Tuesday, October 24, 2006

State Circle I'm back for another post! Amazingly, I'm actually feeling rested and relaxed today. That's a stark contrast from yesterday, when I was having so many problems at work that I wanted to go and curl up in a ball. It's all a good experience though - I think facing such harsh challenges and demands this early in life will allow me to handle anything in the future. Anyway, last week was particularly bad. So on Friday night, I proposed that we go for a long drive somewhere...a very long drive. We ended up going to Canberra. For the uninitiated, Canberra is Australia's capital city. And for the further uninitiated, I'll go into a tiny bit more detail. Australia was federated on January 1, 1901 (prior to that, each Australian state was a seperate colony - the colonies acted as independent countries and communicated with each other largely through London rather than directly). At the time of federation, Australia did not actually have a capital city for obvious reasons. Melbourne and Sydney (the two biggest cities in Australia) were basically debating which one should become the new national capital. Neither could agree, so eventually they proposed a third option - to build an entirely new city, exactly halfway between Melbourne and Sydney. And that new city was Canberra. If I remember correctly, Melbourne was Australia's capital from 1901 to 1927. 1927 was the year when Canberra was completed. And unlike most cities, Canberra was a planned city...meaning that it was essentially designed by an artist and for a specific purpose, rather than simply evolving like a normal city. As a result, Canberra is, to put it lightly, extremely odd. Canberra has a tiny population compared to other Australian cities (I think it's somewhere around 300,000) and it has a very small CBD (few tall buildings, mostly hotels and individual office complexes). So Canberra was really designed to be purely a political center as well as a kind of set piece for Australia. This makes Canberra very strange, because it feels like some kind of movie set...the entire city, including its road system, is completely planned out. Not only is everything symmetrical, but every road leads to Parliament (which is built into Capital Hill in the city center). Also, there are several roads that surround Parliament and extend outwards in concentric circles (from memory you have Capital Circle, State Circle and then the edge of the Parliamentary Zone). The Parliamentary Zone basically includes all of the major government buildings (various government departments, the High Court, etc etc). And then beyond that, you have Lake Burley Griffin, which is an enormous man-made lake named after the man who designed Canberra. The big showpiece in Canberra is definitely Parliament House. I've talked about it before on here...and it's an incredible place. From its front to its rear entrance, Parliament House is actually 1 kilometer long and nearly a kilometer wide. It has 4,500 rooms and on sitting days, it hosts anywhere from 10,000 to 14,000 people (including staff and visitors). It's really an amazing place and I'd recommend it to anyone who visits Australia, especially considering that most tourists visit Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane and tend to ignore Canberra. I'd share pictures with you, but I didn't actually have a camera on me...all I could do was take some dodgy videos on Duane's phone...but right now I have no way of putting them on the computer. So maybe I can share them at a later date. What I would recommend, though, is visiting Canberra Tourism and taking a look around. I haven't had a very good look at the site, but hopefully they offer some more details and photos and stuff. So my weekend was good. We packed in as many things as we could on the Sunday, including a visit to the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, which is jointly run by NASA and the CSIRO. It's a very interesting facility and it includes the transmitter dish that actually received the video of the moon landing, which was then broadcast globally. That particular dish used to be located in Parkes in New South Wales, but for some reason it was moved to this Canberra facility. They also had samples of moon rock and various other interesting bits and pieces from the space program...so that was great; I'm really into that kind of thing. SunfallE: Yep, it is very frustrating. But so far, so good. I'm not dead yet! Haha. I think they may be wanting me to move to another department sometime anyway, so we'll see how that goes. I wouldn't mind moving out of the area I'm in to a better job. CosmicSailor: At times like these, I at least wish I had some days off. Even one day off a week would be nice. Working this many hours is difficult because it leaves little time to handle other things (ie: house hunting, banking and so on). Charlie: Yeah, it's funny how you get paid for a set thing and they manage to keep putting more on your plate. My contract is slightly open-ended though, so I'm not getting any work that I haven't agreed to. Nevertheless, it's extremely complex work and it carries a lot of responsibility with it...so unfortunately there's a lot of pressure to get it exactly right. Yuck. Joshboo: There was someone else, although I'm now forgetting who they were. As for Tori, I was under the impression that their relationship blossomed through OB, but I could be wrong. Thanks for saying hello, though. ~_^ RaR: That's true, but on the other hand, I do feel a strong commitment to OB. Besides, it's really my only online project right now and I do want to work on it. It's just difficult to make the time that's required. Thanks for the good wishes. ^_^ Nehszriah: Yes, go look! Heheh. But it's more than marriage, even. There have been a lot of relationships that have sprung up from there as well. So it's a whole mixture of things I guess. Crystia: First of all, I hope you don't mind me using your name...but I figured that since you signed your comment, I'd use it. ~_^ Anyhoo, thanks for the compliment. I have worked on OB a lot over the years, but there's still so much more to be done with it. It's far from finished! I hope you have a great week too! Lrb: I'd love to visit Canada, but I don't think I could ever live away from my beloved Australia. You'd cry if I left OB? Aw...well, don't worry, I have no plans to leave. On the contrary! I'm trying to find ways to improve the site without having to be there all the time. So far it's working...Desbreko has done a lot of things for me while I've been away and the staff have kept the site pretty tidy. So I'm very grateful to them for that. Aaryanna: The weekend was a good break. Although ironically, I was running around sightseeing and it took quite a lot out of me! Thanks for the good wishes, too...I appreciate 'em. Have a good one. ^_^

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