So there we have it: what started out as a mere fantasy when I was four or five years old has actually been realised.  I am now a fully qualified tram driver.

“C class” on my certificate means that I can drive these:

(Source: VICSIG)

and, technically, these too:

(Source: VICSIG)

I’ll be trained up on another model soon as well.

So, how to sum up the last five weeks?

I’ve had a total blast.  There are absolutely no regrets at this stage about throwing in the IT towel.  (Not that I have done so fully yet anyway; I’m still spending a few hours each week at my old job tying up those loose ends from two months ago.)

For the most part, everything has been pretty much as I expected: you go, you stop (usually), you need to drive for everyone else on the road, you need to know the city and the suburbs and you need to know how to fix broken tram bits as they invariably break.  And perhaps most importantly: the work doesn’t come home with me.  Once I’m out the door, that’s it until I return.  I’m loving that greatly.

What has actually surprised, then?

Acceleration. When the tram is empty and conditions are dry (but pretty much no other time), with full throttle you can get from zero to sixty pretty quickly—that is, significantly faster than surrounding traffic.

Magic invisibility. When cars and pedestrians don’t want to see you, they simply don’t see you—or even hear you.  This is particularly bad in the city, but applies everywhere else too at times.  You can be sitting 30cm behind a car (or indeed, a person with earphones on) that is blocking your clearance dinging away to no avail.  Luckily, the C class trams also have a car-like horn.  That has proven to be effective.

Rich people behaviour. The most “antagonising” car drivers haven’t actually been P platers in utes, but middle-aged drivers in BMWs, Audis and Mercs.  I’m not sure whether this is just a side effect of driving through relatively rich areas like Kew and Balwyn, but I just cannot wrap my head around the mindset that these people appear to have: “I’m late for my cheese tasting.  I’ll just cut in front of this 40-tonne vehicle going down a hill.  It wouldn’t dare hit me; I’m driving a special, expensive car and hence am above the laws of physics.”

Taxi drivers. A lot of them have always been pretty bad in my experience as a tram passenger, a car driver and a city pedestrian, but the way so many of them so aggressively pull U-turns in such close proximity of approaching trams, I am astonished that there are so few accidents.  They also frequently like to block an intersection (and hence my tram) for complete light cycles, presumably thinking that if they do so they’ll get somewhere quicker.  That’s when they get a horn in the face for the next 60 seconds.  I like to pretend that it might teach them.

Lack of adhesion. Steel wheels on steel tracks (circular object on a flat plane—essentially infinitesimal contact) have poor grip at the best of times, but once drops of rain start hitting the tracks, it’s so much worse.  I’ve already gone into a skid several times, even sliding through two stops in a row on one occasion.  Even more frightening is when you try to move off on an uphill slope and start moving backwards because in the process of spinning the wheels forwards, all grip has been lost.

Timetables. All things considered, it really isn’t easy at all to keep a tram on time.  Bad traffic, poor track adhesion, ignorant road users, people holding doors open—delays of a few seconds all the way along a trip compound into 29-minute delays, and then you have to kick everyone off so you can start heading back in the other direction and that makes people sad.  More experienced/senior tram drivers generally seem to break a lot of internal rules (like crossing certain pieces of track at certain low speeds) in an attempt to mitigate these delays.

Indignant car drivers. Sometimes things go wrong enough that you need to pull up in the middle of the road (…obviously) and transfer all of the passengers onto another tram.  Cars, obviously, have to wait while this occurs.  And boy, do they like that.  And as they finally speed past, they tell you how much they like it—while falling victim to the Doppler effect and the sheer comedic value that that adds.  So ultimately, it becomes more of a treat than an insult.

Passengers so far have been pretty good.  I’m hoping that this one will mostly be a case of “get what you give” in that if you’re not hostile or a smart arse towards them, they’ll be civil right back.  I’m sure that there’ll be exceptions to this, though.

All in all, I’m happy and I’m looking forward to whatever may happen from this point forwards.  Watch out for me on the 109, 48 and 31 routes as of Monday morning, bright and early.

With this decision made, my notice has been handed in at work and now I must decide how the 40 hours a week of keeping the roof over my head will soon be spent.  (Not that that roof will always keep my head dry, as it turns out.)  And the fact that “something completely different” comprises countless possibilities is somewhat daunting.

I’d like something that gets me away from a desk.  Something that involves movement.  Something that gets me dealing directly with people.  Something for which I can dress up a little, maybe.  Something that can present the opportunity for advancement.  Something that doesn’t drain me of all of my mental and physical energy.  And perhaps most importantly (at least for now), something that can’t come home with me once I punch out for the day.

Part of me wants to take this opportunity to scratch some itches and dabble (or maybe even settle) in some areas that interested me before computers decided to monopolise the picture.  I’ve loved trains and trams for as long as I can remember; it would be awesome to get involved there somehow.  I’m booked in for a Medium Rigid licence training course; perhaps I could look into some other facet of the transport industry.

Anything that won’t have me staring at a computer screen for hours at a time will be nice, though.

With almost suspiciously good timing, a real estate agent who is tasked with finding a new tenant for my apartment has asked me to get in touch if I might be interested in becoming a Property Manager.  That role looks like it might fit all of the criteria I’ve listed above.

I wonder what other employment ideas I’m missing right now?

With mental energy left after work, I’ll be in a better position to do something productive outside business hours.  It’d be nice to work on some personal programming projects and release some of my work to the open source community.  I have some ideas for some financial modules I could release on CPAN.

Or, you know, I could reacquaint myself with some friends and family who must certainly feel long forgotten by now after months (and in some cases, years) of neglect.

It’s going to be an interesting few months.  That is pretty much the only guaranteed constant for now.

In the relatively distant past, someone close to me made that decision for us.  That decision still stands, because I respect their wishes and no longer have any means of knowing if those wishes change.  Recently, I was planning to make that decision with someone else.  Because it was my decision this time though, I spent many hours reflecting on it first.

And through this reflection I realised that with no committed view to restoring it, “temporarily” terminating a relationship with someone—whether friendship or otherwise—is neither temporary nor a solution at all.

With time away from someone who has hurt you, contempt can breed.  It doesn’t have to, but it can—and given that your reflections are likely to be focussing on the actions that caused that hurt, it probably will in more cases than it won’t.  With a rule of distance in place, it becomes much easier for you to vilify the other person.  It becomes impossible for the other person to actively influence your decision, because that requires contact with you—which would be a form of disrespect towards you because it goes against your previously announced wishes.

The other person is left powerless, and only you can advance the situation that is created.  Your desire to do that, however, will fall as time progresses because doing so will appear more and more unattractive.  After all, the other person isn’t doing anything to make further action seem worthwhile.  They can’t.

The result: lots of wasted energy on both sides of the equation, and permanent distance.

Having wanted to go down this path myself, I completely understand why it’s tempting.  It’s a non-confrontational, non-committal way out.  But either you know at that time that you want that distance to be permanent, or you don’t.

If you do know, then hopefully you see that person as deserving a truthful, immediate announcement to that effect so that they’re not left hanging with hope.

If you don’t know, then you probably ought to ask yourself if you want your own actions to seal that fate.  If the belief is there that things can work out in the future, set things in motion for that future to eventually reach the present.  Otherwise, like tomorrow, it will never come.

It’s a shame that people are driven to the point of wanting nothing more to do with another.  I regret having driven people in my past to seeing that outcome as the best one, but I respect their wishes and I will let sleeping dogs lie.

From this point forth though, my resolution is not to accept or instigate this scenario again.  I don’t want to run and hide from my problems, and if people matter to me, I don’t want to let them run and hide from theirs either—especially if those problems concern me, because I now have the hindsight to see where that leads.

Perhaps stopping things from reaching that point in the first place would be a better utilisation of time and effort.  One can still learn from what eventuates, though, even if those events aren’t ideal.  And as long as I’m learning until the day I die, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Knowing the right answer was probably preferred, but the way I delivered my concession did at least bring a laugh for all involved and it was certainly more creative than “I don’t know.”

Stupidly, I’m somewhat proud of myself that only one reference to this idea seems to exist on the internet today and it was made four years after mine.

Perhaps also stupidly, I’m somewhat disappointed that no one appears to have adopted this name for a cake business yet.  Would people get too confused?  It’s not like they go to a reasonably well-known card and gift retailer expecting information on the structure, function, and disorders of the heart based on its name alone—right?

ASIC Gazette 20/07 does list the deregistration of Tortology Pty. Ltd. around May 2007.  Failed cake venture or something else entirely?  It may remain a mystery forever.

How you came into our lives was never quite clear to me; I think we found you meowing and scratching around within a wall of the local primary school.  How on earth did you get in there?  We’ll never know, but we didn’t think much of it at the time.

Your curiosity persisted though, and it later had you dangling from ironing boards by your foot, lodging your head in tuna cans and getting trapped in the garden shed.

Sleeping in doll houses and shoe boxes and commandeering a number of the dog’s kennels comprise just a couple of the many things that made you unique—the many things that I don’t want to forget.

From the very beginning you had a bizarre resting posture.  You’d either flatten yourself on the ground or fold your legs in like some sort of amputee.  We always wondered whether this was because you’d adapted to inner-wall living at an early age.

We used to have a good laugh over how you would traverse the backyard by balancing on the garden hose, like walking directly on grass was below your dignity.  Your commando antics on various garden critters also had us in stitches.  One time you were determined to teach some noisy cricket a lesson; you fired into the air off your hind legs and landed on top of it with your two front paws.  The elaborateness of your display was amusing enough; that you had actually given the physics a thought as to how to maximise your impact, though, left me in awe.

You were a clever and attentive cat, and you had no qualms about using this to your advantage.  If you wanted to come inside, you would open the door and come inside.  You had watched how we operate our spring-loaded security door, and so you devised your own technique for opening it—complete with sliding back down it with your paw wedged between the crack after you’d jumped on the handle, so that you could thwart the spring-loaded mechanism.  I am so happy that I managed to get this on video once.  Your typical follow-up would then be to either open the pantry and help yourself to packaged dry food, or find a nice spot on the wooden floor, literally fall over and relax.

The way you would bolt inside at full speed and then essentially keel over initially worried us, but we soon had you worked out.  Were you narcoleptic?  No; you were just odd.  Perhaps, like a cheeky toddler, you were amused by the reaction you got when we thought we’d heard something fall off a bench.  You certainly weren’t the world’s smallest cat; you had a fair bit of weight to you.

Your displays of affection, and how you would always give your absolute best effort, fascinated me.  When we leaned down to pat your head you would jump up and balance on your hind legs.  When we relaxed on the couch you would join us, and you would treat us to full-bodied hugs—complete with your little arms wrapped around us, you would rub noses with us and you would rest your forehead on our chins like some sort of bizarre telepathic transfer was taking place.  If you weren’t hugging us with your paws you were holding onto our hands with them.  It was amazingly sweet to watch.  In a way, your actions seemed almost human.

Interestingly, I feel that I have learnt more about affection from you than anyone or anything else.  I’ve never been one to show or feel much affection, but something about your interactions with me made me a whole lot less averse to the idea.  Because of you, I am now a lot more capable of showing affection than I was.  Perhaps this alone is a primary reason why I’m so upset that you’re gone—perhaps I feel that I’ve lost a part of myself with you, even though I really haven’t.

I’m sorry I never let you jump up on me when I visited.  It wasn’t because I didn’t want you to; I was just horrendously allergic.  I really wish I’d just tolerated the aftermath now.

I hope to remember some other specific things about you as well.  Like the way you’d follow us to the bathroom and “ask” us for a cup of water.  The way you’d wrap your tail around yourself—always the right side—and then stand on it.  The way your eyes would slightly converge when you were about to do something cheeky.  The way you’d sometimes start to meow and then pause halfway through it for ten seconds to decide whether you were going to yawn.  The way you were so vocal about everything.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget your meow; I keep thinking I hear it around me in the strangest places.

We will probably never know for sure what happened to you on Monday evening, or why you didn’t come home sooner for help when we may have been able to save you.  But we’re all glad that you did at least return—I am sure of this much.  The idea that we may have missed out on closure altogether is not a pleasant one.

Seeing you in your state at the vet was painful for all of us.  You could easily see our distress.  You persevered as best you could, trying to purr for us like there was no need to worry.  Perhaps you believed that we were there to take you home and everything would be alright.  That we weren’t hopefully can’t be seen as betrayal; you know that we were certainly wishing for no other outcome.

I’m sorry I didn’t stay with you until the very end, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for your burial.  It wasn’t because I didn’t care enough: I just couldn’t handle it, and I knew this before I was even presented with the reality.  How the rest of the family managed to brave through this amazes me.  The moment I saw that green liquid in your IV drip heading towards you, I panicked and fled.  I flew down gravel roads in excess of 120km/h to get away as quickly as I could.  The memory of watching you die—artificially, like we’d given up hope—would have stuck with me forever.  I didn’t want that to be my last memory of you.

Even in your final living moments you were doing your very best to be as affectionate as always; you were using all your energy to come closer, nuzzle your head and place your paw in Niki’s hand.  This is my last memory of you, and as much as it hurts to know that there will be no more, I am grateful that this last one is a nice one.

Your departure was premature and unexpected, and I think this makes it all the harder for everyone to accept.  It truly has blown us all away.  I still struggle to believe that you, our youngest pet, are really gone.  I still don’t want to believe that when I next visit the family, you won’t be there to greet me at the doorstep.

Farewell, Bucky.  We will always miss you dearly.

November 1, 2003—September 19, 2009

Things are always changing.  Nothing is ever timelessly set in stone.  What one says or feels at one specific point in time is ever likelier to become invalid as time continues to progress.

People sometimes ask me questions (particularly around emotions) as if there’s one definitive, permanent answer.  Historically I would blindly humour this and make assurances accordingly.  Often, this has eventually backfired on me.

There usually isn’t a permanent, timeless answer.  Keeping this in mind and adjusting answers accordingly proves to be a lot wiser; it takes away the risk of being called out on my words in the future.  Views and beliefs change over time—sometimes drastically.  Making promises about the integrity over time of answers to questions is risky.

If someone claims that they could “never” or will “forever” feel a certain way about something, they are essentially declaring a precognitive awareness of the entire course of events awaiting them in their future.  To indefinitely assert something just isn’t realistic.  “Never” and “forever” are certainly possible, but they can’t be guaranteed.

Most people realise this if it’s pointed out to them, and they concede that they don’t really mean anything eternally.  Sadly though, for one reason or another some people simply can’t or won’t do this; they know what they’re talking about and you’re a fool to doubt them.  So how should one approach such an occurrence?

The best way is probably for One to accept Another’s assertions peacefully while remaining open to those assertions changing in time.  Then, should they ultimately change, One will be prepared for it and no real damage will be done.  One might be temporarily agitated or hurt over Another’s change of heart, but they won’t hold it against Another since One entered the agreement prepared for that very possibility.  And besides, Another never set out to deceive or upset One.

Things become so much easier sometimes when following this approach, and reminding oneself that “never” and “forever” are exceptionally long periods of time to keep one’s word.

There are still so many words that remain unsaid between us, and some of those words will probably remain unsaid no matter what happens in the future.  But will anything actually happen in the future?  Will we ever speak again?

I wish I could just take solace in knowing that the ball is in her court—we’ve established that our contact will only recommence when she feels ready.  But what if “when” is really just a polite “if?”

What if she already knows that it’s never going to happen?

I remain a total villain in her mind.  Her mentions of me on her blog are increasingly infrequent, but never fail to testify her view of me.  Am I really as evil as I appear through her words?  In some cases with knowledge of the facts the answer is a relieving, clear-cut “no.”  In others, it’s much harder to arrive at a definite answer.

I wish I could begin to describe where our experience as a whole leaves me in terms of relationships.  How can I allow myself to pursue a relationship with anyone I care about if I “know” that when things ultimately crumble, no matter what I do, I’m going to lose them in every other sense as well?

I don’t like being held hostage to irrational emotions.