Well, my lovely “holiday” is over. By “holiday”, I mean that for three weeks I did nothing and enjoyed it very much. The main reason I took extra time off was because work doesn’t allow us to have more than four weeks saved up, and I would have been over that threshold if I hadn’t taken any time.

Since arrival at work this morning, I have already fixed four or five things that the other guys were not able to fix. At least I get to feel needed. The first week back will at least be a relatively short week though, as on Wednesday and Thursday I will be at a planning workshop thing as well as spending overnight in a student residence; joy!

My favourite saying since Monday has been “urgh”. On Monday morning, I woke up feeling pretty sore (for no apparent reason, since I’d had a pretty relaxing weekend). Thinking I’d just slept in a funny position I went to work in a pretty normal manner.

By the time I got there, I wasn’t thinking particularly straight, and when I was asking Shane (the new IT guy, who is working on contract while Glenn is away) to restore a file from backup, I seem to recall not thinking very straight. By lunch time, I knew the day was a loss (I hadn’t actually managed to do any work yet) and went home.

I pretty much sat in front of the TV for a few hours, and went to bed early on Monday. Tuesday was, unfortunately, even worse. I called in sick (the third sick day in over two years, I must be slipping) and spent the day in bed and ont he couch. Again I went to bed early.

Which leads us to today; I’m still at home, not feeling too great (though not as bad as yesterday) — this is the first time I’ve had two sick days off in a row for probably 4 years. I’m too stubborn to go to the doctor, but I suppose I really should make an effort so I can pump myself full of drugs.

Oh yeah, “urgh”.

In around four weeks, my boss will be eligible for long service leave; he will touring Australia for eight weeks during that time.

This will leave just the two of us to support the entire division. To make things more interesting, I will be the acting IT Manager for the division; this means I’ll be responsible for 140+ users and easily more than half a million dollars worth of equipment.

In addition, I will be attending IT Manager meetings with all the “real” IT Managers. Daunting, for sure. Especially since all of the ones I’ve ever met are by quite a bit my senior. I will have an entire two staff “under” me (though they are my peers so no doubt I will have no “managerial respect’).

The reason I wrote that particular title for the subject is to hint at how things will probably end up running. A stupid moron blurting out pointless sayings trying to captain the “ship” (so to speak) while splashing everyone with water. Yup, that’s me! The question is, where should I take my managerial inspiration from: The Office? Dilbert? I could spike my hair and be a PHB…

At the moment, at work, it seems like everyone but me is having some sort of holidays. From May to July, I’d say around half of the Melbourne office is going away (at least it seems like it). Many of them are going overseas — and most to warmer climates — while a few are still hanging around Australia.

One lady recently returned from Malaysia, another is off to Queensland, a couple of guys are off to Thailand (not together), yet another guy is going to New Orleans via a cruise, another lady is going to Hawaii, one has simply left (i.e. going to another job) but is going to have a holiday somewhere first.

Maybe I’m not getting paid enough or something, maybe I just can’t save. I don’t know. It’s annoying to see all these people going off having these fantastic holidays, and me sitting here slaving away at my desk (well, not now, I’m not at work) day-in, day-out. I’d love to go away, I just can’t spare the money at the moment.

My body-clock is out of whack from having three days “off”. The past few days were hardly “off”, though I wasn’t at work so I’m all confused now.

In fact, I was so confused that I was compelled to login and read my work email. After about 30 minutes of answering email I decided that it was stupid answering all this stuff since I’d be at work tomorrow anyway. Hang on, tomorrow? Isn’t today Saturday? Yup. Like I said, my body-click is out of whack and for some reason I kept thinking it was Sunday today.

That’s kind of good though, since I also have tomorrow off. It’s like a long weekend! Still, I think I need it as I felt like I’ve run a mental-marathon trying to digest so many acronyms, processes, definitions, concepts and other things that might sound suitably appropriate. I’m just going to relax tonight; Justine and I are going to have our own South Park marathon. We’ll be trying to get through an entire series (about 15-20 episodes I suspect) — I expect we’ll only make it through half at most though.

Mmm… Tacos tonight!

Well, I’m back at work now (damn) and I’ll be working afternoon shifts for at least the next month. Doesn’t really bother me except that I’ll be working to midnight on Saturdays and Sundays, I’d like to finish a little earlier so I could go out for a bit longer, but I’m sure I’ll get over it.

I have almost 400 photos sitting on my computer (that seems to be dying) so once I’ve sorted through them and decided which ones are suitable for upload there should be a few more.

Justine and I passed 6 months together during our time off, we had a cosy night at a small cottage in Olinda to celebrate. During our time off, I also purchased another bonsai, which I re-potted and pruned (read: hacked) myself, I also attempted to plant off-cuts from the tree, and to plant new seeds. I also bought Justine a bonsai as she seemed to be getting jealous. I’d rather have a more mature one but can’t really afford it at the moment (too many bills etc)…

I’ve also figured out a few small sections I want to add to the site but I’ll keep them under wraps for now. …Mike out..

Yeah! I’m just about to embark on my trip to … well, nowhere, but my leave is about to start in 15 or so minutes. I’ve decided to buy the digital camera with a 64MB flash card, to hell with money, who needs it when I can take photos? Umm… Anyway.

I’ve decided to call my bonsai ‘Ted’, you can e-mail him at ted@bludger.org if you’d like, you probably won’t get an intelligent answer but e-mail away. I don’t why I called him Ted, as he’s a Dwarf Hinoki Cypress (chamaecyparis). I don’t have any pictures of Ted at the moment, but seeing I’m getting a digital camera Monday I should very soon. I’ve also decided I may get a more mature plant than Ted to practice the art of bonsai.

Goodbye!