...I wouldn't have internet access right now.

I'm typing this sitting in the ugly hotel in Melbourne where tomorrow's SAGE-AU VIC miniconference is going to be held (where I'll give a talk about Debian). The hotel exudes the charme of 70s concrete, American skyscraper architecture and dinginess - it's average at best. And the hotel has internet only via TV and the Internet Exploder, and pricey, too. Not for me, I want a bitpipe to my lapdog.

But somebody nearby has internet, PigPond to be exact, and also a Linksys Wavelan Accesspoint.

So now I have internet, too, not paying anything of course. Unfortunately that somebody isn't exactly nearby so the signal quality sucks and the packet loss is dramatic. But, lousy net access is still net access.

Apart from that today was a bit rough: I had spent yesterday evening marking one set of midterm exams and working on the slides for tomorrow's presentation. About midnight I was ready for bed (not having finished all the intended work but dead tired), and at 0745 I was woken by the allahuakhbar alarm clock. I was completely desoriented, not knowing where I was, what day or time it was and why or whether I would have to get up immediately...a perfect start.

Feeling quite sick I survived supervising the second midterm exam, only to find two guys parked in front of my office: they had overslept and thus not come to the exam, and could they do it now or something? My headache and general queasiness must have made me soft...

Then I had to fix a couple of XML handling bits on james, went home to pack and really finish the presentation slides. At home my inn was locking up and not displaying all new articles, the wireless link to my main home server got flaky - unclear which of three elements are to blame, and I had to rush to the airport.

Of course then the flight had to be late, in fact over an hour...and the Melbourne airport bus company doesn't do hotel dropoffs in the evening, so I had to go for an extra cab - not willing to carry my bag about two klicks to the hotel, and au$6 wasn't exactly outrageous.

Ah well, I'm here, feeling a lot better than this morning, my work is piling up at home but I don't care a lot and I'll have Saturday and half of Sunday to explore Melbourne. (The weather forecast at home is not real flash so I won't miss much flying. Plus, next week I'll pickup my new harness, that also ups my mood.)