My week of Monday 22 to Sunday 28 August 2016 began well, but ended in pain.
Monday and Tuesday went to plan, but after that the fatigue set in right through until Saturday. The cat’s humans returned on Saturday evening, rather than Sunday as I’d expected, and that night became a bit… rowdy.
I awoke Sunday morning in pain, thanks to falling onto the edge of a coffee table, and copping the hard corner in the ribs. Do not trust coffee tables. That made the return to Wentworth Falls… interesting. But hey, here I am.
Articles and Podcasts
None, but I’ve gathered plenty of material for writing over the next few weeks.
Media Appearances
- On Tuesday, I recorded another five videos with Chris Duckett for the ZDNet Security TV series. They will appear over the coming weeks.
Corporate Largesse
- On Monday and Tuesday, I was at the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit in Sydney, where there was good food and drink thanks to the Hilton Hotel Sydney. On the Monday night, it’s traditional for exhibiting vendors to try to out-do each other with their alcohol-based hospitality. Those that I remember include CA Technologies’ Bloody Mary shots, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s spin-the-wheel cocktail bar courtesy of CocktailClub.co, LogRhythm’s cocktail bar made of ice; and Pirean’s wine and cheese tasting courtesy of the Sydney Wine Centre. And the swag? Intel Security: branded earphones. RSA: Suction-cup smartphone holders. Thales: More of those excellent pens with the hidden screwdrivers. There was lots more of course, but I only grabbed what I needed.
The Week Ahead
It’s my first week back in the Blue Mountains for three months, and it’s the start of Spring. I’m looking forward to it.
On Monday I’m keeping quiet to rest my back, then staying in to watch an episode of ABC TV’s Four Corners on Cyber War. On Tuesday I’m doing an early-morning interview, reviewing Four Corners for Crikey, and in the afternoon running errands in Katoomba.
On Wednesday, it’s the long commute down to Sydney for a briefing by Nokia’s Fixed Networks division that morning, then writing for ZDNet. I may or may not stay in Sydney overnight. Then on Thursday I’ll be at the Trend Micro CLOUDSEC conference.
There’s a chance all that might be reshuffled or even cancelled if the pain lingers too long.
It most certainly was reshuffled. It turns out that while I haven’t broken any ribs or damaged my kidneys, it’ll take two to four weeks for the injury to settle down. Resting is a more sensible idea than long train commutes. I’ll do some writing and suchlike from where I am.
I reckon Friday will see some more writing for ZDNet, and then the weekend is unplanned.
Further Ahead
The next episode of The 9pm Edict podcast will be recorded and streamed on Tuesday 6 September.
I’m going to the Palo Alto Networks Cyber Security Summit in Sydney on 22 September, the AISA National Conference in Sydney on 18-20 October, the Ruxcon Security Conference in Melbourne on 22-23 October, and an event in Melbourne I can’t tell you about yet on 17 November.
Update 30 August 2016: Edited to reflect pain-related schedule changes.
[Photo: Sydney Central Station on a spring morning, photographed not this year but on 15 August 2012.]
