It's a sign that life is busy when I don't post here for ages. It's been beyond busy recently. I stare at the front page now and then and note the stagnation, knowing only I can change it. And then something else comes and steals my attention.
No matter, life is going well! Miss Phoebe is for the most part much improved. She still has times when she has been awake for hours and is so tired that she won't sleep or feed. They're tough and she needs constant attention to sort her out. Liz is unfortunately copping most of this as I'm busy at work and still with bands. Several times of the years I've considered dropping back my band commitment, and each time we've discussed it and agreed it can continue. Now I'm not so sure, it's just not fair on Liz to make her do so much while I'm off having a good time elsewhere.
As part of the process of spending more time at home, I purchased a shiny new bike. On the first ride into work on it I cut ten minutes or so of my fastest time on the old bike, so there should be less time spent commuting and more at home. I spent a long time researching options, considering a few compromises on eBay, but ended up getting exactly what I wanted. An expensive way to do it, but warranty and reliability are key on a commuter.
It's what they call a
Cyclocross bike, dedicated to the sport of
Cyclocross, which pretty much nobody knows about. The formula is to take a fast road bike, make it more rugged, make it more comfortable, and add practical features. So it's a bit slower than a "real" road bike but as you can see above, it's still plenty fast!
And at the other end of the commute - work - things are changing too. My team is being restructured out to the Parramatta office, and I'm was really not looking forward to the extra hour's train journey. The bike ride was far more direct and looked not to be too much longer than the ride to the city, but I can't ride every day, due mostly to weather and carrying instruments. From an organisational perspective it makes sense for that team to be with the rest of the people who do similar things, but from a personal perspective Parramatta has nothing at all to appeal to me, and eats into the time with my new family. Even if I don't go out in the city every day, I
could if I wanted, whereas what little there is at Parramatta seems to shut down after business hours.
So I got offered a position as technical lead in a different, but similar team, who are remaining in Surry Hills. I've decided to take it for six months, to see how the management thing suits me. If it doesn't very well then I can either revert to my old job out at Parramatta or look to the market for something different.
Enough for now, I need coffee.