Coolangatta++

Just spent a superbly relaxing and contemplative several days high above the beaches of beautiful Coolangatta in the south-east corner of Queensland.

A friend (thanks Mark!) had a couple of spots free in a time-share apartment over the New Year and invited us down.

We got out paddling on the golden sands, walked up to the monument on the dividing line between New South Wales and Queensland, and did some shopping in Pacific Fair.  Several mornings I got the red corpuscles moving with a swim in the pool on top of the building.

And I did lots of lounging about.  

From my comfy apartment bed I could look back to the green green bush of the Gold Coast hinterland, up the coast line toward Surfers Paradise, and around out to sea and the Coolangatta beaches.

And I could code.  :-)

While Ray munched several novels I spent several days reminding myself why I love and why I hate C++.  Of course I could not leave my laptop behind - at least I had no internet connection. So that's sort of like unplugging, right?

Battling with templates and code that would compile but not link, but eventually I made some progress.  Member methods with template arguments were not a good plan.  G++ seemed to get a nasty headache and generate some intermediate files I have never seen before.

Bit more cleaning up and I will submit this dogpile.  I think there must be some sort of rule that says XML serialization code has to look butt-ugly.  I really will have to write some unit-tests for DndTool to harness this beast.

In other news, I have just gotten a call from Nokia who have offered me a job at their offices in Brisbane.

I think that just about clinches it and it looks like I will be staying here, signing off from Google, and supporting Mr Smith while he spends time with his folks.

Wistfulness ensues.

Mano-amoeba

Since landing in Brisbane activities have been punctuated by rather unsavoury confrontations with my baser humanity.

The doctors current best guess is Giardia:



but other organisms are also in the running. So of course there's tests.

There's nothing so humbling as visiting Queensland Medical Labs clutching a little specimen jar, with a brown lid.

For some reason my delightful husband has latched onto the idea that its an amoeba, even more quizzical for the fact he'd gotten amoeba confuddled with anemone, and kept asking me if it'd "turned up yet" after every trip I made to the WC.

He had the idea it was sort of lurking in the depths of me, like a sizeable tentacled homunculus (instead of some microscopic beasty).

I suppose its a bit more glamorous to be mortally wounded by some large sea creature, even if it is from the inside, than it is to be struck low by something that is chillingly reminiscent of the Java mascot.

I don't know if he planned to go in there, and take it on, armed with a BBQ fork like a trident, battling it like something out of Herman Melville.

Just for reference, here is a deep sea anemone.

More tips and tricks from my friend Don:

The trick to fighting an amoeba mano-amoeba is to blow its mind with philosophy.
The old "what is love?" gambit works well, but if necessary "this sentence is a lie" is a fan fave from time immemorial.

So its time I think to post this useful guide to determing which of these easilty confused organisms are noxious gastric pests, and which are larger bottom dwelling predators.

An amoeba:

Nasty, green - maybe its just the lighting. I think in society we tend to cast the amoeba in a bad light - no-one ever talks about the great work they do in the community.

Always stained with the stigma of the single-celled organism.

And with that stuff biologists use in their microscopy. What chance do they have.

Not actually single-celled, definitely a pain in the ass.

Be sure to carefully wash hands of any involvement with installing dictators and stay clear of any piles of steaming corporate governance.

Infections can last two full terms if unlucky.

Which reminds me - don't know why - I must go and find an episode of John Stewarts The Daily Show which is of course the only way to get reliable news of the USA, having just departed there and being quite out of touch.

So, I have not been doing much since arriving in Oz. Tho' some friends organized welcome home get-togethers, and I've girded my loins and headed out to these. Can't dissappoint my adoring public.

Plans: still have no good idea what we're doing. Accommodation, cars all that is a bit up in the air. Stay tuned.

USA retrospective

With barely 24 hours left before leaving for the airport I find myself in a reflective mood.

I have done a bit of travelling in my life and I guess for each major trip I've been at a different phase of my life; a different set of circumstances has conspired to bring about the trip; and (at least partly as a result of all that) the experiences have been quite different.

With each trip tho' I think I have never really remembered to see all that I could see.  There were times on all of them I guess where I recall trading off tiredness, overload or some other reason against the injunction that it behoves one to see the sights whilst one can.

And of course its the same here.

I had great memories, pictures I drew and photographs I took from my trip to London.  There I was on a mission to see as much as I could, but somehow there were still days where I didn't do enough and that precious voice archly chastised me for wasting the opportunity.  

Whai don't chew go an' visit the British Museeum, when you really must know that chew might not get another chance?!? 

Tired, jet-lagged and out of energy I said back.

And here I am at the end of this chapter of my time in Silicon Valley, and I did not go to the Computer History Museum, which is only a couple of miles down the road.  And I did not go to a concert at the Amphitheatre, also just down the road.

Alright-alright-already.  But I have the 'flu.  No, no its true.  I do, have the 'flu.  Hack, koff.

And I might be back.  Who knows?

Last night was a lovely going away party thrown by the women of the Google Women in Operations - thanks Sabrina for this, and your hospitality; and to the amazing Sara for making my time at Google a lot more survivable, with that droll perspective you always seem to have on things; and to Liz, Rachel, Cheryl and others.  

And today was a going away lunch by the fighters of the good fight in the Hiring Intergrouplet - you guys rock!  Mamie, I wish I could bottle your upbeatness, and thanks for organizing this.  Seth, your knack for finding the sanest path in almost anything is an enviable gift - perhaps I will get to work with you again someday.  Manpreet, Chao, Candice, everyone - thanks for everything.

I'm fiddling about with stuff, now, prevaricating in the hope that my suitcases will pack themselves.  They stand waiting now, a row of alligator mouths, maws open and insatiable against the side of the room.  

I foolishly carried my clothes from their hangers ready to pack, and laid them on the floor where in just a short hour of neglect their entropy has increased tenfold.

I'm playing around also with using Qt4 to make a D&D4 character editor - just to keep my hand in on C++.  I've put the project so far on Google code so I can pull it down from whatever machine I have to hand, and nicely enough Qt allows me to compile on whatever platform I have.  Witness the fact that I coded it on Linux and just now pulled it down and built in on Mac OSX.

But I must stop playing with fun stuff and go pack.

And then spend a long time on a plane.

Goodbye hussy

Today I waved goodbye to my Ducati 800SS.

That was a tragic scene, taking her back to the dealership I bought her from - a cold day enough to blow a chill into anyones heart, me standing waiting for a taxi with my riding gear in hand.

Sniffle.

From For Sale

This is a photo from a ride Ray and I did a few weekends ago up to the Pinnacles, a national park not too far from Silicon Valley. The background is a store front in Hollister, a town on route to the pinnacles known for its bike meets. The Duc' is on the left - Ray's Triumph on the right. Click the pic for more.

A local came up just before Ray shot this and greeted us and chatted about bikes, just as we prepared to head off.

I have many fond memories of riding in California.

Actually when we first got the Ducati, Raymond used to ride it a lot to get up to Oracle, 14 miles North of our Mountain View apartment along the 101.

I used to call her "The Italian Hussy" because he kept choosing the Duc' over our much more sensible Prius. My commute was short enough to do on a bicycle so I didn't mind (much). :-)

Once Raymond got his Triumph Sprint ST the Ducati was exclusively my ride, and by the time I had to part with it I had really become attached to it.

Uncomfortable, uncompromising and very very fast - it may well turn out to be the coolest ride of my life.

We fly back to Australia in 5 days time, with no real knowledge of what lies ahead, so who knows.

We'll see.

Sez relocatable -> Brisbane, Australia

I am heading back home to Brisbane, Australia with a likely date for flying out around 15 December.

There's all sorts of why's and wherefore's but the proximal cause is family and health issues.

What does this mean for me and Google? Well the most obvious answer is that Google does not have an office in Brisbane, so Goodbye and Thanks for all the Fish.

But it will be a case of landing in Brisbane, sorting out where we stand and then making firmer plans. At present we are trying to keep all our options open for as long as possible.

Raymond will be taking several months off at first and spending time with family. My plan is to take a couple of weeks, look at options and then get back into work, being the breadwinner for a while.

So its a leap of faith for both of us, and some torrid^H^H^H^Hexciting times ahead.

I'll miss lots about the valley and the amazing Googleplex, but health and family are not things that can be traded against career or monetary concerns, and it will be very good in many ways for me to be back with friends and familiar places in Brisbane.

If you're reading this from Silicon Valley, and you'd like buy our stuff, motorcycles or our Prius car, that would be great!

If you're in Brisbane, look forward to seeing you all soon.

Slow boat home

Airships over the Googleplex.

This awe-inspiring ship of the air sails out of nearby Moffat Airfield, doing tourist and sight-seeing runs in the San Francisco and Bay area.

It moves surprisingly fast, the time between these photo's being less than a minute.

Vote "No on 8" to save marriage

Hi, my name is Sarah Smith.

That's my photo up there at the top of this web page.

My husband's name is Raymond Smith. We've been married since 2005, and things are solid with us.

Nothing is going to break up our marriage.

We're lucky.

Some married couples are not so lucky because there are folks that want to destroy their marriages.

How would you feel about something that wanted to break up marriages?

But that is exactly what is coming down the road towards us.

A change to the Constitution that will break up marriages. Its called Proposition 8.

The change to the Constitution will read:

Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

A choice of "Yes on Prop 8" in the upcoming California vote, will support putting this into the Constitution.

Fact: a vote of "Yes on Prop 8" is a vote for destroying marriages.

Like Heather Gold's marriage.

Real people; their rights - taken away, by this amendment.

The campaign of propagandists supporting prop 8 are afraid that Americans won't vote for it, if those informed voters know about how Proposition 8 will take away rights.

The marriages of gays and lesbians have had no impact on my marriage. Has anyone you know had their "traditional marriage" affected by same-sex marriage?

People who want to amend the Constitution to eliminate these rights say a lot of bizarre things. They say gays and lesbians already have the same rights, because they can have registered domestic partnerships. When your spouse is sick in hospital domestic partnerships mean nothing if you're trying to visit your loved one but the hospital staff will only allow the legal spouse in.

Let me tell you I am happy with my marriage and if I was told I should be satisfied with just a domestic partnership, then my answer is "No!".

Other propaganda claims that ministers and churches will be told they can't use certain language, or that lawsuits will occur because the current right to marry is legally upheld. There are lurid stories and claims of all kinds.

Proposition 8 propaganda is lying to the public about school curriculums, lying about church tax exempt status and lying about freedom of speech. It will stop at nothing, to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt.

So let me just repeat this fact one more time.

Marriages. Annulled. Prevented. Stopped.

Is that what you want?

If No, then say "No on Prop 8".

Even if you're a Californian who stays at home on voting day, and lets the fears and doubts of the poorly informed carry sway - then the rights of your fellow Californians will likely be taken away.

So, please, go and vote No on Prop 8.



Thanks,

Sarah Smith