theducks.org

I used to be quite a Singapore Airlines fanboy. But they’re not keeping up the cool. Firstly, a few months ago, they cut ALL of their flights to Vancouver, and now only fly codeshare via San Francisco. This is not what I want. Therefore, we’re flying with Air Canada.

Now I get an email saying this:

As a valued KrisFlyer member, I am writing to inform you that as a result of a commercial impasse with Flight Centre, Singapore Airlines airfares might not be available for purchase through Flight Centre retail outlets.

Singapore Airlines is still committed to giving our customers great value fares. Singapore Airlines has agreements in place with other major travel agents, and our flights can be booked as per normal through all other travel agency groups, or online at singaporeair.com.au

Whatever the reasons, it doesn’t mean I’ll change travel agents, it means I’m more likely to change airlines. The fact is that aside from Travel Centre (and their offshoots) and STA Travel, there aren’t any other major travel agency groups that cater to my market segment in Australia. And as for the fares on singaporeair.com.au, they are laughably expensive compared to prices on the same flight through travel agents.

So well done Dale, Singapore Airlines Passenger Marketing guy, I hope this standoff is going to be worth it.

We have some immediate accommodation booked to see us through from June 25th – July 3rd. I’ll keep my fan club off my trail and not say where, but it will do quite nicely.

The weeding of belongings continues, but I still need to arrange storage for a few cubic metres of stuff. Hmm!

Pete Souza is a lucky guy. He gets to be official Whitehouse photographer, not just the current one, but he was also Reagan’s too. He also gets to play with lots of shiny toys, and uploads photos to the Whitehouse flickr stream.

Thanks to this, you can EXIF stalk his kit. But not too closely. They strip out the device serial numbers from the EXIF, so you can’t tell how many of each he has. Let’s assume it’s a few. I wish I had a couple of Canon 5D mkII (AUD$3995) cameras. Anyway, this seems to be what he’s been using:

• EF135mm f/2L USM – AUD$1565
• EF50mm f/1.2L USM – AUD$2135
• EF24mm f/1.4L II USM – AUD$2395
• EF28mm f/1.8 USM
• EF35mm f/1.4L USM – AUD$1970
• EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM – AUD$2690
• x1.4 Teleconverter – $495

It’s a tough life. I really want the 24mm f/1.4L II USM. Hell, I’d even settle for version I :P

Well, marathon effort, but everything got moved out on time, carpets, windows, bathrooms cleaned. New tenant happy. Also sat on 11 interviews at UWA and did a budget submission for a university unit. Talk about a week of burning the candle at both ends and then starting in the middle..

Now things are quieter. Staying at mum’s place in North Perth, and going to have a much more relaxing weekend than last week. Still have to sort out issues of storage for some items, and disposal of others, but at least we still have a month to do that.

After a while being concerned with the state of theducks.org and how hard it was to update canada.theducks.org, I’ve migrated them both into a single install of WordPress on http://theducks.org, including a new site design, cross posting, twitter feed syndication, and eventually flickr and facebook integration.

Most of the old content from theducks.org is still there, or the links have been redirected.

Very very happy with WordPress so far. It’s so clean and easy to setup, use and customise. The only thing I haven’t been able to work out how to do is make pages that exist at specified URLs, are managed by WordPress, but which don’t appear in sidebars, indexes etc. I want a 410 page to deal with any content I don’t want migrated, but maybe a 404 will have to do.

So yeah, check it out – http://theducks.org

.. to the north side ..

Our packing continues unabated. Unfortunately the nice NZ couple didn’t end up renting this place, and they haven’t contacted me about furniture, so we’re now going through and arranging with everyone that they still want what they have claimed.

Let me or Elizabeth know if anything grabs your fancy.. we need it all out of here, pretty much this weekend. If you’re interested, but not at the price posted, feel free to make cheeky offers

The MaxM’s aren’t as bright as I hoped. Just as well I have two of them ;) For my reference though, this is the flickr photostream of the guy who invented them.

My BlinkMs and MaxMs finally arrived last night. Very cool. It does however seem that sketch that lets the scheduler communicate with them only runs on Arduino 0012, while the sketch for my Ethernet shield only runs on Arduino 0015.

Which brings me to some self beration over buying that shield. I bought the older style ENC28J60 shields, rather than the much nicer Wiznet 500 ones. Oh well, I’ll just buy one of those instead.

Here’s the deal.. I’m not going to break kneecaps if people change their mind, so even if it’s claimed, feel free to pipe up and go into the list.

Cash on collection or EFT or PayPal before. Collection would be somewhere around 10 May 2009 for “essentials”, but other stuff may be available earlier. Make an offer if you don’t like the price.

Photos of many items in this photo set : http://www.flickr.com/photos/theducks/sets/72157617749370598/

contact us at theducks dot org or via facebook if interested

• Confirmed Claim – Anil – Dryer (1987) – $50
• Claimed – Alexa – Washing Machine (1985) – $50
• Taken – Freestanding Dishwasher (2005) – $300
• Claimed – Lionel – Large Fridge + Freezer (1987) – $200
• Claimed – Jen+Chas – LG Microwave 53x39x32 (2004) – $75
• Taken – Michael Fineberg – Beige Sofa-bed (198x) – FREE
• Taken – Amy+Dave – 2+3 seater brown couch set (2005) – $350
• Confirmed Claim – Zoe – 1.75m Officeworks Bookcase (2003) – $25
• Withdrawn – Loaned – Sony low-end surround sound Amp (2004) – $150
• Confirmed Claim – Davyd+Steph -Sony DVD + HDMI player (2007) – $50
• Withdrawn – Loaned – LG 42LB9DF 42 inch full-HD LCD TV (2007) – $1400 (Manual)
• Confirmed Claim – KatG – Queensize bed frame + matress – $250 Similar to this one
• Confirmed Claim – Helen M – White laminate (with wood effect handle) 4 drawer chest – $25
• Available – 2 x pedestal fans – $10 each
• Claimed – small fan – $5
• Available – 2 x room lamps – $10 each
• Available – Black tubular single bed – $50
• Claimed – Generic grey computer desk with hutch – $40
• Confirmed Claim – Helen M – IKEA – 4 x 4 Expedit birch bookshelves – $125 (RRP$200)
• Confirmed Claim – Helen M - IKEA – 4 clear and 4 red plastic Lekman cubes – $125 (RRP$230)
• Confirmed Claim – Zoe –  IKEA – Mikael Corner Desk – $75 (See here)
• Claimed – IKEA – Mikael 140cm desk with glass top – $75 (See here)
• Claimed – IKEA – Aneboda Bedside tables x2 – $25 each (like this, but in birch)
• Claimed – IKEA – Aneboda chest of drawers – $50 (Like this)
• Claimed – Steph M – IKEA – Lack Coffee table – $25 (Like this)
• Claimed – IKEA – Flarke TV stand – $10 (Like this)

Tech Stuff

• Available – Linksys WRT54GL x 3 – $60 each
• Taken – Apple Laserwriter 16/600 (1995) – $50
• Claimed – Canon ip3000 printer with ink – $75
• Available – Canon LiDE80 Scanner – $50
• Available – Billion ADSL 711 Ethernet Modem (2002) – $40

When are you leaving? June 24, 2009. Alex finishes work on June 12 and Elizabeth the next week.

Why are you leaving? For Alex, we are spurred on by his rapidly expiring elligibility for the working holiday program (31 in 2010), so it was now or never. He’s done a fair stint at UWA, and made some great friends, but now feels like a bit of a change. For Elizabeth, similar reasons and, a desire to see more of North America.

Where are you going to live? Vancouver, British Columbia. Alex loved his time in Ontario, but remembers winter.

What about your jobs in Perth? Alex is resigning from Arts, since it was only a contract, and Elizabeth has a 12 month leave of absence from ITS.

Can I have your stuff? We’ve already started getting rid of everything we don’t need (there’s an unsurprising lot of it). Freecycle is awesome. We’ll take over all the clothes we might need during the course of a year, and store the rest back in Perth. If there’s anything you want, let us know (email us at theducks dot org ) – the TV and digital piano are spoken for. This post outlines the status of most of the things we have on offer.

What are you going to do for work? We do like working for Universities, so we’ll try picking up some IT work at UBC, SFU or one of the others there. Failing that, look for us as TV extras.

Isn’t this all just Alex’s idea? No, as hard as it may be to believe, it was a joint decision.

Couldn’t you just move to Melbourne? Well, yes, but that seemed too easy.