An Aussie geek stuck in Texas

Happy Thanksgiving y’all! Just testing out iBlogger on the iPhone while waiting for the festivities to begin!

If you are wondering where the sudden spurt of old posts came from it is because I was trying out using a Tumblr account instead of my Wordpress blog but decided to move back here so I moved my posts from there to here.

Shaving is something I have never enjoyed, no matter what technique I would use with what blade and what shaving cream I would always end up looking like my face had been attacked with the bayonets of a platoon of toy soldiers! For a while I tried an electric shaver of the foil variety but that never gave me a close shave and I eventually ended up leaving the power cord in an Indonesian hotel so it became a paperweight as I wasn’t able to find a replacement cord.

Fast forward to yesterday when I was out and about at shopping with Kimberly when I saw a rotary Norelco shaver on the cheap so my girlfriend being as awesome as she is bought it for me!

So far so good! It doesn’t irritate my skin at all and gives a pretty close shave, although I think I will need to use it for a few weeks to get the best use out of it so my face has a chance to get used to it.

I had used Remember the Milk (RTM) in the past but had recently switched to Toodledo mainly for the native iPhone support (through Appigo’s ToDo and then Toodledo’s own iPhone app) plus to try out a different web interface, however RTM just also released a native iPhone application so I have now switched back as their app is by far the best I’ve used on the iPhone!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all sorts of different things, one of which is what the future holds for me and where I would like my life to lead. This lead to the development of my new 5 year goal, actually it may actually be the first 5 year goal I have ever set. The goal is:

To be able to do my work while I sit in my porch swing in my house in the mountains.

I say “my porch swing” and “my house” in the goal to emphasize the ownership of my own goal but I actually mean “our porch swing” and “our house” as in Kimberly and I’s.

I’m just tired of working in a cubicle farm and being such a slave to corporations, where your every move is open to scrutiny and where there are so many rules imposed on you. Like why should I feel bad if one of my dogs is sick and I need to take time off work to take them to the vet? I want freedom to use my time as I see fit, which means either working for myself doing freelance work, creating my own startup or working for a company that has similar ideals to my own.

I first started forming this goal while I was displaced in Dallas by Hurricane Ike and was sitting in Kimberly’s mum’s porch swing in her house in Mesquite listening to the soothing sound of the wind chimes while I worked remotely on my laptop. It just felt so right to be swinging gently in the swing as I worked on a document detailing the steps of a production migration for a client so that led me to think why can’t every day be like that?

The “in the mountains” part of the goal comes from a life long dream of mine to live in the mountains as to me that seems like the ideal lifestyle, living in a scenic area surrounded by nature with an abundance of fresh air and being able to see the stars at night!