Hey all,
I’m back. Some of you are probably thinking that is the longest weeks
vacation on record. Well, I’d like to take this opportunity to
apologise for my absence and offer a brief explanation. When I got
back to Australia I naturally went home to visit my parents, only to
find that they have been hit really hard by the drought. They didn’t
really tell me just how bad it was while I was in Japan. Add to that
the fact that my dad is 67, he just had a heart valve replaced two
years ago and he is running a 7000 acre property by himself. So I
decided to stay home for a while and offer a hand during the busy
sheering season.
Now, I was hoping to get some work on Ferret done at night but getting
the internet connected turned out to be next to impossible thanks to
Telstra. I should point out that my parents property is not that
remote. We are less that 4 hours drive from Sydney and about 1 hour
from Canberra (ur closest metropolitan area) but for some reason we
get no mobile (cellphone) or wireless internet coverage and the phone
lines are so bad that even dial up drops out before gmail will load.
Dealing with Telstra was a nightmare and they ended up giving us the
run around, not delivering anything they promised and my parents are
still without a usable internet connection.
Anyway, sheering is over now and I’ve moved in to Canberra and I’m
finally online. I’m going to try and make amends by getting all the
patches people have submitted into Ferret and finding and removing all
other stability problems. I’ll then try and catch up with the goings
on on the mailing list. Please be patient though as I’m under a lot of
pressure right now to make a living and attend to all of my other
commitments as well as trying to keep in shape to keep my Judo goals
alive.
I hope that explains things a little and I look forward to catching up
with you all in the near future.
Cheers,
Dave