So now we're two-thirds of the way through the year already, time to start reviewing those yearly goals I think.
I started August with a few chaotic days at
work. I found out at the last minute that although I had a holiday starting on Wednesday August 6, I'd been booked into
training for the same Monday to Wednesday, so instead of having a calm lead in to the holiday it was a mad panic trying to get everything closed off on the Friday beforehand. The training for our software gateway product was quite poor, the instructor wasn't very helpful or motivated it seemed, I'm pretty sure he wasn't a full time trainer.
During the first weekend all the usual gang caught up at Matt's place. Matt handed out
magnets from his recent holiday which was a bit of a debacle, also I threw a spare Sydney and New Zealand magnet into the mix which nobody seemed to figure out. I played a bit of Mario Kart on the Wii U for the first time, from initial impressions it seemed alright, but nothing too different from the previous games.
I got in my last good run before going to holiday, which turned out to be quite a grind just to get through 15km, possibly because it was just after having eaten lunch. I'm a bit concerned how much fitness I will lose from not running for about three weeks, plus the atmosphere I'll be spending my days in aren't so conducive to peak health either.
With all of that taken care of, I was off on my second annual
Asia Holiday from August 6 to August 23. The previous link has all of the details from my short time in China, South Korea and Taiwan. As a quick summary, it was good but possibly a bit of a rush at times, going from one city to the next. I also got very sick in South Korea which carried into Taiwan, it was a bit of a shame as I probably achieved a good 25% less than I otherwise might have, but it could have been much worse too. At this stage I'm not sure what my next holiday will be - I'm still in negative annual leave by a couple of days at the moment - but possibly I'll head to Europe as my main holiday next year, at around about the same time of the year so I can catch the start of the 2015 soccer seasons.
After a couple of days back at home I already felt like I was back into the routine. I got my running sessions back underway quickly, but was doing really poorly due to still dealing with a cough and various other ailments. Work was also the same as usual, I even took a sick day the first Wednesday back, in part because I was actually sick but also just to get through the first week back without going too crazy. I was also back into the on-call rotation for the week, only one false alarm but it was at 5:00am on Thursday morning so that was quite annoying.
On the last weekend I visited the
Box Hill collector's fair. I was again hoping there might be some good collectibles, comics, sports cards and such, but this one was like 90% vinyl records - very boring.
The
FIBA world cup started at the end of August. I recorded the two games broadcast on the ABC from the first day - Australia vs. Slovenia and USA vs. Finland. Australia were losing by 10 points early and although they almost caught up around half time, it always seemed like they were going to lose. The USA team won easily of course, but the players they have chosen just don't seem to be that exciting to watch. I expect I will just be skipping through most matches until the final gets closer.
Just a few summary points this month since I was away for half of it:
- Books
- Desperation by Stephen King
- Just started, too early to tell
- TV
- The Amazing Race USA Season 15
- It's actually several years old, but I didn't watch it when it was on
- Most of the teams at the end were quite despicable
- Video Games
- TMNT on NES
- I was keen to see if I could beat it, since I couldn't remember if I ever managed to
- I think we owned the game when we had a NES
- I was able to beat it, but with the help of an emulator
- I'm not sure if I would have been able to beat it otherwise, definitely would not have been easy
