McBlog

Well, it’s been about six months since my last post. A lot can happen in that time and it certainly has:

• We moved house in February to be in the selection zone for McKinnon Secondary College, a school that should be great for Nykolai when he starts grade 7 next year. It gets great reviews and is supposed to be one of the better public schools in Melbourne. The selection zone is rather small and demand to attend the school is high, so renting costs more in the zone than outside. He’s still going to St Kilda Primary for the rest of this year so there’s been a bit of commuting, juggling and so on but we’re managing.
• Things didn’t work out at Evolve and I finished up there at the end of February, finding myself without work right in one of the worst job markets anyone’s seen for ages (it’s worse than the recession of the 90’s, that’s for sure). I’ve spent the last few months applying for jobs and it’s only been in the past few weeks that agents have been calling me back - usually it was silence or rejection slips. Very much a buyers’ market as companies can specify exactly what they want and there are so many people looking for work that they can pick & choose. The market appears to be turning as we enter the new financial year, so that’s a plus.
• I’ve set up and am managing the World Aviation Experience blog. The main aspect of WAE is their Flight Experience Melbourne 737 simulator and the merchandise they have for sale at their online store. We’ve set up the instructors at the simulator on Twitter where they’re tweeting the cool flights that they do and there’s quite a bit of content in the blog already. We have some big plans for expanding the content and linking up with other ventures, so be sure to link in with the blog’s RSS Feed to keep up with the news.
• I’m back crewing the hot air balloons in both Melbourne and the Yarra Valley. I really enjoy it and have been getting some great photos. Of course, we’re in winter now and the flying drops right off over July/August as the weather gets worse.
• I’ve been working on a couple of proposals at apc.au, one an international development project and the other for a refugee based project here in Australia. The Australian project’s under way during July but the international one got put on hold. We’ll see how things go over the next month or so.
• I’m still naffed off that the Australian Government is still pushing ahead with their idiotic Internet Filter plans and have started expanding its intended coverage (gee, there’s a shock). As much as I thought Howard was a complete bastard of a Prime Minister, this insanity is showing that Senator Conroy is the worst Communications Minister we’ve EVER had (and that’s saying something as we’ve had some shockers).
• We’ve been to see Cirque du Soleil’s Dralion production and thought it was good but Varekai was better.
• Kitt and I went to see Dylan Moran live at the Arts Centre on Easter Sunday and, more recently, Avenue Q at the Comedy Theatre. Dylan was hillarious and our sides were aching from laughing so much through the whole show while Avenue Q was brilliant (imagine a deranged adults only version of Sesame St merged with a dash of Tray Parker & Matt Stone). Very happy we went to see them.
• We’ve been watching season 1 shows from Heroes and Dexter (yes, we’re WAY behind - whatever) and have watched all of True Blood (including the latest few episodes on season2). I’d say that these shows plus Battle Star Galactica and the ROME series show that there’s a chance for TV yet, but then I think about the rest of the crap that’s on and have to admit that it’s doomed.

Otherwise, that’s about it and life goes on. I’m keeping busy with applying for jobs and these projects but there’s no real income, so we’re surviving on my savings (now finished) and Kitt’s income. A plus is that I’m getting time to exercise, so I’ve lost a few kilos - still a long way to go, of course…

We’re watching the Rome mini series and it’s amazing. I am certainly not an historian of the ancient world, but I’ve got an understanding of what it was supposed to be like. Sure, I’ve devoured every Asterix story (in more than one language too), read some historical stories and watched a few documentaries of the epoc. From what I’ve learned, I have to say that this TV-series is amazing in its portrayal of life in ancient Rome. Certainly, at times it’s like watching Dallas (political intrigue, families vs each other, matriachs wanting to kill each other, etc) and the British accents can be grating at times, but damn it’s good.

If you have the chance, I totally recommend watching both seasons of this show. It’s got sex, violence and historical accuracy. Run, don’t walk, to get your hands on the DVDs.

Our New Years Eve was pretty quiet as Kitt wasn’t feeling too well, so we stayed at home and relaxed, watching some movies while eating cheeses, olives & crackers. Not a bad way to see in the new year.

Probably a good thing we didn’t go and push it too hard as January 1st is Nykolai’s birthday so once again we had a quiet day of gifts, family and relaxation. Given most of his mates are away on holiday, we save the real birthday party for February when school’s back.

Today found Nykolai and I out at Williamstown so we decided to go and check out the HMAS Castlemaine museum. The Castlemaine is an Australian Navy Corvette (minesweeper) from World War II that’s being preserved as a floating museum. It’s pretty cheap to get on board and check it out and worth it to check out some very old technology. The scariest part for me was that they used to have a crew of about 90 people on board a relatively small vessel. Talk about cramped quarters…

I went and watched part of a Cricket match the other day. It was the third day of the Australia vs South Africa test at the MCG. Now, before you fall off your seats, I went with two American friends who were visiting in Melbourne, so I went along to share the joy of trying to confuse a poor foreigner, not out of any twisted love of the game or anything.

Laura flew in from San Francsico on Christmas Day and Bryce came down from Brisbane on Boxing Day. Given Bryce has been living in Australia for a while, he’s already learned the joys of cricket and has experienced a number of games at the Gabba. For Laura, however, it was all new.

I’d had a go at explaining the rules as I drove Laura in from the airport on Christmas Day. She’s not your average yank, as she watches the BBC, loves reading Terry Pratchett’s books, likes the Pythons and does remember that, according to Douglas Adams, Earth is shunned due to the game of Cricket being a warped parody of the most destructively genocidal galactic war ever fought (the Krikkit Wars). Given all that, she’s already well on the way to “getting” the game.

Thanks to my friend Stephen we were able to get three general admission tickets for the Sunday session. We went by train (Connex were late as usual) and shuffled through the station’s gates, swarming in with the mobs of people who were going to the game. Surprisingly, I ran into someone I used to work with back at EDS (Hi Mark) who immediately realised that I was, perhaps, the last person at the stadium who should have been trying to teach Laura about cricket. Fortunately I do recall that many of my misspent days of youth included watching cricket with my family and playing it with friends. So, while I don’t know shit about the current teams, details of coaching methods & support staff for the team and, in fact, may of the other items that fans may know, I was able to help give her a basic understanding.

Once in the stadium we found a good spot to sit (opposite the view board) that had shade, great views and let us get a feel for the size of the stadium. It was only about 1/3 full which is probably why we were able to easily get good seats. Not long after we arrived the teams came out with South Africa batting and Australia trying to get them all out and force a follow-on to their next inning. This, of course, made it rather more exciting than the usual test match cricket day (which can often be like watching paint dry).

We only wound up staying for the first two hours as Laura & Bryce wanted to scoot off down the Great Ocean Rd. While only a short time, it was enough for Laura to get a feel for the game and experience the following:

• A good, running catch out near the boundary
• A variety of different bowling method styles (pace & spin), fielding positions (slips, silly mid off/on, etc) and how the whole field adjusts when changing from a left handed to right handed batsman
• The basics of the game (overs, changing ends, runs, attempted stumpings, etc)
• Some poor person in the level above us having a medical emergency and getting CPR for about 15 to 20 minutes - no idea what happened as there’s been no news about it
• The “yobbo crowd” in Bay 13 getting up to their usual antics (starting waves, chanting, bouncing beach balls, etc)

So yes, a great day to take someone new to the game and let them experience it. It wasn’t quite as exciting as a 1 day match but it did flow quite well.

The one thing that’s sticking in my mind about all this is a major “WTF???!”:

What the hell is it with Australia that you can’t bring glass bottles into the stadium but you can bring a freakin’ cricket bat??? I mean, hello? Leathal frickin weapon here!

Oh well…

I took a few photos of the cricket experience and have loaded them into the Gallery system I recently set up. I intend to sort out its look and feel (currently pretty yuk) and transition most of the current Photos into it soon.

Wow - over a month since the last post and I’ve only logged one post since Oct 15th. Can you tell I’ve been flat out lately? So, what’s been happening - well, here we go:

• I left EDS and started a new role as Service Delivery Manager for Evolve Information Services, a small company based in Melbourne CBD. We are a small, growing software development (primarily C# .NET) and business intelligence reporting bunch and I’m trying to keep it all ticking over while the boss grows the business (can’t run it & grow it at the same time). It’s keeping me absolutely flat out but I’m loving it - I’m being stretched and challenged by a great bunch of people which is exactly what I need to get my career up to the next level. Woo hoo.
• Things are ticking over at apc.au as most of the projects are settling into the Christmas quiet time. Andrew’s over in Graz (Austria) with lots more travel likely in 2009, so I’ll be keeping things running as smoothly as I can from here.
• Nykolai’s doing well and has just finished Grade 5 with good results - he still needs a bit of work on his maths, but otherwise he’s doing great.
• We’ve managed to survive Christmas staying at home this year. Usually we’ll travel up to Kitt’s mom’s place in Tweed Heads but this year she’s coming down later so we decided to stay home. We’ve picked up a Christmas tree that is, admittedly, plastic but looks extremely realistic. Kitt did a lot of great work cooking & preparing some excellent food for us all to enjoy - check out the photos at the Christmas 2008 gallery.
• Laura, a friend of ours from San Francisco, decided to come to Australia for a holiday and arrived on Christmas Day so she’s hanging out with us and then travelling around Oz checking the place out. It’s been great fun having her here - especially when trying to explain to her that wonderful game of Cricket - if we’re lucky we’ll get to take her to a test match before she goes and then she will discover that Baseball is not the most boring game on the planet.

There’s been other things happening but these few have been the big ones so far. With luck I’ll have more energy after Christmas (assuming I survive digesting the food and booze, that is) and will be more regular with my blogging.

No matter what your persuasion or alignment, I do hope you’re having a great holiday and enjoying yourselves. We certainly are.

For those of you who may not have heard just yet, the Australian Government wants to filter the Internet. This is bloody ridiculous and makes them look even more idiotic than normal. Once again our government is pandering to the moral minority in an attempt to “protect the children.”

Why is it that we educate children about talking to strangers and safely crossing roads but when it comes to the Internet, our government goes straight to legislation and a filtering system? What guarantee is there that, once established, such a system will not be used to block opposing religious, governmental or sexual freedom sites? (answer = NONE).

The proposed filter will not work for a variety of technical, legal and ethical reasons. That our government is pushing this lunacy after so recently telling China to not be afraid of the openness of the Internet is pure hypocrisy.

If you are concerned about the impacts of this Australian Internet Filter (and you should be!) then get off your arse and do something about it. Don’t sit there and think “I’m OK, my views are aligned with the government” ‘cos they won’t always be (and may not be in ways that might surprise you). Don’t leave it to someone else to do make it happen for you. If you care about your freedoms, get out there and make your voice heard.

I called Conroy’s office (comms minister) yesterday and voiced my concern. I also sent him an email (see below) and cc’d it to Albanese (infrastructure minister) and Rudd (prime minister). Through this blog and others I’m involved in, I am getting the word out to people about this latest piece of governmental crud. Will you do the same?

Dear Senator Conroy,

I am writing to you as a concerned citizen of Australia. I am deeply worried about your proposed Internet Filter that I see as dragging Australia down into the depths of censorship along with China, Iran and other repressive regimes.

The proposed filtering system is broken in many ways, including functional (it will slow down packets, may break some applications and be relatively easy to work around), legal (there is no legal foundation for this) and ethically (your definition of questionable content no doubt differs from mine).

Further more, reports of your office attempting to silence critics of your plan leads me to question whether this filtering system will not be used to block other content once it is in place. Who will ensure that your office does not start preventing us from accessing reports that are critical of your government?

My son is allowed to use the Internet but I have taken steps to educate him about safe sites and the “dangers” of the ‘net, much as I have already educated him about walking down dark alleys and talking to strangers. We also have his computer in the lounge so we are aware of what he is doing online.

Why is it that we have education programmes for children about crossing roads and not talking to strangers but we have to have a “protection” system for the Internet. Education is required here, not legislation.

I have used the Internet for personal and business needs since 1986 in the commercial and human rights spheres. Never in all my experience would I have imagined a supposedly progressive, intelligent government such as yours even considering implementing a filter like this. This proposal is making you and your entire government a laughing stock around the world. If you really want to stamp out child pornography, don’t implement a broken, unethical filtering system. Instead, put funding towards those who track these sick people down (even when it’s discovered that they’re policemen, pastors or MPs).

To help you get an understanding of how impossible attempting to filter the Internet is, please check out this web cartoon from User Friendly.

As I hope you are realising, attempting to push this plan will make you appear an idiot and further erode support for your government. There are better ways to help the Australian people have a safer online experience and I strongly recommend that you and your government invest in them.

I am happy to discuss this further with you and help provide you with a better understanding of how the Internet works, why filters just don’t work and what I believe are better ways of addressing your concerns.

Cheers,

Grant

As part of my work with apc.au I am going to be presenting at the Quality Control Symposium on Friday 17th Oct at the State Library of Victoria’s theatrette. I’ll be part of the group doing micro-statements at the start (1 minute blips of fury) and then taking part in discussions and workshops for the rest of the day. Check out the details as it promises to be a very interesting event.

Sheryl (Kitt’s mom) recently had her 60th birthday, Janet (Sheryl’s stepdaughter) was turning 40 and Tony (Janet’s husband) will be turning 50 soon. Given this, a plan was made to have a big outdoor bash called “Woodstock at Bell’s” with bands, food vendors and stacks of people in Janet & Tony’s back yard. A stage was hired, sound system setup, bands arranged and some foodies brought in. Tents and tarps were rigged, cars & vans parked around the place and a huge crowd was expected (oh, did I mention their back yard is about the size of a football field located in native bushland in the hills & valleys behind Tweed Heads?).

Sadly, instead of the bright blue skies and beach weather we’re told about, Tweed Heads decided to demonstrate why there are no water restrictions here and provided rain, more rain and still more rain. While most of us were lurking under tarps and shelters, Tony wound up having to put a huge tarp over the top of the stage. Seems the idiots who set it up put the roof on backwards - it slopes down from front to back to allow the rain to run off with the water flowing off the top panels onto the middle ones then the back ones and away. Sadly, instead of starting with the back panels, then the middle ones and then the front ones, they’d done it the other way around. As a result, the rain ran down the panels and fell straight onto the stage. Like, DUH!

Eventually the tarp was up and the water was swept off the stage so things could begin. More people began to arrive and the rain backed off a tad. There was some hope that perhaps it was clearing but no, it just kept coming through in waves. Absolutely bucketing down. We spent most of the afternoon getting water off sagging tarps, hanging out at our tent and walking around occasionally with umbrellas to catch up with others. Towards the evening it backed off further and actually stopped - more people started arriving and some were out dancing around in front of the stage.

We wound up leaving around 8pm as Kitt wasn’t feeling well and Andrea was still jetlagged (and had a flu building). We begged a ride off a friend who dropped us home with Nykolai who had decided that spending the night in a tent in the rain wasn’t going to be all that great. During the drive we noticed that the clouds were very low and we were frequently driving through patches of them. It seemed that while the rain was holding off for now, it might not be for long. Sure enough around 2am we woke to the sound of another major downpour - at least we were in warm beds and not trying to spend the night in tents.

I’m not sure how the night wound up with rain, wet ground, mud and music. I imagine that those who stayed will have had a blast but I’m very happy we left when we did. I’m just not cut out for camping at the best of times so a night at “Wetstock” would not have been a wonderful time for me.

Once again we’re here in Tweed Heads visiting Kitt’s family and taking a bit of a rest. While I’ve had a few days of clear blue skies during my past visits, I’ve got to say that the bulk of the time here has been overcast, humid and full of biting, itching bug things (and frequently raining). I’m told this is not uncommon around Christmas (when we’re usually here) but so far this trip in October is living up to the norm - although fortunately it’s not too humid.

Sadly, I’m finding it very hard to get a ‘net fix. Kitt’s mom has dial up but the phone is in frequent use, plus I can’t really plug in my laptop. There’s no neighbours around with wireless and the cybercafes are far away so I’ve got to borrow the car to get to them. We were at Tweed Mall the other day and found a public wireless at a cafe although the staff didn’t know anything about it. We grabbed some drinks and powered up to get our fix. Half way through downloading my email though the hotspot shut down - very annoying.

There’s a wireless cafe I know further down the road past Tweed Mall in Coolangatta. Tweed Heads is in New South Wales while Coolangatta is in Queensland - one little step along a footpath and suddenly you’re an hour behind (Queensland don’t do that Daylight Savings thing). We were going to head there yesterday morning so I could do some emails, upload this post and generally get a small fix of ‘net time. That got scrapped though as time was running out and it was decided that we’d all leave early to go further up the valleys to Janet & Tony’s place for a party (see the “Wetstock” blog post). Fortunately they had ADSL at their place with wireless so I was able to jump on briefly. Sadly, their net connection was flakey as heck and it took all my effort to get some emails out, pay a couple of bills and check a few items before I lost patience with it. Janet was saying that the connection had been bad lately - the joys of Telstra’s BigPond network plus being a fair way out from the city.

Finally today I’ve managed to drop by the cybercafe in Coolangatta while Kitt goes to the local craft market with her sister & father. I’ve printed off our boarding pass, checked emails and am now getting a chance to blog and confirm the ‘net still exists.

Kitt and I went to see Hellboy 2: The Golden Army and it wasn’t too bad. At least of the same level as the first one and with enough pace that you didn’t feel like it was a long move (it runs for about 2 hours). There’s humour, great special effects and a gritty, bizare feel to the alternative world of the non-humans. In fact, scenes in the alternative world were sort of like Harry Potter meets Star Wars (Mos Eisley) with a bit of Total Recall (the scenes in the Martian ghettos).

All up its a fun movie that’s worth seeing. What I wouldn’t recommend, however, is going to Hoyts at Chadstone - the cinema was old and ratty, the sound was hollow (and not very surround-sound) and the toilets were a complete mess. We’ve not had a lot of luck with Hoyts cinemas and generally tend to avoid them these days. Sadly, they were the only ones showing the movie. Oh well.