My week of Monday 21 to Sunday 27 September continued to be painful. Literally. In pain. Again. Which rather detracted from the joy of being in Sydney. And then Central station caught fire, and my front tooth broke again.
I did get some productive work done, as listed below, but if you’ll allow me to have a personal whinge for a moment…
The shoulder pain I mentioned last week hasn’t been fading, so I saw a doctor. His referral for imagery, both ultrasound and X-ray, has a clinical note written on it: “??rotator cuff tear ??bursistis”. This does not sound wonderful. I’ll know more next week.
And the broken front-tooth filling that was repaired a few weeks back? Yes, it broke again today. I’m rather stressed by this right now, because I know it will now need a more expensive repair option, and this sort of unexpected expense at the end of the month is, well, difficult to deal with.
Articles
Both of the ZDNet columns that I wrote this week were reflections on the Malcolm Turnbull-led Australian government. Yes, the regime change was yet another significant force that shaped my week.
- Turnbull’s new Cabinet and the uphill battle to change Canberra’s ways, ZDNet Australia, 21 September 2015.
- Oh no, startups are now Australia’s political battleground, ZDNet Australia, 24 September 2015.
Podcasts
None, but a new episode of The 9pm Edict is expected to appear very, very soon. I’m also thinking of ways to resurrect Corrupted Nerds.
Media Appearances
None. Well, that’s not quite true. On Wednesday, I was interviewed by ABC Radio National’s Media Report about my crowdfunding efforts, and that will be heard this coming Thursday 1 October at 1730, Friday 2 October at 0530, and on the program website.
I also stumbled across Matthew da Silva’s profile of me from earlier this month. People you should know … Stilgherrian. Why anyone would start a new series of blog posts with me is anyone’s guess.
5at5
The were four editions of 5at5, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Why not subscribe so you’ll get all the future ones?
Geekery
I usually don’t mention the geekery that I do for the clients of my legacy business Prussia.Net and elsewhere. However, this week I’ve been migrating a client’s internet presence to new infrastructure, some 13 domains in all, and I’ve also been planning out some future work.
Corporate Largesse
- On Thursday evening, Sapphire Communications introduced us to some of their clients over drinks at Gowings Bar and Grill.
The Week Ahead
I’ll be in Sydney for another week, it seems. It’ll be a busy one, at least to begin with. And it’ll also continue to be painful, at least to begin with. Sigh. This entire section was rewritten on Monday evening to reflect a rapidly-changing reality, and again on Thursday morning.
On Monday, I was approved to start on a SEKRIT project. I also went to the dentist in the early afternoon to re-do the tooth fix. The rest of the day was a write-off, because the codeine for my shoulder pain played very well with the Ativan for reducing the anxiety of having things in my mouth. I found writing to be a bit difficult after that.
On Tuesday, I’ll be writing a column for ZDNet, discussing another SEKRIT project, and tackling finishing an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, projects. Tuesday was overrun by pain, some in the form of email, some in the form of neural signals.
On Wednesday morning, I’m shutting down that Prussia.Net client’s old server and tidying things up. In the afternoon, I’m getting the medical imagery done. At 1650 AEST, I’m doing a spot on ABC 105.7 Darwin. Then at 1930 AEST, I’ll be talking about various tech things on ABC 774 Melbourne and local stations around Victoria.
Thursday is 1 October. A new quarter, bringing with it a certain amount of adminstrivia. I’ll also visit the new VMware Briefing Centre in Sydney. I should write something for ZDNet in there too. In the morning, I’ll be working on plans for two trips to Melbourne later in the month. Then at 1500 I’ll re-visit the doctor to look at the medical imagery and decide what happens next.
Friday is bound to be about tying up the week’s loose ends before the long weekend, with the Labour Day public holiday on Monday 5 October. Nothing specific has been planned for that yet. Needless to say, I am stressed by the chaos levels.
Update 1 October: Edited to reflect the much-changed plan for the week.
[Photo: Sydney Central station on fire, photographed on 26 September 2015. This photo was also used by Radio New Zealand in their story Fire at Sydney’s Central Station extinguished.]
“Will the latest wave of digital disruptors liberate consumers from monopolies or shackle them to new ones?” asked the Australian Communications Consumers Action Network (
