It's been 417 days since I started my Project 101, approximately 300 days since my last update here on the Rhetoric blog. Pretty poor really.

It's fair to say that I'm not as far along with completing the task list as I'd like to be, but also I feel that I have achieved a lot more than I would have if there wasn't the list there to motivate me in the first place. There's at least two significant outcomes from this that have prompted me to write this particular update, and a nice little note to finish off.
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If I was a new visitor/immigrant to New Zealand I would already be connected to some form of broadband by now. I would be paying less for that broadband, I wouldn't have to wait for two different technicians from the same company to connect a phone line then the broadband. I wouldn't have to wait for the connection to be in place before the company sent me a modem/router a week later, and two weeks after I began the application.

You get my point.

For all the competition (methinks it's really pseudo-competition) in the IT market, Australian pricing and service is a JOKE. I can't believe that consumers don't demand more, and better more - there's certainly enough of them...

And don't get me started on Mobile connections!

So, in the meantime, instead of whining about things I will have to go the circuitous route when it comes to posting (and getting other things done online).

Rant over - do I feel better? - hmmm, probably.

In November last year I turned 36...yes I am that old. This arbitrary threshold-crossing gave me cause to reflect on where I was in my life, and it wasn't exactly the greatest scorecard - still single, renting, in a job that was going downhill, stuck out in the wops with only the cat and dog to talk to yadda yadda boo hoo etc.

Not only that, but I had lost inspiration and motivation for taking photos, which for me was a real litmus-test. So several sleepless nights went by with me wondering how I could re-inject some stimulus into my 36 going on 76 lifestyle.

In one word: Melbourne. Complete upheaval of my life seemed about as good idea as any, and where better to upheave myself to that one of the most beautiful cities in the world than Melbourne. Why there in particular you may ask? Well, I have family there (Hi mum!), the quality of living is excellent, I loved it when I was there a few years ago, it's I.T. central for Australia so jobs wouldn't be an issue and it offers a complete juxtaposition of my current lifestyle, with more things to take a photo of that I could possibly want.

So after some procrastinating, online surfing, job hunting and other nonsense, I handed in my notice at work at the end of last month, started selling up everything ("The things you own - own you") and just the other day cemented it by purchasing a one-way ticket on the 1st of March.

So three weeks to go, and finally the anxiety has been replaced by the excitement. There is so much unknown - but that both excites me and frightens me. All I can hope for is to finally get back to posting daily photos that don't start looking like more of the same...