Had a meeting in Rugby Square Eagle St, Brisbane Marketing / The Bureau. Met a few good people, of note, a cool Brazilian chap named Marco. Afterwards met Laurita at the more demure Omally’s, Queen St. Mall for a few more “light” beers, check out this foamy sucker.

After seeing Wog Boy only last night we decided to see Wog Boy 2, Kings of Mykonos. It was alright, very funny in parts, but was a great look at Greek culture, albiet through the lens of satire.

After the movie we decided to go to Kafe Mez, a Greek taverna in Milton, the Lychee lounge for a cocktail, and finally Music Kafe to see a young band “right left of center”, I believe.

Nice night.

I rock at rock climbing! No pun intended:)

This is at the Morayfield Anaconda store, it’s pretty cool, for a few dollars they strap you up and you can see how fast you can get to the top

For Laurita’s birthday I took her for a Ride through Brisbane on the Citycat and then to a restaurant, lovely

So I am buying a car – a four wheel drive, and the reasoning for this adventure is the ability to travel to a larger variety of places, the current car may well die soon, and then there is also the fact of increased safety in a larger car. Dad has been helping me by giving advice and going to see some of the better candidates, and at the point of our adventure, we think we have found it; so we do the usual thing, shake hands with the owner, kick the tires, and take it for a test drive…

Something hits us

With myself at the wheel, we were getting used to the ride when we came to a halt at a junction, waiting for traffic, I was about to pull out when BANG, something SLAMS into us from behind. It wasn’t that hard where I’d worry if everyone (and there were four of us) were alright so I look at the owner, who cursed on cue. We all jumped out to survey the damage, and it really wasn’t that bad, we saw a SAAB was reversing back and we could see that his light was smashed and his bumper scratched up pretty bad. The car I was test driving had been hit in the back corner, with the impact pushing the Hayman Reese style towbar into the the car, and down a little, there was also a small reflector damaged, but that was all.

This is when I started feeling weird.

I just don’t understand it, is this some kind of sign, and if so what did it mean? I have never had a collision when I’ve been the driver, (I may have hit a small post whilst having fun with an old car but that was on the cards), and this collision had nothing whatsoever to do with my driving anyway, it was someone else who ran into me. I’ve never been one to ask “WHY ME”, but I can almost understand the concept now, fate happens in the strangest circumstances, and it is the biggest coincidence that It happened when I was driving someone else’s car, even weirder – a car that was soon to be mine!

That said I am still buying the car – tomorrow.

And do you know what the weirdest thing is – when I saw the car on the website a figure jumped into my head, a figure that was a bit lower than the car was advertised for, and that’s what I wanted to pay for the car… little did I know but the owner was NOT negotiable at all on the price he had set, however (after the accident things were up in the air as far as the sale, but we proceeded to bargain) due to the accident he has agreed to drop his price to exactly the figure I had and recoup the damages from the Saab driver, the good thing is that the damage is nothing that I can’t sort out in an afternoon by myself.

The way all these things have come together has put me into a state of shock – the connection of the universe, my will, and chance :S

The setting was beautiful, and I met some inspiring people from the world of open source software. We had conference dinner Thursday night, the beer and the wine went down well.

I am a big believer in Open Source, (I’ve thought a lot more than most people and conclude that it’s vitally important for the future of the human race) so as well as the usually great talks about software, was great to see a few people who’ve taken further action; if I was better with names I’d remember more than @piawaugh.

The major sponsors were Google, and weirdly Microsoft, afraid I can’t see my skepticism waning despite how hard MS push the OS agenda…

I look forward to more conferences likewise.