personal

Insights into the private life of Ricky Robinson.

TransLink go card: beginning to irk me

Posted by ricky on Saturday, September 06, 2008
Posted in: Random observations. Tagged: , , . 5 comments

I’m still ahead. But would you believe that, on the very day of my previous post about the go card, the go card machine in the bus failed to work when I needed to get off the bus at Forest Lake? How’s that for coincidence? Exactly the same thing happened again last night when trying to touch off.

What happens is this. I get on the bus at Indooroopilly, touch on, the light goes green and says something about a continuing journey. This is correct, as I change buses at Indooroopilly on my way home from NICTA’s new location at UQ. But then, as I’m exiting the bus at Forest Lake, the go card machine says “Please wait…”. I walk down the front of the bus to speak to the driver, who tells me (on both occasions) “but the machine wasn’t working at the start of the route, so you don’t need to touch off.” I tell him, “No, at Indooroopilly it was working. The light went green and everything was normal.” Rather than holding up the other passengers any longer, I just hop off the bus and call TransLink to make sure I’m not overcharged (except that I haven’t got around to doing that this time).

The thing that irks me even more is the consistent lateness of the 460. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was always late by the same amount, but it’s not. Although my Twitter page records the many occasions the 460 has been late in the evening, it’s my morning trip that really frustrates me. I have not known 8:10am 460 from Forest Lake E to run within 10 minutes of its scheduled time ever since I’ve been catching it. This is quite unbelievable given that the bus is supposed to start at Inala at 7:58am, and couldn’t possibly be getting caught in traffic between there and my stop.

I think overall Brisbane’s public transport is improving. But, jeez, it still sucks so badly, and I’m not sure it’s keeping up with the growth of our population.

Dressing for work

Posted by ricky on Thursday, March 06, 2008
Posted in: Random observations. Tagged: , . 6 comments

Ricky fashionProceed with caution: Ricky writes about fashion!

Lately I’ve noticed that I tend to dress differently for work depending on what I’ve got on my agenda for the day. Knowing that I’ve got something particular to do on a particular day is an improvement on the past for a start, and I put this partly down to GTD. Anyway, I seem to dress very casually (sometimes shorts and sandals) when I’ve got coding to do, colourfully when there’s an internal meeting to attend (e.g., a brainstorming session) or when I’ve got artsy/communications type stuff to do, and a bit more formally when I’ve got meetings with external parties. Dressing in a particular way seems to help me to get into the right frame of mind for the task at hand. This is a change from university days when shorts and sandals were the norm.

Today I’m wearing my stripy purple shirt with the sleeves rolled up and Hard Yakka drill trousers: a compromise given I started the day with a staff meeting and finished it in the coding trenches.

Goodbye 7, hello 8

Posted by ricky on Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Posted in: My family and me. Tagged: . 1 comment

2007 was a huge year for my family and me. The main event was, of course, the birth of our son, Xander, on 07/07/07. For that reason, 2007 is one of the best years on record, but also one of the most challenging. Karen’s done a wonderful job and made some pretty big sacrifices…

Unfortunately the year didn’t end quite as well as it might have. Xander had an anaphylactic reaction when we tried to feed him some formula for the first time. He’s probably allergic to cow’s milk protein, we’ve been told. Within five to ten minutes of beginning his feed, he’d developed dark red blotches on his face, little white welts appeared in his elbow and knee creases and around his ankles, and his eyeballs went red and swollen. He was howling and trying to scratch his eyes out.

That was all pretty scary, but the hospital fixed him up pretty quickly with a dose of antihistamines and steroids. There’s a good chance he’ll grow out of this allergy in a few years, but there’s also a chance he’s allergic to nuts (among other things). We’ll find out when he has some allergy testing conducted.

This year is set to be another big one on a number of fronts. I extend to all the readers of The Thin Line my very best wishes for 2008; may it be joyful and prosperous. Happy New Year everyone!

Hope

Posted by ricky on Saturday, November 03, 2007
Posted in: Random observations. Tagged: , . Leave a Comment

Sometimes one has a moment to turn around and look back along the path they have walked, and remember the good times, the bad times and everything in between. I’m truly lucky to be able to say that so far my life has been filled with happiness and hope, in no small part due to my parents and my brother, and more recently my darling angel Karen and my son Xander. But there are those whose lives have not been so fortunate, some of whom are very close to me, and it is for them that I post this beautiful montage about hope. It’s set to one of my favourite Cat Empire tracks (which is how I came across it). It’s a little bit religious, but that shouldn’t dissuade you from watching it.

There was one in the bed

Posted by ricky on Sunday, September 30, 2007
Posted in: Random observations. Tagged: , . 2 comments

I suppose it’s only right that my first post since my self-imposed blogging exile (“not long enough!” I hear some of you exclaim) should be about the exploits of my son Xander, who is growing and changing incredibly quickly. So here, I bring you an action sequence showing Xander’s third ever roll.

Roll over 1

Roll over 2

Roll over 3

For his next trick, Xander will learn how to sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time during daylight hours!