Finally - an update!

Well, I managed to get up off my backside and made an update to my main site.

I've uploaded a photo gallery with some of my less bad photos on it. None of them are award-winning or even particularly good, but hopefully it'll give me a baseline to improve from.

Trying to get more into writing, not very successful thus far. On the plus side, I've stopped ordering stuff on-line, which means there is less chance of things getting lost in the mail during the upcoming move.

Not sure when we'll be moving, the uncertainty is the most annoying part. We've moved plenty of times before so it isn't as traumatic as it can be for some people. Probably helps that I can't wait to get out of this place. Anyway, boxing is going nicely, still have more stuff to pack than stuff which is packed, so we're aways away still.

Car died

Car is now officially dead.

It has some problem in the engine that requires the engine to be pulled apart to determine the problem. And if the problem can be fixed, then it'd be fairly easy to fix since the engine is, you know, already apart.

However, it'd be a few hundred dollars in labour in order to pull the engine apart just to find out what was wrong and then a couple more to put it together again. And it might even need a complete new engine.

So I figure I'll cut my losses and see if I can sell it off for a few hundred. With the criteria outlined in the previous post, I'll be looking for a fresh car this weekend.

Oh well, win some, lose some.

In other news, I got my latest Lego package from Europe. Just gotta put it together. Also, our cat might have been kicked or clipped by a car - she's limping around and not letting anyone get close.

And work sucks, but you already knew that...

Two hundred and second

Wow, just noticed that I'd hit the 200-post mark. I had thought about doing something special for the 200th post when I was up to 193 or something, then forgot about it.

Oh well, never mind.

The car is on thin ice at the moment. I paid $2,250 for it and I've already had to do about $2,000 worth of repairs. I know my brother has spent masses of money on his car (same make and model, different year) so depending on what the mechanic says today (it's been running rough over the weekend) I'll see if it is worth the effort of keeping it or getting another one.

The annoying thing is that all the mechanics I've taken it to all say "oh, it's in great condition, nothing wrong with it". And then a week later something else needs fixing.

Having said that, if I do go looking for yet another car, I'll be making a list and sticking to it this time:

• It must be a manual, preferably five speed.
• Ute is preferred, but sedan is cheaper and more useful.
• It must be old, so that I can do maintenance myself.
• It needs to have a towball on the back.

And I'll be writing that down and damned sticking to it this time!

In other news, Hasoly has completed her required hours and now needs to go do the Hazards Perception Test and she'll have her license and be able to drive on her own.

Blargh...

Well, it was supposed to be a long weekend.

Instead our beloved area manager decided that we would open for work on Monday anyway, despite the fact that we never open for public holidays and had signs up saying that we would be closed for the last two weeks.

Looks like its going to be a boring day, sitting around kicking our heels. On the plus side, extra money. On the down side, waste of a day.

Like I said, blargh...

House picked out

Well, looks like we have a place picked out. An offer has been made and accepted, the bank is talking to the settlement agent and hopefully we'll be good to go in a relatively short amount of time. How long that is depends on several things, most of which I'm probably not aware of.

Life in general is doing pretty good. Most of the stuff I bought on eBay arrived without major drama so it's all good on that front. I have two packages still in transit - one from the US and one from Europe which should both hopefully arrive before we move.

The car is still losing coolant, which is a pain but is still manageable. I still want a motorbike but it does not look like that will be happening any time soon. No major disasters this week, so everything appears to be coasting along nicely.

Memo to self: get the photos up...

House Huntin'

So, today is a day to get into massive debt.

We'll be going out to look at a bunch of houses and hopefully point at one and shout "I'll take it!". Pre-approval is awesome. Just gotta stick with the re-payments.

One could say "we are going to buy a house". Likewise, one could also say "we are going to get into half a million dollars worth of debt".

Doesn't sound as good when put that way... :o(

On hold

Okay, so I have a number of projects that are sitting around, not going anywhere. These are:

• Way of the Lone Road - this is a communal story forum that I started a few years ago. The people who were involved with that one have mainly moved on. Status: Currently, I am using it as general forum for my various projects.
• TwaiP - this was my first webcomic. For a first, I think it went pretty well. It has a start, a middle and an end. Status: Finished.
• The Craze Factor This was a "stolen" webcomic. Basically, someone else wanted their account deleted. I asked them to send me the login details which they did and I deleted their old content, like they wanted. Then I moved in my own junk and squatted on the account. Status: Being used as a testing area. Can be deleted at any time.
• ictoanftc - I couldn't think of a name for this comic is on indefinite hiatus. The story wasn't going anywhere and I ran out of motivation.
• escobar.id.au - my main site, no updates in a long time. This one I really need to get to work on. Status: Limping along
• Loneverse - this is my "big" creative site. However, it too has not updated in a long time. I have the urge to overhaul it and start again, but that does not feel right. I may just leave it as is, get another domain and start a new story site with a different theme. Status: Unofficially on hiatus
• LTPD - this is the latest webcomic. It's a photocomic that uses Lego people (hence the recent splurging on Lego). Turns out that sticking word bubbles on photos is not as satisfying as drawing comics. Status: Aborted?

I'm pretty sure that I have another project or three that I am not listing. I have a lot of started/aborted projects.

So in order to focus, I think I will cut down on the number of projects that I have running. Since I will be running a private server at home, I think that what I will do is to set up a private wiki and see if I can maintain a series of updates on the local one and then see about getting a new domain. Loneverse I'll put on tentative hold, though I intend to keep writing that one and I'll need to get into gear and get some more updates on my main site.

Everything else is getting dropped.