Shannon O’Neill

After work a couple of weeks ago I discovered that my car had a parking ticket, with a $77 fine. Fair enough, I’d parked all day in a one-hour spot. But this was only my second ticket in years of parking in that area ie Abercrombie St and the back streets of Chippendale. Since then, I’ve seen parking cops there every day. What once seemed to be a no-go zone for them is apparently now a priority. So my run of free parking has come to an end.

The university car park charges at least $13 per day. Assuming that I parked there three days per week, 40 weeks per year, that would cost me an additional $1560 per year, on top of the $2500 p.a. I already spend on rego/insurance/petrol/NRMA/maintenance. A total of over $4000 p.a. at a time when I’m trying to reduce my expenses, pay off debts and, god forbid, maybe even save some money, is just too much.

So, as you may have guessed, I bought a bike. Clarence St Cyclery had a sale last week, so I got a $1300 Trek 7500 hybrid bike for $1000 with a helmet thrown in, plus a bunch of other accessories that were also on sale. It’s my first bike since childhood and it’s amazing! 27 speeds and front suspension, which can be locked off for faster performance. I’ve been riding it around my neighbourhood for at least an hour a day, gradually developing my skills, fitness and confidence with the intention of eventually commuting to work. I got an excellent little book called Bike-it!, which has maps of suggested back-street routes for cyclists. There’s also a cool website called Bikely which serves a similar purpose, and I’ll be making my own custsom Google Maps as my knowledge improves.

I’m guessing that my 30 minute drive to work will probably take about 45 minutes by bike. That’s a serious daily workout, especially as the terrain is quite hilly. I look forward to being that fit! In the mean time I’ll be taking the train, or a combination of bike & train, as the uni is right next to Central station.

The next step is to sell my car, which makes me sad as it’s served me well and is a very cute little 1974 Datsun 120Y fastback - a vintage car! It has loads of personality and is instantly recognizable with its blue and yellow panels and random bits of paint - it gets enthusiastic comments from strangers all the time. UPDATE: sold.

With the car sold, even if I spend $1000 p.a. on public transport, taxis and bike stuff, I’ll save about $3000 p.a. That’s a few months’ rent, or a big chunk of HECS debt, or a new computer, or an overseas trip… Yeah, I need to do this.

I had an itchy nose for most of last week. According to some website, this means that I “will have quarrel with someone”. I hope not. Can’t we all just get along, with itch-free noses?

I’ve been in manic work mode for the past few weeks, making lots of progress on various projects. More about that over the coming weeks.

Something I’ve noticed is that when I’m in this mode, a 24 hour day isn’t long enough. I’ve been working later and later each night to the extent that for past few nights I’ve been getting to bed at dawn. This means I’ve only been getting a few hours sleep (which has some particular health consequences for me, so I need to be careful).

Ideally, I’d like to be awake for about 20 hours, then sleep for nine - ie a 29 hour day.

I know that I’ve written bugger all of substance here in ages (and that’s all I’ll say about that, as there are few things duller than a blogger blogging about not blogging) but I had hoped to regale you with some travel anecdotes.

Unfortunately a strange thing happened to me earlier this week - I lost feeling in half of my left hand, or rather it ‘went to sleep’ with a combination of numbness and ‘pins & needles’. I panicked at first, thinking it might be a stroke - after nearly 30 hours of cramped flight home, DVT was a possibility, so I went to the GP and he did the relevant tests and advised me that it wasn’t a stroke and that I should just rest the arm and it’d hopefully be better in a few days.

Well it’s a few days later and it isn’t much better. Some activities such as writing (I’m left-handed) typing and upper body exercise are difficult and make it worse. I’ve been terrified that it might be the beginning of Multiple Sclerosis (I’ve had both an aunt and an uncle die from MS, and the doctors suspect that my mother now has it - so I’m about as high risk as possible) but searching on the web leads me to believe that it’s most likely a case of Cubital Tunnel Syndrome aka Ulnar Nerve Entrapment or Ulnar Tunnel Syndrome (UTS!).

Hopefully it’s due to some temporary inflammation, but if the problem hasn’t gone away in a few more days, I’ll need to see a specialist. For now I should try to stay away from computers and any other aggravation. So there won’t be much blogging for a while (well it’s not a bad excuse…).

I’ve uploaded lots of travel pics to my Flickr page, and there are still plenty more to come, which I’ll try to finish soon.

i’ve just found out that my brother has advanced lung cancer and only has a matter of days to live. he’s a smoker, as was my father, who also died of lung cancer.

if you smoke, please try to quit.

Don’t inhale food.

I’m getting glasses. Well, I already have glasses, but I only ever wore them to Art History lectures back in 1992, so I could see the slides better. They were huge and made me look like Brains from the Thunderbirds*, so I’ve made do without since then. But it was about time I got a new prescription, as my eyes aint getting any better! My new glasses will be narrow rimless ones with thin, gun metal grey handles. Hopefully they’ll make me look like a Cutting Edge Artist and Intellectual, but instead I’ll probably just look like a dweeb.

I had the option of getting photochromic lenses, but decided against them cos of the extra cost (+$240) as I’m trying to save to go overseas - also cos they don’t work in cars/trains/planes. But I’m wondering if anyone reading this has experience of these lenses and can recommend them? If so, maybe I’ll get them next time I need to buy glasses. Before then I’ll probably get proper sunglasses with prescription lenses.

* One of my all-time favourite Australian TV comedy sketches is the D-Generation’s Thunderbirds parody. I recently watched the Best of Not Only… But Also…, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s 1960s show and discovered that they’d done pretty much the same sketch 20 years earlier! I think somewhere in the back of my mind I already knew this, but it was still a shock.

and drank too much coffee