My original post to LiveJournal.com

In the interest if trying to keep all kinds of entries centralised under one location, I'm going to re-post an entry that I originally published on LiveJournal. I never had time or energy to republish there, so I might just add some details as to what happened between this post and the first post here @ Blogger:

• I never did go to the Lord of the Rings marathon (I just went to see The Return of the King instead).
• Linda came back to Perth on March 30th and immediately fell pregnant
• Mum and Dad came over to visit for a week in April and just happened to be there when we found out
• The basic meter reading extract process did turn out to be a f*cking nightmare as I predicted. However, after much redesign, Michael Waller, the DBAs and I got the process down from taking 3 months to execute to 55 minutes!
• FRC go live we consistently delayed by a week per delay, and I finally left Perth to return to Melbourne on July 19th.
• Linda, Chelsea and I went to Sydney for a week where I finally popped the question. (Linda surprisingly said yes...
• Linda's Mum successfully opened her store in Camberwell - "Sacred Nature" - and is struggling like every other new venture.

Anyway, without further blurb, here's the original post. (The first couple of sentences might sound familiar!)

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So, here's another attempt at keeping some kind of journal. I've tried once before but it didn't last. Wonder how this attempt will turn out...

So Juthan, what doing? Lets' look around and see what's happening. I'm 33, living temporarily in Perth while on a contract with Alinta, and am currently quasi-single as Linda and Chelsea have gone home to Melbourne to help Linda's Mum (Jen) set up her new shop in Camberwell. Lovely.

So what's really going on? I'm definitely a happy guy at the moment. Looking around other journals here it appears that so many other journal writers are busy wallowing in their misery and self pity. This journal will be nothing of the sort!

Life in general is great. Money is still a hassle, but we're nearly out of the woods. Loans are nearly paid off - we've just got to attack the credit cards now! Work is fine - not necessarily inspiring, but it's acceptable. Still not really sure if I'm happy in IT or not. I know I'm good at it, but it's not what I love. I'm probably still clinging to the dream of being a musician until I die, but it was never going to happen. I should have given it a real shot when I was younger, but still I did do a lot more than others could ever dream of doing.

Chelsea is now nearly 3 years old and is such a pretty and happy little girl. Despite the fact that this is a pretty self-congratulatory thing to say, Linda and I are really good parents in my opinion. The fact that CC is such a little Daddy's girl also helps! :-) While we've been in Perth she has gotten right into dancing lessons (every Tuesday) and swimming lessons (every Friday). She's much happier in the water now and doesn't fly into a panic when she's submerged. At a BBQ @ Jon Ockwell's place a few weeks ago she wore floaties for the first time in their pool and she happily floated around on her own - until she felt that you had gotten too far away and she cracked it at you! She's a funny kid. Here's some of the funny sayings that she comes out with at the moment:

• "What doing?"
• "Not happy Daddy!" (With a serious scowl included which is mixed with a half-smile...)
• "Daddy go back-a-work now?" (When I get home - she's checking that I'm not heading back again...)

Lion King and Finding Nemo are getting a right thrashing in the DVD player at the moment, but that's fine with me, I love them!

So, let's talk about Linda (aka Leenda). She's far away in Melbourne at the moment and I miss her badly. It makes me feel like crap when she's gone because I always realise that I take her for granted when she's with me. I'm such a dumb-ass. She's the best thing that's happened to me, not including CC of course but that's different, and I must try to find ways of showing her that. Poor girl - gets very little from me too often. Looking forward to getting these finances straightened out though so that I can finally buy her the ring she deserves. Can't wait for that day...

Anyway, she's gone off to Melbourne to help Jen get her shop sorted. God only knows what's happening with Chris and Jen. They're fighting, they're not fighting, he wants on "open" relationship, they're back together again... I don't know how they got like this, but neither of them are happy. Still, they always stick it out so I presume that there's still love there which must be nice for Christopher, Dean and Linda to know. I wonder if Linda and I would survive that kind of test? I'm lucky that Mum and Dad have never been through that kind of strain in a way that was evident to me except for that split in the early 80s. (WTF was that about?) Probably the biggest reason that I'm the stable (boring?) person that I am today...

So what am I up to? Alinta is fine at the moment, but the basic meter read extract is going to be a fucking nightmare to get together. FRC go live has pushed back to June 28th so I'll probably be here in Perth for a while longer. Gonna have to break that to Linda gently. I have kinda dropped the whole space obsession for WW2 obsession at the moment. Devouring books on Hitler, Churchill and the war itself. Why do I get so locked into something and flog it to death like this? Who knows - I've always been like it...

Well, I'm going to bugger off now. It's the weekend and I'm going to eat some crap food, watch some crap TV and get ready to watch 10 hours of LOTR movies tomorrow at Innaloo Megaplex. Planning to drive to Muchea this weekend as well to check out the old Mercury tracking station, but might delay a week so that I can pick up some plans from another dude in Perth...

Bye Journal! Hope I get off my lazy ass and write another entry into you one day!
Justin