and family's places. We are very grateful for their hospitality! Hope we can repay the favor in the future.

IKEA

We are getting ready to furnish our apartment (which we still have to find) so today we went to IKEA. The visit to IKEA was supposed to take us only a couple of hours, but we ended up leaving the store five hours later, tired and hungry. That was the biggest IKEA that I had visited so far. Excellent selection of items!

The plan for today was to pick out the main items for the apartment, so that when we are ready to move in, we can just go into IKEA, select the items and then have them delivered to our apartment the next day. My biggest concern was that we would not find anything we liked at IKEA and would have to end up buying furniture from various stores. Well, there was no need for concern as we were able to find the essentials for every room in the house.

We found a kitchen table and chairs, bed frame/matress, pull-out sofa, TV stand, computer desk and chair, fridge, kitchen plates and utensils, and lots more. House furnishings are pretty expensive in Australia, so it was a life-saver to find a store with nice and inexpensive options. Our place is going to look great!

I am going to view several apartments tomorrow morning so wish me luck!

First week in Sydney

It has been a week since we had arrived in Sydney, and we are wiped. Carla had a ton of orientation sessions to go to for her school, and then we would go walking and exploring the city. It is winter here now (high of 18/19 low of 9) but not a winter that I am used to. :-) Few days ago, the temperature went up to 24 C. You have to understand that July here is the equivalent of January in the Northern hemisphere, so I am delighted with their version of January weather!

On Saturday, we went to several showings of apartments for rent. Actually, we saw seven apartments and were very disappointed with the selection. The apartments were either expensive and small ($450 per week) or cheap and disgusting. It looks like we might have to start looking away from downtown. It would be acceptable to find a place on the train line (their version of subway) as the trains run frequently.

People that we met in this past week have been so friendly. They are so easy going. We have already gone to Bondi Beach. You can still see surfers there, trying to catch a wave. Amazing. Surfing in the winter!

Right now, our main focus is finding a place to move into as we don't want to stay in temporary housing for too long. Carla has started school today and will be pretty busy with that for the next 3.5 months. Once we're settled in, I can start focusing my energy on finding a job.

One last thing. The sky here is amazing. On a clear day (which we've had quite a few in the last week) the sky is HUGE and is so blue. I cannot show it to you in pictures, you have to see it!

In Sydney at last

We got into Sydney early in the morning and we were TIRED! This was my third and definitely the worst flight to Australia. The airline that we flew was Delta, and I will never make that mistake again.

Delta had just started flying to Sydney 14 days ago so they had a brand new plane for us. But the plane's in-flight entertainment system and power plug-ins did not work. I usually would not complain about things like that, but when you are stuck on a plane for 15 hours, you need entertainment! To add insult to injury, Delta's service was non-existent. I thought I was being served by Croatian servers! lol I actually miss Air Canada.

Back to the main reason for my post. WE ARE LIVING IN SYDNEY!!!! I love it here. The sky was blue, temperature around 20, and this is their winter. Ahhhhh! I am finally home.

I made Carla go to me to the Circular Quay so that I could see the famous Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was a beautiful site, so I had to share it with you.

Last day in North America

We are just leaving our hotel and will be on the plane for Sydney in 11 hours. Sheesh! Still does not feel real.

These past three weeks were great, visiting family and friends. Over the last few days we were visiting with my brother and his family. His little boys called us Uncle Onion and Auntie Cawla. Cute!

Well, I just finished weighing all our luggage, making sure that each suitcase is under 50 lbs, as the overage fees are steep, and unnecessary.

We have a place booked in Sydney for the next four weeks. We are staying with a family, and we intend to find something less temporary in a month. Have to leave for LAX now!

Studio tour

While in LA, we decided to visit a Hollywood studio. There were a few to choose from but we decided to visit the Warner Brothers studio, as the reviews were pretty good. I did not expect much from this tour but wanted to go and see how much I could learn about how movies were made. Surprisingly, I came away impressed by the tour and would recommend it highly to others. The tour cost $45 per person, and you also had to pay $5 for parking. Reasonable price considering what you get to see and experience on this 2-2.5 hr tour.

We were first shown a short movie about the history of the studio and the movies that were made there. Then we were taken on a tour of their 'fake' city, where facades of buildings are made out of fiberglass with painted on brick. Even the pipes were made out of fiberglass and painted to look rusty. This fake city was used in a lot of different movies and TV shows, including Annie, Spiderman, Gremlins, The Mask, and many others that I cannot remember now.

Most of the 'buildings' on this street had no rooms behind the facade. It was pretty cool to see the setup, as this 'fake' city set was built in the 30's and 40's, and has been kept up to date. We were shown other fake neighborhoods and town squares that get used in quite a lot of movies/TV shows (Dukes of Hazard, Eastwick, Gilmore Girls, etc.) It was really neat to see them changing leaves on a tree in the town square. They were replacing the green summer leaves with red fall leaves, all fake. Weird!

We were then shown to a Warner Brothers museum, containing costumes from the latest Batman movie (including Batman and Joker costumes, and Joker's helper's masks), The Matrix, 300, The Watchmen, and many other movies, including the Oscars that studio movies have won. The second floor contained costumes and equipment from various Harry Potter movies.

While in the museum, we got to meet Danny Pino from the TV show 'Cold Case'. They were filming the show but as Danny did not have any scenes for the day, he went for a tour of the museum with his friends. Cool! I would recommend visiting the studio during the fall or spring as there would be more action and more stars to see, if you are into that kind of thing.

The tour took us through their plumbing, carpentry and artistic departments where they make all kinds of props needed for the movie. It is really amazing what these guys can make. As we pulled up to another studio building, we saw a parking full of vehicles from famous movies. They had a Batmobile and Batman motorcycle from the last Batman movie, Dukes of Hazard car, Harry Potter blue car, and Gran Torino that Clint Eastwood had driven in the movie 'Gran Torino.' Super cool! Then were taken to a room where they have the whole set from the TV show Friends, including the famous sofa, bar, and the Central Perk window.

On our way back to the entrance, our guide snuck us onto the set of Ellen Degeneres show. Very, very cool. All in all, the tour was very worth the money and time invested.

Celebrity Watch

During our first day of sightseeing in LA, we stopped at a local coffe shop near UCLA and Carla said that she felt like watching a play. We have done the same in London, Toronto and Chicago, and thought that watching a play in LA would be a good idea. Carla found a play that she was interested in (Farragut North) so I pulled out my GPS to find where the theater is located and discovered that the theater was just a block away! That was just too much of a coincidence, considering how HUGE LA is. To find a play that happened to be only a block away had to be fate.

The cool thing about play was that two famous actors were in it. Chris Noth who played Mr. Big from Sex and The City (he was also in Law and Order http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0636562/) and Chris Pine from the latest Star Trek (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1517976/). As we were lining up at the theater to wait for the cheap tickets ($35) Chris Noth walked right by us into the theater. Cool!

The play was really good, both due to the quality of acting and the strength of the story. The story centered around a presidential campaign and the tricks that campaign managers pull to get ahead in the campaign race. Almost makes you think that it was not a fictional story but a recounting of events that actually happened.

As we were leaving the theater, we recognized another actor. We could not remember his name but he is one of those actors that always plays bad guys. Looked like he was there to with his friends. LA is amazing that way. All the actors live and work here so you are bound to run into them at some point.

What a day! In one day we visited the Hollywood sign, Beverly Hills, rode a mechanical bull and saw a play. FUN!

Update from LA

We have been busy traveling for the last week that I did not have a chance to sit down and write.

Last Friday, we arrived in Sacramento and had a great visit with Carla's aunt and uncle. On Monday, we drove to San Jose, cruised around on Stanford campus and spent a night at our friend's place. After a fun visit with them, we were off to San Luis Obispo area, driving down highway 1. The views were amazing! Reminded me a lot of driving along the Croatian Adriatic coast, except that driving was safer here in California. :-)

Yesterday, we visited Santa Barbara, Malibu, Santa Monica, Venice Beach and a few other places on our way to our hotel in Redondo Beach. We will be spending three nights here before we go down to San Diego on Saturday.

So far, the sights of California have been beautiful. Beaches, hills, houses, all very amazing. The traffic, on the other hand, is terrible. Next time we come here, we should rent a helicopter. :-)

We are very happy with the Ford Escape we rented. Originally, we were supposed to get a Ford Focus, but with 4 pieces of luggage, an SUV is a lifesaver. It is also very fun to drive, surprisingly.

Today, we did a lot of LA things like, the Hollywood sign, Sunset Blvd, Beverly Hills and Bel-Air. We stopped at this cowboy bar on Sunset strip for lunch and I noticed a mechanical bull in the middle of the restaurant. I just had to try it! Carla thought that I was crazy. She was probably right. :-) I rode the bull twice and it was a FUN experience. It always ends the same way, your body thrown to the floor after a quick battle with the bull. The bull was pretty rough on my legs, so I am barely able to walk now. It seems that every groin muscle is sore. All I want to do now is sit and not move, as each attempt at getting up is met with searing pain. Oh well, the pain will go away but I will have this memory forever!

In the USA

We finished our visit to Regina yesterday. Lots of visiting and seeing family and friends. Regina has certainly expanded in the last few years. The east end of the city is inundated with strip malls and big box stores. If you want it, you can find it there.

I have to stop taking the 6 am flights. They kill me. First, I have to get up early (4 am or something crazy like that), then I keep waking up throughout the night and have the worst sleep. The flight from Denver to Sacramento was the tightest flight I have been on in the last few years, and I have flown a few times this past year. :-) The Denver airport was surprisingly crowded. It is one of the hub Airports for United Airlines, so it gets a lot of traffic.

Another thing I noticed while in Saskatchewan and California is that Internet providers don't have download quotas. This was a surprise to me, after experiencing Australian militant enforcement of download quotas. In Sask. and California, the way they charge you is by how fast your connection is. In Saskatchewan, the local cable provider offers a 25Mbps connection for $88 per month, and has just now introduced a 100Mbps connection for $250 per month. Amazing! Almost makes me move back to Saskatoon. Just joking! :-)

Well, I will go and try enjoy the 4th of July!

Farewell to North America Tour

Well, we have started our trip to Australia, taking the scenic route. We have successfully completed our visit to Saskatoon, and are now in Regina. Family visits are taking up most of our time. It is nice to see everyone again, as it has been a while since we came around this neck of woods.

We will be spending about couple of weeks in California. Cruising down California coast should be a blast. We are really looking forward to it!

The Source - book review

I just finished reading a well-written and even better researched book on keeping yourself healthy and using your body to heal itself. 'The Source' by Dr. Woodson Merrell talks about different ways that you can utilize your body's ability to heal itself, and offers innumerable ways to improve your health, reduce stress and increase your energy levels.

Dr. Merrell is a practising medical doctor, but he has been open to and has done a lot of research in other types of healing. Early in his practice, he noticed that pills and surgeries could only fix so much. He noticed that a lot of ailments were stress induced and by-products of a poor lifestyle. After spending decades on researching and using Eastern medicine, Native American ways, and other alternative ways of healing and improving your energy, Dr. Merrell puts his findings in this book and makes it easy for all of us to implement what he has learned over the years.

I have read a lot of books on healthy eating, healthy lifestyle, alternative medicine, increasing your energy and so on, but no book so far has affected me as much as 'The Source.' I am definitely going to start implementing many ideas from this book, and I am glad to notice that Carla and I are already doing a lot of what he recommends. In order for you to benefit from my research, I will share the main points of this book with you.

Six ways to reclaim your vitality:

Power Mind

-reduce stress by taking breath breaks, meditation, guided imagery

-improve mental state with acupuncture, yoga, tai chi

-use herbs and nutritional supplements to enhance the body's ability to deal with stress

Power Food

-eat food that will increase your energy and promote health (vegetables, fruits, healthy oils, herbs

-reduce intake of foods that pollute your body (refined carbohydrates, processed foods, saturated fats, red meat, trans fats, wheat, cow's milk, coffee, alcohol, cigarettes)

Power Detox

-switch to organic foods for the fruits and vegetables with thin skin (peaches, apples, lettuce, etc.)

-drink filtered water instead of the city water (install a filtration system at home)

-avoid plastics, carpets and other compounds that evaporate and become toxic in your environment

-certain cosmetics contain a lot of harmful chemicals (European cosmetics are healthier as EU has banned known toxic compounds from cosmetics)

-boost your immune system by eating foods with a lot of antioxidants (blueberries, colorful vegetables and fruit, nuts/seeds, fiber, yogurt, green tea)

Power Exercise

-exercising at least 90 minutes a week where your heart rate is at 70% of max

-exercise will reduce stress, help have better sleeps, improve balance and stability, and improve longevity

-always warm up before doing exercise

Power Rest

-your body repairs itself while you sleep, so it is really important that you have a good, restful sleep every night

-go to bed before 10pm, as your body gets important regenerative sleep between 11pm and 1am

-body requires about 8 hours of sleep to regenerate and repair fully

-power naps help but should not be longer than 15-20 minutes

-sleeping pills should not be relied on long term for a good night's rest

-get a good bed and pillow to increase the quality of your bed (quality of a bed is proportional to the price of a bed)

Power of Connection

-being a part of community increases person's health and lowers their stress levels

-there are documented scientific experiments where praying for sick people has had incredibly positive effects (for the sick person, that is)

-being a practicing member of a religion improved person's health

-being in a loving relationship, having friends, enjoying nature, art and music, had positive effects on person's health

New hard drive - 500 GB of goodness

Few days ago, I picked up a new hard drive for my laptop. It is a Seagate 500 GB 7200.4 with G-force protection, meaning that if I drop my laptop, the hard drive head should detect the fall and prevent damage to my data. I don't intend to test this functionality but it is a nice form of protection to have. It only cost me $5 more to get a hard drive with G-force protection, and I believe that the price difference is worth it.

I was concerned that I would have to reinstall Windows and all my applications when I made the switch to the new hard drive. After reading up on the subject of upgrading hard drives, I learned that I can copy data from the old hard drive to the new one, and simply switch out the drive, without any need for software reinstall.

I first tried using seeral freeware programs to copy my old drive to the new one - DriveImageXL and similar programs were supposed to perform the task easily. Unfortunately, my Windows 7 installation had created a tiny 100 MB partition at the beginning of the hard drive, so the freeware programs could not copy the hard drive accurately (or maybe they would but I could not try them all). One online article recommended a trial version of Acronis True Image for hard drive copying. The trial version gives you 15 days to use the software for free. All I needed was one day. :-) Acronis did an amazing job of copying data and partitions from one drive to the other. I highly recommend it!

When I bought my new hard drive, I also bough an external USB enclosure for a 2.5" drive. I put my new drive in the USB enclosure, plugged it into my laptop, ran Acronis, and less than an hour later my hard drive was copied. Then, I replaced the hard drive in my laptop with the new one, booted up the computer and everything was just the way it was before. Easy!

In the past, I had always avoided upgrading hard drives, but now that I know how easy it is, I would highly recommend it.

Live on the wild side - try Linux

I've had an opportunity to play around with few different versions of Linux over the last couple of weeks and thought that others may benefit from my experience.

A safe and easy way to try Linux is to download an ISO image of the Linux variant that you would like to try, then burn it on a CD/DVD and boot your computer with this new CD. As you are booting off your hard drive, you would not affect the Windows version that you have on your hard drive, and if you know what you are doing, you might actually be able to access your Windows data at the same time.

The method I just described is referred to as running Linux off of LiveCD. If you want to avoid the whole messy part of burning and using CDs, you can try a LiveUSB version of Linux.

To create a LiveUSB boot disk (on your 1GB or higher USB stick) I recommend you download UNetbootin utility from http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ and follow the instructions. I prefer LiveUSB over a LiveCD version of Linux as CDs get scratched, are clunky and slower than USB sticks.

Once you decide to try Linux, you have to decide which flavour (also called a distribution) of Linux is right for you. For beginners, I would advise PCLINUXOS or Linux Mint. There may be others that would work but this is all that I have tried so far. Ubuntu is supposed to be easy to use, but I have no experience with it.

Let me know what your experience is with Linux and if you find another distribution of Linux that you like.

VISA!

We just heard today that Carla's student visa for Australia has been granted! We can now travel to Australia and live there for three years. Carla can work part time while she is going to school (law school) and I have the right to work full-time!

This is great!!!! Now we have a few weeks to pack, sort out our things in Ottawa and get on our way through the Prairies and then down through California, before we leave for Sydney. Ohhhh, we are so HAPPY!!!!

Book reviews - Snowball and Outliers

Just yesterday, I finished reading/listening to two great books: Snowball and Outliers, and thought that you would appreciate reading a quick summary.

Snowball is a biography of Warren Buffet, covering his life in quite a lot of detail. The writer does a great job of keeping the story interesting and enlightening. My only complaint is that it does not cover enough of his successful investment decisions. I highly recommended for anyone who is interested in investing and making a difference in the world.

Outliers is a third book by Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point and Blink). In this book, he focuses on factors which enabled successful people to become successful. His claim in this book is that successful people are given help and opportunity in the course of their life, thus helping them to achieve such great success. Gladwell covers some other cultural and quirky factors which tilt the odds in favour of some people, while negatively affecting others. This is good book and an interesting read that will make you think. What else can you ask for from a book!

Laptop lobotomy and a Windows 7 install

My computer got a complete hardware refresh today. As my 3-year warranty was going to run out in a few months, I called Dell last week. My LCD was really dim so I was hoping that they would replace it.

It took two hours on the phone with Dell technical support, but I hit the jackpot. They decided that my LCD needed replacing, along with my motherboard and hard drive. The motherboard is pretty much the same as the old one except that the new video card does not have an overheating problem (but still the same type of video card as on the old MB). I also persuaded them to change my hard drive, hoping that they would replace my 100GB drive with something larger. All that took place on Friday, and today a Dell support guy dropped by to replace the parts (he was ready to come by yesterday, but I was not).

The tech changed the LCD first and I could see a significant difference in brightness. The new LCD is amazing. I don't have to strain my eyes anymore. The problem with LCD screens is that the backlight loses brightness over the years. Having a 3-year warranty sure came in handy.

Then, the motherboard was replaced (successfully). Laptops sure have a lot of screws! The poor tech (who was about 60 years old) took a while to unscrew and screw back in about 25 tiny screws. He did a great job! Then, he replaced my 100GB drive with a 120GB drive. That is definitely not enough space for me. I ordered a 500GB laptop drive from a local computer store and will pick it up on Friday.

Until then, I first decided to run a LiveCD with a Linux OS (PClinuxOS). That actually worked out great, but then I found out that you can download Windows 7 for free (though it practically stop working on March 1, 2010). Took a while to download the whole 2.6GB but once it was done, I loaded it on the new hard drive. Then, I had to hunt for the right video drivers (Dell is not very helpful in this respect).

Finally, at the end of the day, I have a working laptop, with a bright screen, a new motherboard and hard drive, Windows 7 running and drivers making everything look pretty. I will let you know what I think of Windows 7 after I have been using it for a few days.

Applying for a visa

Well, we applied for a visa for Australia yesterday. Actually, Carla applied for a student visa, as she was accepted into a Juris Doctor (Master of Laws) program at University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and Monash University. She chose to go to UTS, as it is a more practical program.

We filled out the visa application online. It was super easy. On Monday, we will go to see a doctor to complete medical examination, and that should be it. If any further documents are needed, we can scan them and submit them online. I am really impressed by how easy Australia has made this process.

We are now trying to figure out all the things that need to be done in the next month, as we will most likely be leaving Canada by the end of June. We have already started looking for places in Sydney. Expensive! But I am sure that we will find something suitable and affordable.

I will let you know when we hear more about the visa. Enjoy the slideshows that I had just emailed. If you did not receive them, send me an email and I will resend them to you.

I am getting pretty good at quickly adjusting to living in other people's houses. The hardest thing though is figuring out where people keep their measuring cups, as there is really no good standard for that. :-) It is pretty hard to make oatmeals right without a measuring cup.

I am feeling a bit better today. Yesterday, I felt like a zombie, but I made sure not to sleep during the day. We ended up catching up on our favourite TV shows (Grey's Anatomy, The Unit, Brothers and Sisters, House). When you are away for four weeks, you get to miss quite a few episodes.

We went to the Superstore yesterday, and I noticed how much cheaper food is in Canada compared to Australia. Well, maybe it's just Superstore, as I remember going to Loblaws or Loeb and noticing how those two stores were much more expensive than the Superstore.

I actually missed Quizno's. They make really good subs. The Subway used to be my favourite, but after so many years, and after trying Quizno's, I can't go to the Subway anymore.

I am still sorting through all my pictures from the trip. 1,300 pictures! It will take a bit to get it all organized, captioned and nicely ordered. But when it's done, it will be worth it!