Troy’s Random Ramblings

If you were looking for the old www.tkdack.com site, it’s been retired. Since Kate and I are no longer together I figured it was time to start getting things sorted out on this site. Expect the domain name to change in the near future. The tkdack.com domain name will remain for a while with everything redirecting to the new one, whatever that ends up being.

I’ve got a heap of photos from my recent deployment to the Middle East that I’ll eventually add to the gallery section.

Well, that’s the better part of the year gone already. Things have really flown by this year, it’s quite surprising really.

Tomorrow I’m back to sea for another 5 months or so. Should be back in Sydney around November. Hopefully this deployment goes by pretty quickly. We’ve got a couple of exercises that we will be participating in, a couple of South East Asian ports and then a month or so of Op Relex, border enforcement patrols. Not looking forward to Op Relex, but the rest of it shouldn’t be too bad.

I might even be able to get in a few days of kite surfing, well, attempted kite surfing. Who knows, by the end of the trip I might actually be able to get up on the board!

I’ll try and post updates here every couple of days, it might not be too exciting but I’ll try and get some pictures here as well.

Today is Anzac day here in Australia. For most of us Aussies this day marks a signficant point in the history of our young nation. It was on this day, 90 years ago that the brave young Australian Diggers landed at Gallipoli and began the legend that has helped to shape our nation.

For more have a read of The Anzac Day Tradition over at the Australian War Memorial’s web site.

Well after stuffing around trying to keep a server and an ADSL link up in another state I’ve decided that it just isn’t going to happen. My server appears to be off the ‘net at the moment. Probably because there was an ADSL line problem, but since I’m in another state it is pretty hard to give the ADSL modem a quiet kick in the guts to get everything working again.

So, an hour or two at the keyboard and probably about the same perusing documents on the python web site and I have come up with a solution. My blogmail script (linked on the right somewhere, if it works - must get that fixed) has been modified so that it will run on the server of my web host. Thankfully my web host is generous enough to proved an ssh login and all the goodies that go with getting access to a linux command line. One of those goodies is crontab - or the ability to run a specified program at certain times or intervals. So now when I send an email to my blog it will be processed no matter what, because that’s why I pay these guys money to host my web site.

Now that’s out of the way I guess I’ll actually have to get off my bum and start posting something to this thing.

Lucky for me that I am going on a bit of an around Australia trip over the next few months, so I should have a few things to write about. Even if those things are only my spectacular failures at kite surfing,

Enough for now, hopefully this works and ends up on the blog fairly soon.

Well it’s been a long time between posts, again.

Been pretty busy on board the ship for the last couple of months getting ready for the “deployment” to Christmas Island. Got some leave coming up in December, it will be good to get home and see my parents and catch up with a few friends.

Heard from an old friend the other night that I haven’t spoken to in about 4 or 5 years. Not really sure why we didn’t keep in touch, but it was really good to hear from him. Hopefully we can hook up later on and catch up on what we’ve both been up to over the last few years.

Finally got everything sorted in my home away from home up here in Sydney. Bed, fridge, lounge TV etc…
The place is actually quite comfortable now, plus the view is great. I just need Telstra to get their shit in one sock and finish connecting the ADSL so that I don’t have to keep dragging a bloody telephone cable around with the laptop. My wireless gateway is ready to go, just no ADSL to connect to!

Just finished moving into my unit in Sydney. I was sitting on the lounge and admiring the view when 3 little lorikeets decided to come and say hello. One even walked through the sliding door just to make sure everything was OK.
I’m not sure if they are lorikeets but that’s what I’m calling them. Guess I’ll have to get some bird seed and see if I can have the little fellows as regular visitors.

Back in Sydney again. Had a reasonable first week at sea, it was surprisingly calm of the east coast of Australia this past week, very strange indeed.

The coming week might be a little bit worse, but at least we are not playing war games until Thursday.

With any luck we should have email at sea this week too.

Well, it’s goodbye to Melbourne. I sail from Melbourne today and the ship is heading for its new home port of Sydney. It’s been a a busy seven weeks and seems to have flown by. The commissioning ceremony on the 26th was well received by all who attended. The open day on the 27th was an outstanding success with what must have been nearly 2000 people visiting the ship and having a look through it.

More later ….