Photos Revamped

Some of you may remember when I first posted “pushing the photos”, an attempt to put my photos up on the site, out of a desire to keep things in-house in a sense rather than using flickr (for a myriad of reasons, chief among them the desire to avoid paying for pro).

So while I’d posted about 40 photos, I never really did anything much with it, but part of the reason was that I didn’t want to use Jack’s space unnecessarily (little knowing that there’s gigs and gigs of space on the hosting plan for so cheap that it didn’t really matter, but in any case). The other part was that I was much too busy (*ahem* lazy) to upload photos. But then after my Europe trip, I uploaded a bunch of photos to share with the other people on the trip, and I did it on my own hosting. Now that I’ve moved the blog across…

In any case, re-welcome to pushing the photos.

And we’re back.

My, didn’t that not go quite to plan…

Basically, up until now, Pushing the Sky had been hosted on Jack’s hosting, which was more out of pragmatism on my part because I didn’t have a credit card – indeed, once upon a time had a moral objection to them – and the internets didn’t work without that.

So when Jack prodded me about a month ago to get off his turf, I thought, “sure, I’ll move it in a jiffy, and then I’ll have control over my own destiny!”, followed by some cackling laughter (ok no really; i mean, who says “Jiffy” these days?). Only it’s not so easy to move, and it ended up taking a little longer than I thought, and I think I ended up costing Jack a bit when they had to remove the referral fees (sorry dude).

But anywho! Hopefully now that I can actually remember my FTP password, and can play with the hosting a bit, I’ll be able to poke around the site more and do some fun stuff (says I, as ever optimistic). We shall see.

So, Posting

So, total lack of posting, despite landing up in one of the biggest cities in the world. Hmmmmm.

But then, the compulsion to blog has disappeared a little while I discover the place for myself. Also, the hour that I previously had in the morning to get to work is gone, removing a significant source of contemplation time which was the source of so much laboured inspiration. On the other hand, sleeping in till 7:30 and still turning up at work at 8:30 isn’t too bad a deal :D (my internal clock no longer wakes me at 4:30 in the morning! yay!)

Been out and about doing all manner of things that I wouldn’t do in Sydney because I’d have had to find my way home late at night on the train (and avoid sleeping through to the last stop on the line). I like the London grads – they’re so ready to go out and have some fun =D Man, Sydney guys, pull your game up! Also loving the summer, even if it’s a half-arsed one by Aussie standards. Light till 9:30 and reasonable spring-ish weather gets anyone’s spirits up, right? =) In some ways this place reminds me of Melbourne, but the difference remains pretty fundamental.

Everyone sounds so “posh” here. I know, I know, there’s the unposh English accents, but I’ve already found myself mimicing the English accent here and there, and “half-eight” is so much more tempting to say than “eight-thirty” – it just sounds less prosaic. Pints are hard to get through though, and these guys clearly have a capacity that far surpasses mine – I’m letting down the hard-drinking Aussie rep. Sorry guys =(

Beyond that, still really trying to find my role here to settle into. At the moment, I remain a representative for the guys in Sydney more than anything, but there’s subtle pushes to doing more valueable stuff (in the sense that I’m not just arguing with the BA team), all the while hoping to avoid paralysis-by-analysis.

Um. I guess that’s the sum of it for now. Hopefully posting more frequently again =)

So, London

And the sky is…. (drumroll please)… grey as can be expected. yay.

There’s people wandering around on t-shirt and shorts. It’s about 16 degrees in the morning, with midday getting up to low twenties.  Summer? bah, I’ll believe it when I see blue skies and truly warm weather. This is like what it was about 3 weeks ago in Sydney, and that was late autumn.

I’m at 8 India St, apartment 12 (feel free to mail me! :D). It’s a studio, well kitted and about 10 min walk from work, which ain’t too bad. I just wish the sound insulation was better.

I woke up at about 6 this morning (if anything, before that, but that’s when I looked at the clock.) I’m not too far off getting into the right timezone, and yes, the business flight does help – I got at least 6 hours of sleep out of a 22 hour flight, so that’s gotta be worth something. Of course, I slept for about 8 hours yesterday too, and then 6 hours or so last night, so I think… I’m catching up some major sleep debt somewhere.

Anywho, to work!

Bangkok, In Transit

Ungodly hour of 3 AM in Sydney, but it’s nearing midnight here. Managed to catch a few winks. 

Bangkok airport is huuuuge. Like, massive.

Business class travel is… ok… eheheh, that may sound a little like a bit of a cop-out, but I think I may have built up an image in my head which far exceeds expectations. Sure, there’s acres of leg room and you don’t have to contend with people leaning back, but the “pods” that BA has are.. strange. You sit either facing front or back – I was back – and are almost facing someone going the other way. Think of an S – you’re sitting in the “blanks” of the S. There’s so much storage room and places to move around though, and the service is excellent – the only place it fails is living up to my deluded (first-class?) expectations I guess =) I was on the upper deck! Surprisingly smaller than I thought. But none the less, wow!

It has also totally spoilt the idea that I could ever return to economy for anything other than… well, economic reasons. *le sigh* And ever aspirational, I now look forward once more… =/

Also, the night sky is even more gorgeous from the air on a darkened aircraft. Not to mention the patchwork of lights – a vertiable constellation in itself – below when flying over populated areas.

Going now

I’m going to miss… juice bars. Seriously. There’s nothing like Boost there. Indeed, the places to eat for lunch all suck over there. Australia is surprisingly awesome about those things.

I’d say I’m going to miss y’all too but that would just be weak. So. I’m not. We’ll keep in touch.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion is one of those books that polarises the readers – either you agree with it or you don’t. Its premise is that the half-way position cannot conscionably be held without some compromise, and ultimately the issue of religion is a divisive one in any case.

Its topic? Why, that’s simple: God doesn’t exist and religion is a dangerous lie. Dawkins doesn’t just argue that god doesn’t exist; indeed, he dispenses with that argument very quickly. The primary focus of this book is not God – it is that the role religion has played in society has not been a positive one, and here he departs from what many in the middle ground hold – which is to say, God might not exist, but there’s nothing wrong with religion. Perhaps this is the only way to argue the case of God convincingly, given how tied up the question is with religion, but as you can tell, this strident position is sure to make many a little uncomfortable accepting Dawkins’ message.

Continue readingThe God Delusion by Richard Dawkins”