I had a dream the other night that I was in a code review with some of the guys.

For non-geeks amongst you, one of the key things about programming is to write your code in such a way that anybody else who reads it can understand how it works… and indeed so that you yourself can fully understand it when you read it again six months later.

So I was in this code review, and noting some issues with the code. And I said: “Look, I don’t want to single out any particular person, but some of this code… well it appears someone’s named this routine after Peter Brock.

“So we’ve got routine ‘Brocky’ with parameters ‘Peter’, ‘Holden’ and ‘Bathurst’. This makes no sense.”

Strange.

Marita was reminding me on Saturday of Dragon’s song Young Years (a discussion of various music lyrics that culminated in my car gaining the nickname Black Betty).

Secret meetings at the river’s bend
Simple days when I called you friend
Came a time, we went separate ways — Dragon, Young Years

As it happens last week I had a sudden rush of nostalgia while listening to the radio and they got onto a discussion of “things we miss from our childhood”.

I quite frankly never believed it back then when I was told those days were the best of my life. But since I’ve seen my kids growing up and enjoying their school years, I have been looking back much more fondly on my own time at school. If I had to put my finger on it, it might be the memory of the innocence and the lack of responsibility that I miss the most.

Some of the people I knew back then, I’ve kept in touch with. Others I’ve encountered from time to time on my travels. At least one, tragically, didn’t make it this far.

So I know more-or-less what Raoul M, Mark B, Merlin T, Justine H, Konrad K and Sam V are up to, even if I don’t have time to catch up with some of them very often. I’ve even heard of or from Olivia F (née D), Mark S, Josh H, Conrad L, Stuart/Lisa/Tracy M and Andrew V in the last few years. I know some of them lurk on my blog.

But what ever happened Andrew K, Daniel I, Stephen T, Michael W, David H, Craig B, Matthew S, Ingrid H, Gar S, Josh B, Leon M and all those others who are only a brief entry on the FriendsUnited web site (if that)?

What happened to all those Greek kids that used to be my neighbours? What happened to that other Matthew, the prick who used to pick on me? What about Darren D — did he end up on a farm like he thought, or is he the same guy of that name who is the fire brigade spokesman?

Okay, they’ve FU’d up the FU web site a bit. What’s with having to click through twice to get to the profiles? But some of the people I remember are in here. OMG, this says Undine S has two kids. And Andrew K’s profile shows he’s still the same joker he always was. Stephen P became a pilot just like he wanted. A few people show up in Google, too.

I suppose we’ve all gone off in different directions, scattered across the country and across the planet.

Let’s have that quote from Ben Elton’s Blast from the Past again:

Every golden generation, every fresh-faced group of friends, must statistically contain those who will fall prey to the sad clichés of life. The things they never thought would or could happen to them. Divorce, alcoholism, illness, failure. Those were things that happened to one’s parents’ generation. To adults who no longer had their whole lives before them. It comes as a shock when the truth dawns that every young person is just an older person waiting to happen, and it happens a lot sooner than anyone ever thinks.

Yikes, what a nostalgia overload. I hope I’m not heading to an early mid-life crisis or something.

High up in the bathroom is this: a towel rack.

The lettering? NSWR. I’m guessing it’s a recycled luggage rack from a train up north.

Cool looking, and functional too.

The grade 5 kids at the school were busy earlier this term building models of the solar system. Like many, Isaac’s was based on a spare hoola hoop, with planets of various sizes and colours hanging off it by fishing-wire.

Most of the models came home a few weeks ago, but the best were called back into school for last night’s school Science Fair. Isaac’s friend Peter’s was worthy, and I saw Peter and his mum Christine struggling to manoevre it back into the class room one day last week.

The big question though, was if Pluto should remain. When the models were built, it was still officially a planet. Since it has now been declared to be just an asteroid (number 134340), should the models have been revised?

Perhaps to reflect the whole conundrum, a sign should have been added to The Planet Formerly Known as Pluto, with a big question-mark on it?

Unfortunately I didn’t find out what the answer was on this, as Isaac was sick yesterday and we didn’t get to attend.

Well there we go. A US senate report says there was no connection between Iraq and Al Queda prior to the war starting. I can’t say I’m surprised.

I haven’t changed my view: Saddam is a evil git, but there is no ongoing campaign to oust evil gits, so why was he special?

There are estimates that at least 40,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the war commenced. I wonder how many died under Saddam’s totalitarian rule.

And how much more effective would we in the west be at defending ourselves against terrorism if we hadn’t sent thousands of troops and billions of dollars of equipment over to Iraq?

Any surprise that the Washington Post is reporting the trail to Bin Laden is “stone cold”?

It hasn’t been a spectacular year for me in the footy tipping. Although I was thankfully nowhere near the come bottom of the competition, after leading for a short period during the year I ended up fifth at the end of the season, three points off the lead. That formidable trophy won’t be coming to my place any time soon.

Thankfully a work colleague set up a finals tipping competition. It’s based around shares that started at 10 cents each. You could buy shares before last Friday, and your shares on whichever team(s) you wanted. Any shares on losing teams are lost, and the value of the remaining shares of the prize pool goes up accordingly. So I coughed up $10 and put my 100 shares on three teams that looked pretty safe.

And lost everything in the first smegging week.

Perhaps next year I will relive some of my past glories.

Rosa Lee Long, Queensland’s only sitting One Nation MP, was returned in her seat of Tablelands in the Queensland state election on Saturday.

I only mention this because she’s actually a distant (non-blood) relative of mine. On the Chinese side of my family there are a mass of Lee Long family members, and I understand Rosa is the widow of one of my dad’s cousins. The irony of a member of a party that is widely perceived as racist having been married to a Chinese man was not lost on the media, and her return even made the international media.

(Isn’t it funny how overseas media use the generic term “lawmaker” when talking about other countries Members of Parliament.)

On the road driving up to Euroa on Saturday.