Decoration where I work, a flying pink pig dangling from the ceiling. There a few of them around the place and they caught my attention the first time I saw them.

Took my camera out today to grab some photos after work. I’ve been noticing the wondrous looking cloud formations over the past few days and today when I wanted to take a picture of the sky, it was clear as glass.

* * *

I’ve been thinking over the past few days, generally on my way home from work. I don’t really know what role models I had when I was young. I probably did look up to my older brothers, and took parts of what they did and made it part of my own. I recall that both liked to draw stuff, from aircraft, shoes to fantasy characters from roleplaying games to anime. I just liked to doodle stuff from the more memorable things during my childhood, mainly shiny robots and spaceships.

My and my brothers, we are all quite different. I know someone who’s dad was an engineer and all the children ended up as engineers. It’s probably lost somewhere in my memories but I can’t really recall if there was anything I was very inspired to become when I was growing up and studying. Back then it was just getting to the next level of education and it was easy to just rely on getting to the next stage as a form of motivation to do things.

Now that I’ve been working for 4 plus years now (it includes the year I was selling fish), I’m not quite sure if just going along with whatever was required would be the way to go. I always thought I’d be happy to do whatever I was presented with. I’d do it out of obligation but I can’t say I’m contributing all that I can with some of the things I do.

Then again, I’ve had the opportunity to experience many different things since I started work and the uncertainty of it all made it interesting and exciting, even if at times it was downright daunting.

Not one to regret anything, but if it’s bugging me, I’ll make sure I do something to change it. I think it’s time to steer the ship a little more instead of just leaving it on autopilot as I have done for a long, long time now.

* * *

I also just realised, that strangely enough, I never mingled with others who had the same interests as I. My friends and I have generic interests in playing computer/video games, watching soccer or just enjoying good beer/wine, but I don’t really have any peers who I spend time taking photographs with or tinkering with computers together. Birds of a feather flock together, they say. I only just realised this as I’ve been following blogs of photographers who know other photographers who go on photoshoots together etc. People generally like to hang out with people who share a common interest.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I’ve always been slow on the mingling scene, and I’ve always been more comfortable doing the things that I liked on my own. Perhaps it’s also because I’ve never really met people nearby who share the same amount of passion as I do about certain things. Heh, it may be a reason or just an excuse but that’s how it’s been all this while and I’ve not gone outside my comfort zone to change the situation.

Not quite sure where I’m heading with this thought process. Heh, find that I am better articulating something with examples and feedback than just mindless droning words into a computer screen.

It’s been a while since I’ve felt like I’m the odd one out, it brings back old memories.

This was the moon a couple of days ago. Was walking home after gym from a friend’s place and it caught my eye. I quickly went home and slapped my 70-300mm lens on and took this picture. Heh, and even then I had to crop 80% of the picture to get the above.

* * *

Typing this post off my reborn Dell Latitude C400. I’ve put CrunchBang Linux on this older machine and it runs fairly decent. I’m currently using this system as an alternative computer to download stuff during the ‘offpeak’ time Internet usage. As a laptop, it consumes less energy compared to my pretty efficient Shuttle cube.

I’ve been testing the new Linux system and have so far been pretty impressed with it. I can open a web browser, do instant messaging and have a torrent client open in the tiny footprint of less than half the installed memory of 512MB. It’s not quite as polished as windows, but as a free alternative and something that runs on lower spec computers, I won’t complain too much.

Heh, very keen to learn more about Linux and I’m starting to understand how bits and pieces of it work and where to find certain files and programs. Would really like to go back to trying Arch Linux one day where you roll out your entire desktop with exactly the programs you want.

* * *

A little tired from work. Heh, I’ve been waking up early to watch soccer again, but I’ve been driving up and down Melbourne to get to different location for meetings and there are times I’m just happy to plonk myself in front of a desk for eight hours just to get things done.

There’s a lot of interesting things you pick up by looking at numbers and trends. A lot more stuff is becoming apparent to me the longer I analyse these things. Heh, the health industry is quite complex indeed in terms of how it operates.

* * *

Just want a quiet weekend. I’ve retracted into my own shell a bit over the last few days. Maybe I’m just tired and would like a little time to just chill.