SHINY!
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Shiny of shinys, I finally own a powerbook! That’s right – I am the proud owner of a 17 inch G4 powerbook and my god is it shiny. In every sense of the word.
The machine is fantastic, and very sexy – so far I’m playing with the mac software as I haven’t yet got a copy of Yellow Dog Linux to install on it 
Some of the included software is actually pretty nice, so I’m sure I’ll keep either a dual boot or run max-on-linux but we’ll see how we go. More latee, I’m off to revel in shinyness.
Sexy new phone
Went into the city yesterday and got myself hooked up with vodaphone, as I have to give my mobile handset back to Lonely Planet and needed a new one. I got my number transferred, and picked up a shiny new Motorola V3 – black. It’s very very nice Very easy to use, the camera is actually decent quality and the speakers are lovely. Plus they match my new pens. Oh I didn’t say anything about the pens – watch for a post on em.
Ninjitsu
I couldn’t sleep the other night, and I started looking up australian Ninjutsu dojos online. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I found a school and a sensei that look pretty damn good, so I wrote down his details. I ummed and ahhed for a few days as I am wont to do, then I finally rang him and asked a few questions. After a brief chat he asked if I could come down the next week – I almost put it off, but then decided no I should just go ahead and do it.
So this thursday just gone I headed up to the dojo to say hi, and had a very interesting chat with the instructor, plus went through some basic moves with him. The school trains heavily in weapons, both modern and traditional, and is very focused on the art itself, so they’re not a competition club or anything like that. They also have a particular philosophy and follow Bukinkan martial arts as a lifestyle rather than just combat training.
The training was very effective and the club itself looks like a lot of fun. They’re very careful about who they let join, as they want to make sure they’re comfortable teaching you the sorts of things you can learn in this style, so I will go to a few intro lessons and get to know the club as they get to know me. There’s also a little ninjas class which looks really fantastic – no contact for a good while, and lots of emphasis on discipline and good behaviour. The merit awards in the class are based on how well mannered the kids have been and how well they’ve been doing their reading (both are things parents can track at home in a little exercise book they have) and B is dead keen to have a go. It will be nice to be able to train with him to some extent
New Job
Time to move on again. After all the cafuffle at Lonely Planet, I’m finally moving on. It was very gratifying to get a lot of support from my team when they heard about it, and ultimately I think this is a very good thing – I’ve been able to move sideways into another management role, in a company that looks very interesting. I don’t start till january 23rd so I still get some holidays as well, and LP is going to honour my days in leiu as well which is good.
The new place (cvMail) looks like fun – it’s an entreprenurial place with a core product that’s doing very very well on the global market. It will be my job to take that product and the team that builds it several steps forward, in terms of technology and marketplace, so it’s a big challenge. I’m really looking forward to starting it…