Wednesday, July 09, 2003
My first real post
Ok, here's the first real post I'm going to make about "the trip".
Myself and the lovely Hilary are taking a 4 month holiday to Australia and New Zealand. Now before you get too uppity and jealous you should bear in mind that we've been saving for the best part of two years and I've never taken a foreign holiday where work wasn't involved.
Now, so what's this blog going to be about? Well, I've been running a blog on ideasasylum for over 2 years now but I'd like that to remain vaguely techie, sometimes irrelevent and with the occasional personal post. In contrast, this blog is going to be all about the trip and it's really intended for family and friends that want to keep up with our progress. I'll be posting our news here rather than writing individual emails or bombarding the mailboxes of people who are just glad I've left the continent. Hilary will probably continue to post on her own blog but may be tempted to post here occasionally.
We've just paid for our tickets, insurance, etc and we've began collecting together all the things you need when travelling (like suitable clothing,backpacks etc). So this seems like an appropriate moment to start the blogging process. I'll start with the trip preparation we're current doing (mostly buying stuff). Later, I'll blog about the route we'll be taking.
Like every good geek I'm preparing by writing software, collecting together information, buying gadgets and setting up this blog. For example, I should have the comment scripts up here soon which will allow you to comment on each post. I'm also working on a set of php scripts which will allow me to associate individual posts here with an image of the location I'm blogging about. You'll understand when you see it up here in the next week or so. I've also just placed an order with 7dayshop for compact flash cards, batteries and other possibly useful gadgets.
In terms of technology, I'm going to be bringing my Palm m125 (mostly for Solitare and Tetris but it has other uses like storing travel information, addresses, web logins ) and Hilary's Pentax 330GS digital camera. Both of these are pretty durable and don't need inconvenient, heavy chargers - standard AA and AAA batteries all round. In fact, I'm bringing a supply of the CR-V3 batteries for the camera as these last for about 200-300 shots. There's also the associated compact flash cards (2x256Mb and other misc. cards) and a reader so we'll be able to upload the photos to this site and hopefully burn them onto a CD.
Other items of interest? Well, Hilary seems to love these mini-karabiners or "cralboynes" as she likes to call them (I'm unsure of the exact spelling of this made-up word. Hilary?).
Myself and the lovely Hilary are taking a 4 month holiday to Australia and New Zealand. Now before you get too uppity and jealous you should bear in mind that we've been saving for the best part of two years and I've never taken a foreign holiday where work wasn't involved.
Now, so what's this blog going to be about? Well, I've been running a blog on ideasasylum for over 2 years now but I'd like that to remain vaguely techie, sometimes irrelevent and with the occasional personal post. In contrast, this blog is going to be all about the trip and it's really intended for family and friends that want to keep up with our progress. I'll be posting our news here rather than writing individual emails or bombarding the mailboxes of people who are just glad I've left the continent. Hilary will probably continue to post on her own blog but may be tempted to post here occasionally.
We've just paid for our tickets, insurance, etc and we've began collecting together all the things you need when travelling (like suitable clothing,backpacks etc). So this seems like an appropriate moment to start the blogging process. I'll start with the trip preparation we're current doing (mostly buying stuff). Later, I'll blog about the route we'll be taking.
Like every good geek I'm preparing by writing software, collecting together information, buying gadgets and setting up this blog. For example, I should have the comment scripts up here soon which will allow you to comment on each post. I'm also working on a set of php scripts which will allow me to associate individual posts here with an image of the location I'm blogging about. You'll understand when you see it up here in the next week or so. I've also just placed an order with 7dayshop for compact flash cards, batteries and other possibly useful gadgets.
In terms of technology, I'm going to be bringing my Palm m125 (mostly for Solitare and Tetris but it has other uses like storing travel information, addresses, web logins ) and Hilary's Pentax 330GS digital camera. Both of these are pretty durable and don't need inconvenient, heavy chargers - standard AA and AAA batteries all round. In fact, I'm bringing a supply of the CR-V3 batteries for the camera as these last for about 200-300 shots. There's also the associated compact flash cards (2x256Mb and other misc. cards) and a reader so we'll be able to upload the photos to this site and hopefully burn them onto a CD.
Other items of interest? Well, Hilary seems to love these mini-karabiners or "cralboynes" as she likes to call them (I'm unsure of the exact spelling of this made-up word. Hilary?).
