I’ve spend the last week reading tutorial material and getting to know ArcGiS applications. Never before have I seen such a complex object model . It claims to have around 1,500 classes and 1,600 interfaces. The object diagrams for ease of use, come in around 30 pdf documents. I have to refresh my knowledge of UML diagrams. I haven’t really used it since I left university. The previous job was to open up Visual Studio and start writing applications, obviously after the analysis and design stages! The work I am going to do has no user interface design, reporting and very less database work.

So far I have enjoyed this place, team mates sound good. It is a young team. There is a geek in the team to learn a lot from! The OO coding that I will be doing sounds exciting. It should give me some real work experience with OO coding!!

I am looking to get a decent tripod and a ballhead. I have been doing some searching on the net. Carbon fiber tripods sound they way to go if I want to carry it around, but they all seem too costly. The Benro carbon tripod seems to be the cheapest ones. They are made in China and don’t seem to have too bad of a review. I think I need to ask my boss for more money. Justification?

• Tripod $300 or more
• Ballhead #300 or more
• New pc $2000 or more

I was watching this on TV tonight, about Singapore’s four tap strategy.

• Tap 1: Rain water
• Tap 2: Imported water
• Tap 3: Desalination
• Tap 4: New water

Other than being amazed about how they manage their water resources I also thought it was interesting to use the term New water (what we call as recycled water here). They also call their waste or sewage water as used water!

Might be easier to convince people to use new water rather than recycled water.

On the way to Deniliquin 

On the way back 

I went for a pleasant river cruise dinner last night with a colleague, his girlfriend, his parents and Megan. Megan and I turned up empty handed with just drinks for ourselves! How embarrassing is that? Fortunately we knew the friends well. We did not expect it to be such a nice cruise and we did not expect a perfect dinner either. The boat (looked amphibious). It was built by my colleague’s dad. It was surprisingly stable and perfect for the occasion with its slow steady speed. The cruise was on the Murray River with dinner and drinks! 

Megan got shown the Southern Cross and explained how she could find directions looking at the Southern Cross. Once we went into the back waters and cruised along I lost my sense of direction. I have never before had dinner on a boat at night. It was a long ride too, from around 7:30pm to 11:30pm. Each course of dinner was at a different place. I even got a talk on introduced species and native species which raised my curiosity and deserves another post. The four beers I had before we started the cruise were not helpful at all. Midway through the cruise I had my bladder full and upon request to anchor to the shore I was told to stand in front of the boat and spray away. For a moment I thought they where serious but I refused to do it, just incase a sudden wind gust blew towards the rest of them To my relief we did stop after a while. Now that I know how this cruise dinner is, I will make sure I don’t have too many beers beforehand next time.

Megan, my girlfriend has just completed her Bachelors of Occupational Therapy. She passed with a first class honors! Her paper was on “The Experience of Living with Chronic Pain: A Social and Cultural Perspective”. Although I have been saying that I deserve some credit for it, I know it was her hard work and she deserves it. I have been talking her into publish it online (May be I can help out and take some credit for it then). Her paper resulted in numerous discussions between us which lead to arguments There where frequent mood fluctuations that where either directed straight towards me or indirectly through the dogs but in the end of it all Henry (dog), Lama (dog) and I are all proud of her achievement! Now I have no excuse not to read her paper(Which I should have done earlier).

I bought two Tamil CDs from Melbourne. One of them has the cover in English and the other has all written in Tamil (I can’t read Tamil). Not sure how but when I imported them into iTunes they all showed up in English!
Listening to these songs below reminds me of something I am not able to picture very well. I am not that big a music fan but music to me reminds me of the time I was listening to those songs the last time. Music usually grows into me. I start liking the music that people around me listen to. I might have heard these songs a while ago that I have lost track of what happened the last time I heard these songs. I will keep playing them anyway. Most of them would have been the ones I listened to while standing by the Tea kadai at Madurai. These would have been songs that my friends liked, I can picture few of my friends trying to sing along or enact the song, while the tea master pours the tea from one mug to the other in the background. Miss those days

En Kathala-Duet
Venilavin-Duet
Poongattru-Mudal Maiyathai
Vidukadaya-?-Hariharan
Ellorum Nalla-?- K J Jesudass
Kanne Kalai-Mooram Pirai
Unnanena nanechen-Aboorva sagotharargal
Thenpani Chi..- Nayagan
Naan Padum Mauna Ragam-Idhaya Koil
Nalam Vala-?-SPB Thani

Tree kangaroos! Something that my Australian friends had not heard of! I saw it in the Melbourne zoo and read the sign on the enclosure which read “Tree Kangaroo”. My friends though did not believe me; they said it might have been a koala that I saw. Well good for me that I took pictures and there is information on the net about Tree Kangaroos (Google search). These where sleeping on the tree when I clicked these pictures at the Melbourne zoo.

These where pictures I clicked at the Melbourne zoo and few at the Ettamogah Sanctuary.

I was a bit dissapointed by the Lions They where not as big as I thought they would be.

This Kangaroo was a big one and was in an enclosure. He was bit camera shy.

This koala just sat there staring at my lens.

Kangaroos under the tree shade. Unable to decide if to come to me and get their treat or stay in the shade.

Tree kangaroos! Something that my Australian friends had not heard of! I saw it in the Melbourne zoo and read the sign on the enclosure which read “Tree Kangaroo”. My friends though did not believe me; they said it might have been a koala that I saw. Well good for me that I took pictures and there is information on the net about Tree Kangaroos (Google search). These where sleeping on the tree when I clicked these pictures at the Melbourne zoo.

These where pictures I clicked at the Melbourne zoo and few at the Ettamogah Sanctuary.

I was a bit dissapointed by the Lions They where not as big as I thought they would be.

This Kangaroo was a big one and was in an enclosure. He was bit camera shy.

This koala just sat there staring at my lens.

Kangaroos under the tree shade. Unable to decide if to come to me and get their treat or stay in the shade.