Ghost Town
I'm getting the distinct impression that I'm the only person working on this floor of the building today... everyone else seems to have taken off for their holidays. When I came in at 8am the place looked like it had been deserted for weeks.
Unfortunately, my year isn't exactly winding down at the moment.
I've finished the conference season of madness, with only a small amount of residual madness hanging about the place. It's been a productive few weeks in terms of meeting new people (industry folks at Social Media '09, and lots of other students at the CRC conference). I even managed to win an award, which was nice. Now that I'm back in Melbourne again, I'm getting stuck into all the writing that I didn't do while I was away.
The end of the year is also publishing season for the Indigo books. I've updated two subject guides (VCE National and International Politics), and sent them off to the printers. This week I'll get the files for the last of them - a full re-write of the Economics book, which I'll be typesetting from scratch. It won't be printed before Christmas (deadline for that is today), but it should be ready to go in the new year.
Our home internet problems were sorted out, though not in the way we'd have liked. Apparently the building is on a pair-gain line - i.e. Telstra saved costs by splitting the copper line, instead of running copper to each house. That means they meet their Terms of Service (providing a voice phoneline), but we can't get ADSL at all. We're stuck with wireless broadband for the time being, as it's marginally cheaper than cable. Not impressed at all.
On a more positive note, I bought an airbrush and compressor last week. I have a vast pile of figures that need painting over the next six weeks, so airbrushing the base colours should speed things up dramatically. I still need to experiment with the various acrylics that I paint with, to find out how best to thin them down.
I'm looking forward to trying it out. Last time I used an airbrush, I was putting together a graphics folio (and walking to school through the snow, dinosaurs snapping at my heels...).
Unfortunately, my year isn't exactly winding down at the moment.
I've finished the conference season of madness, with only a small amount of residual madness hanging about the place. It's been a productive few weeks in terms of meeting new people (industry folks at Social Media '09, and lots of other students at the CRC conference). I even managed to win an award, which was nice. Now that I'm back in Melbourne again, I'm getting stuck into all the writing that I didn't do while I was away.
The end of the year is also publishing season for the Indigo books. I've updated two subject guides (VCE National and International Politics), and sent them off to the printers. This week I'll get the files for the last of them - a full re-write of the Economics book, which I'll be typesetting from scratch. It won't be printed before Christmas (deadline for that is today), but it should be ready to go in the new year.
Our home internet problems were sorted out, though not in the way we'd have liked. Apparently the building is on a pair-gain line - i.e. Telstra saved costs by splitting the copper line, instead of running copper to each house. That means they meet their Terms of Service (providing a voice phoneline), but we can't get ADSL at all. We're stuck with wireless broadband for the time being, as it's marginally cheaper than cable. Not impressed at all.
On a more positive note, I bought an airbrush and compressor last week. I have a vast pile of figures that need painting over the next six weeks, so airbrushing the base colours should speed things up dramatically. I still need to experiment with the various acrylics that I paint with, to find out how best to thin them down.
I'm looking forward to trying it out. Last time I used an airbrush, I was putting together a graphics folio (and walking to school through the snow, dinosaurs snapping at my heels...).