mazzanet's Lair

This will be a short one, it's 12:30am and I have to get up at 7.
I just got back from the cinemas after seeing House of Wax with a friend. That was one screwed up, freaky movie. Enough said. Paris Hilton dies in it, which makes up for everything else though :P
On the other hand, I should have done something, even though I shouldn't. I know I wanted to, but I didn't. People even told me to do it, but I didn't. It's hard to describe.
Trust. Speed.
I think those two words sum everything up nicely. Trust plays a key component in everything, without trust nothing will happen. Speed is important too, if you take things too fast then trust falls apart and everything may be 'ruined'. Always take things slowly, step by step.
I'll leave it at that.
And the somewhat useless fact of the day: 'Industrial strength' Spray & Wipe is better then liquid soap for removing ink from hands (We were taking finger and palm prints in forensics).

Goodnight.

I was going to post on Monday and Tuesday, I swear! On Monday I was just plain too tired and on Tuesday I had er technical issues.
I didn't get up to much on Monday, just the usual classes and sleep.
On Tuesday I finally finished all of the hardware-side of my dish, all that's left is the painful process of positioning, I had to make my own inclinometer to measure all the angles - a protractor masking taped to various positions on the dish mount and some fishing line with a spanner tied to the end, dodgy but it works.
Today was the day of yet another termly school social. Loud music (topping 128dB SPL on the sound level meter I had, some people thought it was a breathalyser and pleaded that I don't tell anyone they were drinking - if they are reading this, which they might, they owe me :P), darting lights, halloween-themed costumes, lots of bo... bodies, many thoughts and decisions and some regrets, but they're another story.
Overall it was a fun evening.
Also the last period today was spent fixing some of the semi-expensive moving lights. One had some wires than had decided to 'weld' themselves to the terminal block they were in and made it melt a bit. The other had a fuseholder that had broken in half and one half had just disappeared, magic. Note, I did not just do any illegal, unsafe mains wiring. *hides*
Look after yourselves and sleep well.

Well what a jam packed weekend (and a Friday) that was.
Didn't get up to much on Friday apart from having double PE at the golf place out Epson.
On Saturday, in the morning I went to work. In the afternoon I continued construction of my dish. I ended up fully running the conduit for the cables and mounting the dish on the pole. Crawling under a house with about 50 cm head room, 50 billion central heating ducts and a bunch of spiders chasing you isn't fun at all. Also, yay for head torches with super bright LEDs.
Today, I spent the morning on top of a big hill (so big it looked like it was about 3/4 of the height of Mt Alexander which was in the not-so-far-away horizon) in Vaughn Springs at the Victorian Orienteering Team Selection Trials. After running/walking up and down quite steep hills for about an hour, I was labeled as a reserve member of the team. These trials were to select the team that travels to Tasmania for the Australian champs in September.
In the afternoon I went back to constructing my dish. I managed to get the LNB (the actual 'antenna') arms bolted on and the LNB in place as well as finishing up the cabling. All that's left is to crimp on the connectors for the receiver and the LNB, and then start positioning the dish and set all the angles.
On a parting note, when I login to my server I get greeted with a random quote. Here's the last one I got, which is so very true for a lot of us:
"Sometimes when you least expect it, love will tap you on the shoulder... and ask you to move out of the way because it still isn't your turn."

I was actually going to post last night except I was deeply enthralled in the new Harry Potter book which I got on Sunday but haven't got around to reading yet and was reading until 1am, which what I was also doing a few minutes ago. It was a really good book with a few 'shocking' twists, but you could them coming, can't wait for the next book...
I didn't get up to much yesterday, the usual classes - nothing spectacular. That night I managed to start working on my satellite dish. I had cemented the pole in the morning, leaving a nice sturdy base for the dish. I worked out how the magical polar mount (what the dish sits on, it can move in 2 axis by moving only 1 axis) works and bolted it to the pole. After that I started putting the dish itself together (pic here), but I had to partially disassemble it so I would fit through the door when it got too cold outside because I spent too long working out how to put it together, tricky stuff.
Today was pretty much the same. After school I started working on the cabling for the dish, rolling out 40m of cable is fun... Later on tonight I went out to the Rifle hotel to have some tea and drink with some mates from work. It was absolutely packed in there, I had to fight my way to the counter. But it was worth it, one of the best chicken parmiganas I've had. Afterwards, I went down and got a nice coffee from Cafe El Beso.
When I got back home, at about 9:45, I remembered I had to start on some video editing of the recording from the Bendigo Science and Engineering Challenge back in June, which we won (we're going off to the state challenge in mid august). Dumping 50 mins of raw DV video to disk is fun... 9 gb worth.
Hmmm, I suppose it's getting late. *falls asleep*

First day of term, yay (in a semisarcastic way). After the initial half-shock half-what-the of noticing the outside wall is now purple/maroon and the garden beds in the courtyard have rearranged themselves, as well as noticing a TV antenna appearing on the roof (*glances at Cal*), the day began in a different way to normal beginning of terms. First there was a few minutes of tutor, then opening term assembly, then some more tutor and then a house assembly.
Classes were mostly boring as usual. In maths I managed to read 90 odd pages of the new Harry Potter book which I got on Sunday for $20, yay for staff discounts. Lastly in bus-man I had the initial poke around of yet another new computer setup. This time they've set up an Active Desktop-style system with the bulletin, notices, email, work drop/submission and what not (based on aDenin Enterprise Postal running on IIS and MsSQL *shudders*).
Also today my satellite dish arrived :D I think I've worked out how the whacky polar mount goes together and I'm going to put in the post and hopefully get the dish up tomorrow evening. The dish itself comes as 4 segments which get bolted together to form a pretty parabola, the segments are built like a tank - the whole lot weighs 45kg.
Fun day indeed.
So now that those semi-boring holidays have ended, expect more regular posting.
*yawns, curls up and falls asleep*