Like memories themselves, the timeline is logarithmic against an inverse time axis.

April 1981

Born in New South Wales.

May or June 1981

Move to Orange

October 1982

Julia is born

February 1986

I start kindegarten.

March 1986

Steph is born

circa May/June 1986

My family moves to the north coast of NSW.

circa April/May 1987

My family moves to the southern highlands to manage my grandfather's motel.

Late 1988

My mother studies to become a primary school teacher.

Early 1989

My grandfather sells the motel. My father moves west to a new job.

circa April 1989

Mum, Julia, Steph and I move west to Dad.

circa December 1989

Dad gets a job in Orange and we move again.

February 1993

I start high school.

December 1993

My parents bought us a Compaq Presario 486SX/25 with 4MB of RAM. I constantly get in trouble for changing the Windows colours.

January 1994

Bushfires trap Mum, my sisters and myself briefly on the Central Coast at Mum's parents place due to the F3 being closed.

End of 1995

I jump two years in Computing Studies into a Year 11 class, and a year in maths into a Year 10 class.

1996

I do HSC Computing Studies. This is also the year the original Quake and Duke Nukem 3D are released, and Pentiums are installed in the school computer labs to the detriment of our studies.

October 1996

My friend Jim, who I met in 1993, kills himself.

End of 1996

I begin writing the Discriminant Boy stories.

Early 1997

I make a website for Discriminant Boy. The original site has, I think, vanished and archive.org, fortunately, does not preserve the earlier designs. It is based around my maths class of the time.

July 1997

I attend the 1997 International Science School at the University of Sydney. I meet Adrian there. Andrew regrets not applying now.

January 1998

I attend the Naional Youth Science Forum. I meet Miles there, and also Guarin, who was at ISS too.

October/November 1998

I sit the remainder of my Higher School Certificate.

November 1998

High school ends. I wait at home, patiently, in my school uniform so that Mum and Dad can take a picture, as they did for my first day of school. But it is hot, and they are late home, and I take it off.

early February 1999

I staff a Sieman's Science School with Tim and Ashley.

late February 1999

I move into Sancta Sophia College at the University of Sydney. Tim introduces me to Andrew during O-Week. Andrew and I show a group of Year 12 students around the uni, making special note of all the places to drink and have sex on campus. I meet Mos around this time too.

April 1999

I go to the movies with Tim and Andrew a few times. I also sit up all night watching them play Diablo, the night before my birthday lunch with my family.

June 1999

An End of Everything party is engineered at Wesley College. Andrew and I have a drinking competition and fail to notice all kinds of social mayhem around us. I meet all kinds of people who I won't talk to properly for ages, including John, Steph, Danielle, Meagan and Pip.

August 1999

Andrew and I go to see the UNSW's Law Revue. We end up walking from UNSW to USyd via Cicular Quay and end up going out. I take him to my college formal.

September 1999

I'm meant to be part of the ACM Programming Competition in a team with James among others. I get a bee sting which swells. I spend a night in hospital and end up missing the competition.

September/October 1999

I move out of college in with my great-aunt.

December 1999

I move home for the summer. I don't see Andrew much.

New Year 2000

Andrew and I spend the evening is Castle Cove in the place he has rented for summer.

February 2000

I work briefly for Parliament House. I move into a very small room in Stanmore.

July 2000

I start an online diary.

August 2000

I move in with Andrew and Tim, where I spent most nights anyway.

October 2000

More or less miss the Sydney Olympics, work at Waplications.

November 2000

My father's mother dies following a stroke.

December 2000

Waplications says "don't call us, we'll call you". I purchase the puzzling.org domain name, and host it on Tim's machine. Go on fabulous camping trip with friends to Green Patch. Swimming at night, the water fluoresces.

New Year 2001

Spend the evening with a large group of people overlooking the Harbour from Balls Head.

February 2001

Andrew has 21st birthday party on Shark Island. Andrew and I move into Spankyhouse with Catie, Nicholas and Mark. Tim moves back to Bathurst, and decides to finish his degree at CSU.

Summary 2001/2002

I work at CSIRO, working in computational linguistics for the first time.

Early 2002

Catie and Nicholas move out, Damian and Jeff move in. Having finished with undergrad maths and computer science, I start finishing off my linguistics major.

Mid 2002

Jeff, Andrew and I move to Newtown.

Late 2002

I finish the last year of my BSc and BA degrees at University of Sydney

Early 2003

I begin an honours year at Macquarie University, and move with Andrew to North Sydney.

First half of 2004

I work as a research assistant at Macquarie University

Second half of 2004

Andrew and I travel to the US, the UK, France, Spain, the Czech Republic and Thailand

December 2004

I start work at CommSecure.

June 2005

Andrew and I move to Hornsby where we have purchased a flat.

March 2006

I leave CommSecure and start a PhD at Macquarie University