Tom had invited me over to a LAN Party at Ryan and Steph’s house, and it was to start at 11am and finish at 11pm. I saw a post on Restful Routing on the rubyonrails-talk mailing list so I replied to it with a full-blown semi-tutorial (the previous post on this blog) for creating a forum system using Restful Routing. At around 11:30 my dad came around and took me to get fitted for a suit for my sister’s upcoming wedding. He’d asked earlier about poker this Tuesday night (the 8th) and I told him that I couldn’t go because I was doing a presentation at the Ruby Users Group meeting that night. He had suggested we go to the Red Lion hotel in Elizabeth where they held poker on Thursday nights. He asked me again on the way to get fitted and I re-affirmed that I was going. The fitting was fine ($119 for a suit!) and without incident.
I got home at around 12:30 and finished the restful routing tutorial after mum cooked toasted sandwiches for me and Michael. I didn’t start to get ready until 2, where around about my ceiling started doing thisA few months ago it did it also, but not this badly. Michael (mum’s boyfriend) had only just replaced the ball valve in the airconditioner and that started to happen, not that I’m blaming it on Michael. So after a few minutes of it dripping and mum panicking that the ceiling was going to collapse, I packed to go to the LAN party.
I arrived at the LAN party and was immediately placed on a small fold out table. These people were there: Ryan Steph Damien Damien’s Girlfriend? Tilly Emily Daniel Thorpe (vagabond) Bob Thorpe Necrotic / The Lanner Formerly Known As Hordey Me Devastator 3 dogs 3 cats Tom
After realising that this table was only just big enough for my case, two screens, keyboard and mouse, I gave Freddy shit because of his monitor and enormous mouse pad situated next to his enormous pile of junk. He tried unsuccessfully to make room for me (I didn’t want to move) and instead Damian took the spot Freddy created. We played games like World of Padman and Guitar Hero up until around 6:45 when I left (after obliterating Devastator and Daniel Thorpe in those respective games).
I went to my Dad’s house because it was my friend-of-15-years Shane’s 21st birthday and he wanted to hold it at my dad’s house because he has a pool there. I did the usual greeting thing and Dad told me mum wanted to contact me. She told me that my ceiling had collapsed, a great big hole about 2x2 metres in the roof had opened up and the carpet was soaked.
After the phone call I dipped my feet into the pool and eventually got in. It’s a good feeling to be in a pool after a day as warm as Saturday was. Eventually other people joined in and we had a good time. Some of Shane’s mates brought balloons that looked like huge boobs and one of them bought him a blow-up doll.
3 or so hours later I realise that the LAN would be over shortly so I headed back to The Other Ryan’s house and went to collect my stuff. Daniel Thorpe and his “crew” were just leaving, with Daniel apparently complaining of a headache (I wonder why… cough Hordey cough). Devastator asked me for a ride and as we were packing up our stuff Daniel came in and I originally thought he was joking around and just came back to grab something:
“You what?”, was my immediate response.
After a little bit of explaining and establishing the fact that it wasn’t a joke, we all went outside and looked. Dan’s car was parked about a foot away from mine, and mine had a huge dent (pictures coming later) in the side of the driver’s door. After more discussion and me keeping my temper under control, I told Dan to go and I’ll get his insurance details later. Trying to open the driver’s door failed, the handle was jammed. So I go into the passenger’s door and opened it from the inside and got someone to shut the driver’s door to see if it would still open and shut, and it did. So I closed the passenger’s door, right on to my pinky finger of my left hand. My fingertip was jammed into the door and the instant reaction was to use as much force as possible to move my hand away from the door, and in doing so I pulled out a very numb finger. After much swearing and cursing at mostly everything that went on that day. I took a few photos of the car door.
I took Devastator home and on the way he mentioned he was hungry. I shouted him to McDonalds at Munno Para and we tried to go through the drive through. After trying to wind down my window I realised there was about an inch I could wind it down, and then nothing more. I backed out of the drive through and into a car park and we apologised to the security guard outside. They were surprisingly quick inside, and we were back into the car in no time, and I tried to get into the driver’s side and remembered that it was jammed, so I got into the passenger’s side, hopping over the gear stick and handbrake to slide into my seat.
We made a stop over at my house to inspect the damage. Mum and Michael did a good job of cleaning up the mess because when I returned much later that night it seemed like all the debris had just vanished. Also according to mum water might’ve leaked into the walls as well.
I dropped Devastator home and then went to Michael’s house and watched the end of Gladiator on his new 44 inch 1080p Sony Bravia TV. He mentioned that he was going to give mum his old 22” TV.
SundayOn Sunday morning I was woken up at the ungodly hour of 7:20am by Mum who said we had to be home at 8:00 for the carpet cleaning guy to come along. I didn’t see why I had to go as well, as I had driven my car over there, but she just wanted a lift home.
8:00 rolls around with no sign of the carpet dude and I happily set up my computer back in my room and begin to upload all the photos I took of the ceiling and check my emails, talk on IRC and read the forums. 8:35 the carpet guy rocks up and spent about an hour doing his thing. We moved the majority of my stuff out of my room and into the kitchen & dining rooms. He put a blower thing in my room to dry the carpet and the underlay. He was fairly nice and I talked with him about Reloaded and he said his son might be interested in going, so I gave him a ticket to give to his son as he left. Michael came over shortly afterwards.
I couldn’t use my computer after that and Mum and Michael went out to get a new entertainment unit for the new TV, so I was left home alone. I decided that I should go for a bike ride since it was a nice day and there wasn’t really that much else I could do. I liked riding down the Torrens, so I thought it would be good idea to do that today. I grabbed my backpack and put my camera in there and got the bike out of the shed and brought it through the house and out the front door, I locked the back and front doors on my way past so I wouldn’t forget to do it when I eventually left. I put my bike on the lawn and struggled for a few seconds to find an even spot on the lawn to put it, and the front door slammed behind me.
More cursing and swearing ensued. I tried opening the door but it was locked. The back door and laundry doors were locked too, and I almost cut my hand on the gate when I was closing it. I was locked out of my own house with my backpack and my bike and no wallet, keys or phone. I rode down to where my brother works and asked if he was working, he wasn’t. So I begun the long ride to his house to get the spare key off him. By chance I happened to pass by the Red Lion hotel which dad told me about poker and I noticed that they had two poker banners up. The first said it started at 7 and the other said it started at 7:30. I went into my bag and took out my camera and saw directly underneath my camera were my wallet and phone, but not my keys. I took a few photos of the banners and headed towards Elizabeth train station to catch the train into town. It was almost dead-on 12pm when I got there and decided to stop in at McDonalds to get a drink.
I walked over to the train station and sat down. It wasn’t long before Your Usual Elizabeth Single Mother And Child (tm) came along with the mother almost constantly scolding the child. Also Your Usual Homeboy Dressed Up In 50 Cent Shit (tm) came along too. Gotta love Elizabeth residents. The train was scheduled to arrive at 12:17, but it arrived at 12:25. How they can make trains run late on Sunday is beyond me. I got on the other carriage than Your Usual Elizabeth Single Mother And Child did so I wouldn’t have to listen to them argue. I reached into my bag for my iPod and found it in it’s usual location. I tried turning it on only to find the battery was flat. It was a long train journey, as all train journeys from Elizabeth are.
Arrived in town and rode down to where I work to see if anyone was working (sometimes they come in on the weekends), and found nobody was there. Went over to the IGA and had lunch (cold sausage roll + coke) and begun riding towards West Terrace. On approaching Whitmore Square I noticed my handlebars were beginning to twist, without me applying much effort at all. This problem only deteriorated the further I rode, and I called dad and asked where I could get some allen keys from, he suggested Jaycar. Jaycar was open and only charged $9 for a set of around 30 allen keys. I got out one I saw seemed to fit the best and some how managed to round it off whilst doing up the bolts on my handlebars.
I continued on my quest down to West Terrace and to a street called “Goodenough Street” which I spotted whilst Google Mapping a month or so ago and took a photo of the sign. I rode through the side streets and onto South Road and towards the River Torrens when I realised my right pedal felt funny. I thought it might’ve been because I had it up the wrong way, but when I looked down I saw that it had partially unscrewed itself and was at an angle. I walked from South Road to the train station, pushing my bike (~4km). Along the way I got a nice sunburn on my arms, face and neck.