Rob Farley

Rob Rob Farley has been consulting in IT since completing a Computer Science degree with first class honours in 1997. Before moving to Adelaide, he worked in consultancies in Melbourne and London. He runs the development department in one of Australia's leading IT firms, as well as doing database application consultancy and training. He heads up the Adelaide SQL Server User Group, and holds several Microsoft certifications.

Rob has been involved with Microsoft technologies for most of his career, but has also done significant work with Oracle and Unix systems. His preferred database is SQL Server and his preferred language is C#. Recently he has been involved with Microsoft Learning in the US, creating and reviewing new content for the next generation of Microsoft exams.

Over the years, Rob's clients have included BP Oil, OneLink Transit, Accenture, Avanade, Australian Electorial Commission, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the Royal Borough of Kingston, Help The Aged, Unisys, Department of Treasury and Finance (Vic), National Mutual, the Bible Society and others.

Did you mean to come here? My blog is now at http://msmvps.com/blogs/robfarley



18 September 2005

Back home tomorrow

I'm at home tonight. Joel comes home tomorrow, assuming things are okay in the morning. He's fine now. Almost no more pain, almost no more swelling, almost no more redness. Almost no more colour-loss in Dad's hair.

For those of you who have asked - he had an idiopathic oedema. Which basically means that he had a swelling of fluid that they couldn't put down to a particular cause (idiopaths!). We put it down to a fall he had on Friday morning during PE, because he was normal in the morning, and got sore after his fall. Roslyn and I were out for the evening (to celebrate her birthday), so her mum picked the boys up from school. She took him to hospital in the evening (phone-call one - the 'probably nothing' one), and then to the children's hospital at about 1:30am, which is when we got phone-call two - the 'probably something' one. Not the kind of phone-calls a grandmother wants to make, nor the kind that you want to get. I often wonder how on earth my grandparents took the news about my dad dying. Not something I ever want to go through.

It's good to be home. I wish Joel was here though. Roslyn's staying at the hospital tonight, after I did last night and Friday night. Tomorrow is Roslyn's birthday, so it'll be a weird day. I'm exhausted. I have a list of things to do before turning in tonight, including getting a bunch of stuff sorted so that Samuel and I can leave for school really early so that we can drop by the hospital en route and give Roslyn her gifts and cards. I'm only on-line because I can't really turn my head off properly.

It's only just after a year since Samuel (8 now) was in the same ward in the same hospital with Kawasaki's Disease. It took several days from when he went in until they figured out what it was, and just how serious an effect it could have had. Even now he's still on aspirin every day, and it has really affected all of us a lot. I guess on Friday night when we were at the hospital with Joel having an ultrasound to try to work out what was wrong with him, a lot of stuff started going on around my head, which should slow down at some point. Distraction is a good thing. I don't enjoy hospitals, particularly children's ones. I'm so tired. And Roslyn probably won't enjoy her birthday as much as I'd like her to. Sleep is in order, but it's very hard to relax, even after something like this is over. Relief is good, but it still doesn't allow for much sleep.

Oh yeah - it's also "Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day" tomorrow. Aaarrr. Poor Roslyn, it's an annual thing.