This afternoon I got home from a frustrating and difficult day at work. I sat down on the couch with Melly to tell her about my day. So often I am glad that I have her to talk to and lean on. Today especially because it kinda sucked.
Being the patient wife that she is she took the time to listen to what I had to say. Afterward suggesting that perhaps I should take my briefcase into the study and put my things on my desk with the suggestion that it would be the first step on my way to winding down for the afternoon. It was, though, just a ploy. No sooner than had I walked into the study did I noticed a glimmering row of perforated cardboard pieces baring in capital letters across the center, “NICKELBACK” above this the words “BRISBANE ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE”, and below “Thu 4 May 2006 8:00pm”. I thought I must have been day dreaming for a sec, and it took a double take to convince myself that I was in fact staring at two well seated tickets to my favourite rock band’s Brisbane show!
I’d been wishing for weeks that I had the money to buy some tickets. I thought the tickets would probably sell out in the first hour, and I couldn’t be bothered taking the time off work to make sure I was available to make a phone call when the tickets went on sale. Melly however, being the incredibly intelligent girl that she is, must have done some snooping around, because apparently she managed to pick up the tickets in a pre-sale. Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE my wife? Well…it’s VERY true!
Yesterday Mellissa and I had our 4 year togetherness anniversary. The anniversary date of the day we started out as a couple. I arranged a week or two ago to use some of my time in lieu to spend a long weekend with my wife. Being the good husband that I am, I kicked off the day by making her breakfast in bed. Aren’t I nice??? After a lazy day spent together we had a late lunch in Laurel Bank park, I bought us Red Rooster. Melly had a variation of this, and I had this. It was yummy. It was really nice just being able to relax among the trees eating and spending time together.
Today, as you know, is Valentines Day. Melly woke me up today with a lovely valentines card with a cute puppy on the front that says “I love you”. I adore it. This morning we went to see Heath Ledger’s new movie Casanova. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. I really enjoyed it, and my frozen coke. Oh….and of course the company of my darling wife.
After the movie Melly and I got another late lunch, this time at the Valetta Cafe. The cafe was really nice. Cool breeze, nice garden setting and so forth. We sat outside enjoying the environment, it was quiet relaxing. I had a Tandoori Chicken Burger and a Coffee Frappe, Melly a Soy Latte and a Ham Foccacia. The food was delicious, and we were very full afterward. Seeing as though the cafe was across from Queens Park, after we finished our meal we took a long stroll together. It was romantic.
It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 years already. It feels like four seconds. Like we’ve said on Melly’s blog, we know we are meant to be because we’re not sick of each other, after all this time. Which is good considering we promised each other forever.
After our lovely day out together we’re back at home now, relaxing for the rest of what’s left of my long weekend. Kinda bites that I have to go to work again tomorrow, but it has been really great having an extra day to unwind. This long weekend has confirmed the fact that I’m overdue for a good long holiday. Hopefully that wont be too far away.
**Warning! Geek Post ahead**
I just read a slashdot article about a new extention to the X.org X Server on Linux. See here to learn about Novell’s new Xgl extension
I recommend downloading the videos and taking a look. As far as eye-candy goes I think this is probably the biggest development GUI-wise for the Linux desktop in a long while. Some of the features are really cool. Desktop rotation, True Transparency, Zooming, all very cool indeed. While it’s obvious that much of the work has taken from other ideas (such as 3DDesktop), I think if this kind of thing were combined with Sun’s Looking Glass technology we’d have the best looking desktop environment on the market.
While I think that linux desktops like KDE and Gnome dump all over the current Windows XP interface, I do believe the playingfield will be levelled when Windows Vista is released. Tools like these however will more than likely give the GNU/Linux communitiy the edge over Vista, which is important in winning interest from the wider desktop community.
Now all I have to do is wait for it to be placed into Gentoo’s Portage system and I can have a tinker myself.
It’s been a while in the making, but I’m happy to present the latest rendition of eSinner.com, new and improved in it’s latest incarnation of version 4.0. I got a bit of negative feedback over the time I switched from version 2.0 to 3.0 as some people seemed to have problems reading the text, others yet found the color scheme too dark. Despite the fact that this was my goal, I inadvertently succeeded in turning away a lot of my regular readers. Version 4.0 is an attempt to pull back the crowds and get this site back on it’s feet discussion wise. While I’m quiet happy to write what I write here to no one at all, it is always more interesting when there is discussion involved.
Version 4.0 is an attempt to keep with the same color scheme as version three, but with a softer, brighter approach. I’ve also gone for a clean, defined layout in order to make things more visually appealing. We’ll see how that goes I guess.
Home group has started back again for the year. Home group is something I struggle with quiet a lot. I find it hard whenever I am around other believers to not become frustrated and disillusioned with either their teaching, or their conduct. I don’t go to church at all at the moment. It’s something I want to get back to, but I find that my relationship with God is stronger when I stay away from church, and aim my focus on endeavoring to simply LIVE Christ and LIVE love. I do get a lot out of home group, but mostly from a fellowship perspective more than and learning angle. Most of the time I feel like I’m doing the teaching, rather than getting taught. I suppose that is ok, but often I get annoyed with where others are at in their spiritual journey because we discuss ideas and thoughts about our respective theologies, and what the majority of the group seems to get excited about and involved in are topics and ideas that I find rather infantile, and I know that does sound conceited. I guess more than anything it’s like covering old territory. There’s nothing new there. I know everyone has to start somewhere, and we can’t be all at the same point in our journeys at the same time, but I get frustrated nevertheless.
Another thing that frustrates me about home group is personalities. Personalities that feel the need to preach at me at every chance. Personalities that make me cringe at even the idea that I even consider myself a Christian. I wish I knew how to love my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as well I seem to be able to love non-believers. What’s worse is when I get disheartened with God because I superimpose the actions of people and their failings onto Him, when God is not the one who has let me down. Furthermore I get doubly disappointed when I come about to realising that I too am no better, and probably cause the same problems for other people in their relationships with God. It can be really quiet depressing… Praise God that he sent Jesus to save us from this wretchedness!