For what it's worth, I now have a blog over at Tumblr (I think it's technically called a tumbelog or somesuch). It's here: http://mattlowe.tumblr.com/
I think that's where I'll post most things now, as it's very easy to post photos, clips, music, web snippets etc even from your iPod Touch or iPhone (so it'll probably mean a few more posts). It also has a very slick interface and the Dashboard feature lets you see all the new posts of people you follow in one cohesive view...
I might still post here for the long, rambling things I trot out from time to time...
M
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Discuss|TED
Don't know if you've caught up with - or even heard of - the TED conferences (TED = Technology, Entertainment, Design), but they certainly produce some excellent, food-for-thought messages. And not just in the limited spheres that the acronym might suggest.
Some are inspiring, some confronting, some are funny, some just take a simple idea (like "slowness") and expand the discussion around that theme with some novel insights. Some you certainly won't agree with, of course, but that's precisely what's great about it: diverse but passionate people getting together to share ideas and present contrasting views. I love hearing people articulate what they are passionate about, and what they believe in, even if (no, especially if) I disagree: the process of them articulating their view forces me to rethink and better articulate mine and - in some cases - to meld the two to a greater or lesser extent.
The messages are freely available on the TED website (you can subscribe via RSS or via iTunes), and many, many of them are well worth a look. Such diverse topics from Dodo birds to de-stressing our busy lives to finding your creative voice to behaving ethically and morally in a modern world to living in strict literal accordance to the Bible for a full year to poverty and disease in Africa to letting-go of God to...well, you get the idea.
The conference tagline is "Ideas Worth Spreading" and, from what I've seen, that's usually the case. So I will...spreading just a few to get you started...
This one (above) is on Schools killing creativity: "if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original." "We don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we are educated out of it". Have you ever thought of Shakespeare as a 7-year old in somebody's English class? Very, very funny (very British humour eg. "when my son was four, in England...actually he was four everywhere...if we're being strict about it he was four everywhere we went that year") and a very valuable, important message.
On women being better at multi-tasking:
Here are some others on creativity (I don't agree with some what she says, but it's an interesting view), on the loss of wisdom, on a very obscure but sweet love story from a man to his wife (the excellent John Hodgman - yes, "PC" from those Mac ads), on an experiment to live biblically for a year and finally, i'll link to a fantastic young orchestra and their young conductor. There are hundreds more for you to navigate through and even download to your iPod etc.
Enjoy.
ML
Some are inspiring, some confronting, some are funny, some just take a simple idea (like "slowness") and expand the discussion around that theme with some novel insights. Some you certainly won't agree with, of course, but that's precisely what's great about it: diverse but passionate people getting together to share ideas and present contrasting views. I love hearing people articulate what they are passionate about, and what they believe in, even if (no, especially if) I disagree: the process of them articulating their view forces me to rethink and better articulate mine and - in some cases - to meld the two to a greater or lesser extent.
The messages are freely available on the TED website (you can subscribe via RSS or via iTunes), and many, many of them are well worth a look. Such diverse topics from Dodo birds to de-stressing our busy lives to finding your creative voice to behaving ethically and morally in a modern world to living in strict literal accordance to the Bible for a full year to poverty and disease in Africa to letting-go of God to...well, you get the idea.
The conference tagline is "Ideas Worth Spreading" and, from what I've seen, that's usually the case. So I will...spreading just a few to get you started...
This one (above) is on Schools killing creativity: "if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original." "We don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we are educated out of it". Have you ever thought of Shakespeare as a 7-year old in somebody's English class? Very, very funny (very British humour eg. "when my son was four, in England...actually he was four everywhere...if we're being strict about it he was four everywhere we went that year") and a very valuable, important message.
On women being better at multi-tasking:
"If my wife is cooking a meal at home...which is not often...thankfully...(she is good at some things)...if she's cooking she's dealing with people on the phone, she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling, she's doing open heart surgery over here. If I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out, the phone's on the hook. If she comes in, I get annoyed. I say, "Terri please, I'm trying to fry an egg in here, give me a break."Well worth watching.
Here are some others on creativity (I don't agree with some what she says, but it's an interesting view), on the loss of wisdom, on a very obscure but sweet love story from a man to his wife (the excellent John Hodgman - yes, "PC" from those Mac ads), on an experiment to live biblically for a year and finally, i'll link to a fantastic young orchestra and their young conductor. There are hundreds more for you to navigate through and even download to your iPod etc.
Enjoy.
ML
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Post? Traumatic stress.
My Mum and my younger sister have a thing at the moment where the words "Should" and "Try" are verboten. Evidently, both are extremely negative, self-defeating and close neighbours of guilt, failure and depression (the words, that is, not my Mum and sister). So, with that in mind, I won't say that I should have posted something by now, or that I'll try to get back in the habit. "Do or do not, there is no try", as some wise old Jedi once said.
So if it's OK with you, I'll just press on and we'll forget about the whole hiatus thing: you don't want to read paragraphs of me apologising, and I don't want to write them.
OK, so what has happened since the last update? Soooo very much. So much that I think just listing the events in even one or two words might have to suffice. There's been...OK...I started listing things, but stopped because:
1. There's just too much
2. I wouldn't do anything justice just by listing it here
3. I'd miss some things and don't want to unintentionally offend anyone by leaving out anything important
4. I'm not sure there's much point looking backwards over the last few months, when there are so many interesting things to talk about that are happening right now
5. Lists are overrated (and even this one is no exception).
So I'm going to end this post, rather than dwell any longer on what I haven't done. Seems a bit more positive, and I'm sure it's the approach that my Mum and my sister would gently encourage me toward. I'll save the energy, time, and keystrokes for another, more topical post soon.
ML
So if it's OK with you, I'll just press on and we'll forget about the whole hiatus thing: you don't want to read paragraphs of me apologising, and I don't want to write them.
OK, so what has happened since the last update? Soooo very much. So much that I think just listing the events in even one or two words might have to suffice. There's been...OK...I started listing things, but stopped because:
1. There's just too much
2. I wouldn't do anything justice just by listing it here
3. I'd miss some things and don't want to unintentionally offend anyone by leaving out anything important
4. I'm not sure there's much point looking backwards over the last few months, when there are so many interesting things to talk about that are happening right now
5. Lists are overrated (and even this one is no exception).
So I'm going to end this post, rather than dwell any longer on what I haven't done. Seems a bit more positive, and I'm sure it's the approach that my Mum and my sister would gently encourage me toward. I'll save the energy, time, and keystrokes for another, more topical post soon.
ML
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Boss-a-nova
You know that "persistence is a greater force than resistance" line from that other post? Well my boss called me last night to say that he's leaving and taking another job. (And I then had a call from his boss today to remind me that - had I been in Sydney - I'd be replacing my outgoing boss automatically, and to ask if I would reconsider my previous refusal to move back. I politely declined, of course). Anyway, the main thing is that my boss is moving on and he's certainly been a difficult person to work with in many ways. It's a very interesting development...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
DC talk
So this week I'm over at our new DC (distribution centre) on the other side of the City, providing training to new staff around some of our systems. It was an early (3:30am) start today, picking up a colleague from the Airport before our first training session, but we needn't have been too worried about getting there too early. As it turned out, through cancellations and crossed wires, we had exactly 1 attendee between us!
I'm spending the next couple of days there, and hopefully we'll have a little more success on the training front. (I'll be spending a lot more time there in the next few weeks to support their opening - I was there last week hosting about 180 suppliers as they toured the site and got to learn a bit about what we're trying to do with the place. Most were very impressed.)
After another morning of training this Thursday, I'll be driving up to Wodonga to one of our other sites to carry out some...drumroll...filming! Wayyyy back in May 2006 I pitched a concept for a training DVD that I would film, edit & produce. After 27 months of petitioning, it looks like that's a step closer, with permission granted for filming at three sites so far, and tentative permission to set aside a little of my regular work week to work on the training project (though with lots and lots of compromises and disappointments along the way though, and probably a lot more to come). Not what I wanted, and all completely self-funded, and all conditional upon lots of work in my fast-dwindling free time, but it's a start I guess!
It's funny (OK, not really funny) to look back at how long ago I first talked about this idea on this blog...if you're interested in looking up the specific post, try Feb 1st, 2006, but if you just want a snippet of what I said then, here's an extract: "
However, in an effort to do something positive about my otherwise-bland role at work, I have this week come up with an idea to pitch a DVD to my bosses - sort of a corporate training thing. If I can pull it off, and convince them to give it a go for a trial volume, I'd finally be combining one of my passions with my work: a blend that I never thought possible (and since I can't afford to leave a well-paying, albeit boring role, to pursue a satisfying but financially-dubious life in media creation, some sort of blending would be a brilliant way to evolve from one role to the other). I'll put the pitch to them (via DVD I think - that'd be uber-professional!) sometime in the next 3 weeks. Very exciting, very scary: will keep you posted, of course."
Ah, such high hopes, such optimism, such...naivete. Oh well, as a friend at work is oft reminding me, "persistence is a greater force than resistance".
Matt
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
News Brake
Today is the last day I’ll read the newspaper. I just can’t stomach it anymore.
On one hand, I can’t stand the non-news puff pieces that elevate the trivial to the level of significance. I can’t tolerate the further dumbing-down of a nation through the persistent manipulation of issues, emotions and imagery. I’m beyond outrage at the complete inability or unwillingness of ‘journalists’ to ask real, probing questions, or to actually analyse what they're seeing, what they’re handed or more likely, the presskit they downloaded off the internet. I wonder if there’s a country on earth that has a less-professional, less-rigorous or more-sensationalist media industry than ours. Gossip and trivia, 24/7. I long ago stopped watching TV news and current affairs shows, of course (though I'm painfully aware that this puts me in a minority), but today marks the last time I'll read the "news"paper too.
Perhaps more than just the stupefication and spin, I just can’t stomach another story about the murders, neglect, rapes, abuse...oh I can't even list it all. In today’s paper alone, there is the 67 year old grandfather who killed his wife and two grandchildren…with an axe of all things. My mind cannot but visualise how this would have had to have occurred – an axe is not an elegant weapon (if such a thing exist), and I can’t at least ‘soften’ this news with the knowledge that they may have died quickly and without tremendous suffering. These deaths will have been absolutely brutal. Then there’s coverage of the vile man who killed his 3 children by asphyxiation in his car. I wonder if there has ever been a more dangerous time to be a child. It is a daily parade of kids being beaten to death over days and weeks, or raped repeatedly, or tortured, or starved to death.
I know that simply tuning off, or tuning out, may sound cowardly. It’ll certainly seem naïve. “You can’t just turn a blind eye to the reality around you” “You can just stick your head in the sand”. But what am I achieving by watching or reading this? What can I achieve? I find myself consuming “news” like anyone else, and none of us do anything about it. Worse still, nothing is so shocking or jarring that we as a society haven’t become bored with it by the next week, and moved onto something else. Does anyone even remember the boy who was found cut up and floating in travel bag in a suburban Sydney lake? We were outraged – or purportedly outraged – at the time, yet we couldn’t even keep talking about it for a full two weeks. We demand action, inquiries, justice: but we lack the resolve or the stamina (or dare-I-say, the attention span), to follow through.
I read the paper in the morning and I am paralysed by grief and overwhelming sadness. I cannot keep these things at arms length or stay dispassionate about them – and I’m sure that the moment I do manage to accept them, I’ll have hit a dangerous new low. Is it better to turn off, or stay tuned in until the individual cases no longer bother you? Instead of 'getting used to' these horrific stories, I cannot focus on anything else. When I read about the 18 month old decapitated during a dispute in a supermarket in the Middle East, I stopped functioning for a few hours at work. After this morning's news of the axe murders, I achieved almost nothing of real value – I just couldn’t think straight. I was thinking of everything, and thinking of nothing, at the same time.
But worse than the momentary immobilisation is the fact that I DO get over it. I am hit by a new tragedy, it floors me, but then I process it and move on. I get to a place – sooner than is probably healthy – where I have assimilated it into my world. No matter how uniquely tragic and unimaginably horrible this new violence may be, I am able to accommodate it. Is there anything so horrible that I couldn’t process it, given a day or so? And if there’s not, what does that say about me? Shouldn’t there be some things that I can’t process? I think I know the answer.
I know that in a life-or-death situation, say in a war zone, I would see things that would make my stomach churn, and I would need to quickly come to terms with them and move on – either for my own survival or for the benefit of those I was fighting with and for. But in a supposed “civil society”, and in “peace time”, what may be a necessary survival mechanism seems to border on criminal negligence.
I can of course function by shutting out these images and essentially becoming colder – and I guess that's what I always do in the end. I focus on the only possible hope left in the situation, but even handing these victims over in my mind to God’s providence and comfort seems like abandonment on my part.
How does everyone else handle it? How do you watch the news, read the papers, and take it all in? How do you even process the daily carnage? And when this is juxtaposed with glib and endless crap about footballers and starlets and their useless contributions to the world – somehow managing to make the vileness and awfulness even more appalling, how do you continuing watching/reading? I don't think I can juggle this in my mind anymore, so I have to switch off.
I'm not always like this - rarely in fact. I can usually focus on the many lovely, wonderful things around me. And I usually, when I get over myself, can get back to the state of mind that C.S.Lewis talks about in his essay about living in the Atomic Age (I've talked about that here before, so I won't rehash). I'll get back there soon, and my state of mind won't always be this fragile..
Still, the state of the world remains the same no matter what the state of my mind: and if you don’t think this world is sick, you’re just not paying attention.
Matt
On one hand, I can’t stand the non-news puff pieces that elevate the trivial to the level of significance. I can’t tolerate the further dumbing-down of a nation through the persistent manipulation of issues, emotions and imagery. I’m beyond outrage at the complete inability or unwillingness of ‘journalists’ to ask real, probing questions, or to actually analyse what they're seeing, what they’re handed or more likely, the presskit they downloaded off the internet. I wonder if there’s a country on earth that has a less-professional, less-rigorous or more-sensationalist media industry than ours. Gossip and trivia, 24/7. I long ago stopped watching TV news and current affairs shows, of course (though I'm painfully aware that this puts me in a minority), but today marks the last time I'll read the "news"paper too.
Perhaps more than just the stupefication and spin, I just can’t stomach another story about the murders, neglect, rapes, abuse...oh I can't even list it all. In today’s paper alone, there is the 67 year old grandfather who killed his wife and two grandchildren…with an axe of all things. My mind cannot but visualise how this would have had to have occurred – an axe is not an elegant weapon (if such a thing exist), and I can’t at least ‘soften’ this news with the knowledge that they may have died quickly and without tremendous suffering. These deaths will have been absolutely brutal. Then there’s coverage of the vile man who killed his 3 children by asphyxiation in his car. I wonder if there has ever been a more dangerous time to be a child. It is a daily parade of kids being beaten to death over days and weeks, or raped repeatedly, or tortured, or starved to death.
I know that simply tuning off, or tuning out, may sound cowardly. It’ll certainly seem naïve. “You can’t just turn a blind eye to the reality around you” “You can just stick your head in the sand”. But what am I achieving by watching or reading this? What can I achieve? I find myself consuming “news” like anyone else, and none of us do anything about it. Worse still, nothing is so shocking or jarring that we as a society haven’t become bored with it by the next week, and moved onto something else. Does anyone even remember the boy who was found cut up and floating in travel bag in a suburban Sydney lake? We were outraged – or purportedly outraged – at the time, yet we couldn’t even keep talking about it for a full two weeks. We demand action, inquiries, justice: but we lack the resolve or the stamina (or dare-I-say, the attention span), to follow through.
I read the paper in the morning and I am paralysed by grief and overwhelming sadness. I cannot keep these things at arms length or stay dispassionate about them – and I’m sure that the moment I do manage to accept them, I’ll have hit a dangerous new low. Is it better to turn off, or stay tuned in until the individual cases no longer bother you? Instead of 'getting used to' these horrific stories, I cannot focus on anything else. When I read about the 18 month old decapitated during a dispute in a supermarket in the Middle East, I stopped functioning for a few hours at work. After this morning's news of the axe murders, I achieved almost nothing of real value – I just couldn’t think straight. I was thinking of everything, and thinking of nothing, at the same time.
But worse than the momentary immobilisation is the fact that I DO get over it. I am hit by a new tragedy, it floors me, but then I process it and move on. I get to a place – sooner than is probably healthy – where I have assimilated it into my world. No matter how uniquely tragic and unimaginably horrible this new violence may be, I am able to accommodate it. Is there anything so horrible that I couldn’t process it, given a day or so? And if there’s not, what does that say about me? Shouldn’t there be some things that I can’t process? I think I know the answer.
I know that in a life-or-death situation, say in a war zone, I would see things that would make my stomach churn, and I would need to quickly come to terms with them and move on – either for my own survival or for the benefit of those I was fighting with and for. But in a supposed “civil society”, and in “peace time”, what may be a necessary survival mechanism seems to border on criminal negligence.
I can of course function by shutting out these images and essentially becoming colder – and I guess that's what I always do in the end. I focus on the only possible hope left in the situation, but even handing these victims over in my mind to God’s providence and comfort seems like abandonment on my part.
How does everyone else handle it? How do you watch the news, read the papers, and take it all in? How do you even process the daily carnage? And when this is juxtaposed with glib and endless crap about footballers and starlets and their useless contributions to the world – somehow managing to make the vileness and awfulness even more appalling, how do you continuing watching/reading? I don't think I can juggle this in my mind anymore, so I have to switch off.
I'm not always like this - rarely in fact. I can usually focus on the many lovely, wonderful things around me. And I usually, when I get over myself, can get back to the state of mind that C.S.Lewis talks about in his essay about living in the Atomic Age (I've talked about that here before, so I won't rehash). I'll get back there soon, and my state of mind won't always be this fragile..
Still, the state of the world remains the same no matter what the state of my mind: and if you don’t think this world is sick, you’re just not paying attention.
Matt
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Bed-jay-im's Birthday
OK, so it's not an official birthday exactly, but guess who's 1 month old today?
The first month has flown by, and we've been blessed with a little boy who loves to sleep, loves to eat, and has been really healthy, happy & contented (in fact he's sleeping soundly in my left arm as I type this). As this pic - taken a few minutes ago - attests, he's getting bigger by the day: in fact, on Monday he had put on 1kg since leaving the hospital! Jessica just loves her little brother - as you might be able to tell from the photo above. We are very, very blessed.
(OK, here's a few more pics...)
The first month has flown by, and we've been blessed with a little boy who loves to sleep, loves to eat, and has been really healthy, happy & contented (in fact he's sleeping soundly in my left arm as I type this). As this pic - taken a few minutes ago - attests, he's getting bigger by the day: in fact, on Monday he had put on 1kg since leaving the hospital! Jessica just loves her little brother - as you might be able to tell from the photo above. We are very, very blessed.
(OK, here's a few more pics...)
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Daylight Saving?
So this blogging thing isn't getting any easier.
Not the typing itself, but the finding of the time for the typing. And the overcoming of the guilt about the using of the time for the typing, when it (the time) finally can be found.
At the moment, life seems to be characterized primarily by a long list of "To Do" items, an inability to get through even 10% of that list, and an overwhelming sense of guilt and failure about that inability (coupled with a nagging suspicion that the list wasn't an exhaustive one to begin with: it unconsciously left off many of the things that I need to get done, and consciously left off most of the things that I want to get done if I can just get through the things I have to get done). I guess a lot of people have exactly the same frustrations, and I don't pretend that it's anything unique to me: this angst and anxiety when your mind is constantly racing from task to task but your body, or other obligations, or the circumstances, or the clock, or the calendar, won't allow those tasks to be completed. So while I can't justify spending any time writing this post, the end of Daylight Savings tonight - and the setting back of clocks - means that I've 'gained' a free hour anyway. Now if I can just wrap this up in 30 minutes instead, I might even get back in front!
My petty anxieties and frustrations aside (that was easy, wasn't it?), these last few weeks have seen some actual, serious health issues in my family. My Mum was diagnosed with cancer, and just a few weeks later my sister Keren had a stroke. Mum had a full week of treatment this week in the City, and Keren has been slowly regaining some stamina/balance/normality as of this week. Both diagnoses were a real shock, and neither is 'out of the woods', but in both cases things could have been immeasurably worse than they are (or appear to be). And on a more positive note, Keren & Jeff announced while in hospital that they're expecting another baby, which is awesome (and I never use that word - on principle - so I mean that it's fantastically good). Congratulations again Guys!
Considering my posting frequency of late, it's likely that by my next blog post we'll have a new addition to the family ourselves. Mel's very healthy, and very big, and our little guy is very, very active. The big day is less than a month away now, and things seem to be tracking very well. Mel is very tired, and gets quite uncomfortable, but at least her consulting work seems to have dwindled in the last few weeks so she hasn't been having to juggle quite so much. (there are suggestions that she'll have ooodles of work in the second half of the year - which may even mean enough work for both of us - but there's something about chickens and hatching and counting, so we'll just wait and see (and hope).
The impending arrival has meant that Jessica moved out of the 'nursery' and into her own big-girl bed and big girl bedroom last week. We scoured everywhere for a bed and side table and tall boy and mattress etc, and ended up finally finding a beautiful set - the last one anywhere, and only the floor stock. (do you know that there was a $1400 kids bed in one of those places? It was very nice, but seriously...) So she's all setup in her big girl room now, but we keep putting her down at night in her cot in the nursery, I think in large part because we like the idea of her not being too big too quickly. Not just yet, anyway: can we have just one more week?
Jessica is very sweet about the impending arrival: she is frequently stroking and kissing Mel's belly, and talking about her brother. It'll be very fun taking her in to the hospital for the first time to see what happened to Mummy! We think a lot about how the dynamics will change in this house, how we won't have quite the same amount of one-on-one (and two-on-one) time with Jessica, and if that will have any detrimental impacts (it's been lovely to be able to spend so much time with Jessica each day, and to get the chance to be really active and interactive parents). But I somehow think that we'll be alright, because it's not a simple mathematical equation of us needing to halve the amount of time/care/attention/love. We can scarcely remember life before Jessica, and life has been enriched exponentially - and in ways we could never have imagined. While we may have some adjustments to make - and a lot of sleepless nights on the horizon - I figure that the arrival of our little guy will surprise us yet again.
Anyway, I can hear that Miss Jessica is awake and crying softly in her room (it's 2:09am - which I guess is now 1:09am). Time to go. (and no, it took longer than 1 hour, so I'm officially further behind in my To Do list - despite all the empty promises of Daylight Savings).
Matt
Not the typing itself, but the finding of the time for the typing. And the overcoming of the guilt about the using of the time for the typing, when it (the time) finally can be found.
At the moment, life seems to be characterized primarily by a long list of "To Do" items, an inability to get through even 10% of that list, and an overwhelming sense of guilt and failure about that inability (coupled with a nagging suspicion that the list wasn't an exhaustive one to begin with: it unconsciously left off many of the things that I need to get done, and consciously left off most of the things that I want to get done if I can just get through the things I have to get done). I guess a lot of people have exactly the same frustrations, and I don't pretend that it's anything unique to me: this angst and anxiety when your mind is constantly racing from task to task but your body, or other obligations, or the circumstances, or the clock, or the calendar, won't allow those tasks to be completed. So while I can't justify spending any time writing this post, the end of Daylight Savings tonight - and the setting back of clocks - means that I've 'gained' a free hour anyway. Now if I can just wrap this up in 30 minutes instead, I might even get back in front!
My petty anxieties and frustrations aside (that was easy, wasn't it?), these last few weeks have seen some actual, serious health issues in my family. My Mum was diagnosed with cancer, and just a few weeks later my sister Keren had a stroke. Mum had a full week of treatment this week in the City, and Keren has been slowly regaining some stamina/balance/normality as of this week. Both diagnoses were a real shock, and neither is 'out of the woods', but in both cases things could have been immeasurably worse than they are (or appear to be). And on a more positive note, Keren & Jeff announced while in hospital that they're expecting another baby, which is awesome (and I never use that word - on principle - so I mean that it's fantastically good). Congratulations again Guys!
Considering my posting frequency of late, it's likely that by my next blog post we'll have a new addition to the family ourselves. Mel's very healthy, and very big, and our little guy is very, very active. The big day is less than a month away now, and things seem to be tracking very well. Mel is very tired, and gets quite uncomfortable, but at least her consulting work seems to have dwindled in the last few weeks so she hasn't been having to juggle quite so much. (there are suggestions that she'll have ooodles of work in the second half of the year - which may even mean enough work for both of us - but there's something about chickens and hatching and counting, so we'll just wait and see (and hope).
The impending arrival has meant that Jessica moved out of the 'nursery' and into her own big-girl bed and big girl bedroom last week. We scoured everywhere for a bed and side table and tall boy and mattress etc, and ended up finally finding a beautiful set - the last one anywhere, and only the floor stock. (do you know that there was a $1400 kids bed in one of those places? It was very nice, but seriously...) So she's all setup in her big girl room now, but we keep putting her down at night in her cot in the nursery, I think in large part because we like the idea of her not being too big too quickly. Not just yet, anyway: can we have just one more week?
Jessica is very sweet about the impending arrival: she is frequently stroking and kissing Mel's belly, and talking about her brother. It'll be very fun taking her in to the hospital for the first time to see what happened to Mummy! We think a lot about how the dynamics will change in this house, how we won't have quite the same amount of one-on-one (and two-on-one) time with Jessica, and if that will have any detrimental impacts (it's been lovely to be able to spend so much time with Jessica each day, and to get the chance to be really active and interactive parents). But I somehow think that we'll be alright, because it's not a simple mathematical equation of us needing to halve the amount of time/care/attention/love. We can scarcely remember life before Jessica, and life has been enriched exponentially - and in ways we could never have imagined. While we may have some adjustments to make - and a lot of sleepless nights on the horizon - I figure that the arrival of our little guy will surprise us yet again.
Anyway, I can hear that Miss Jessica is awake and crying softly in her room (it's 2:09am - which I guess is now 1:09am). Time to go. (and no, it took longer than 1 hour, so I'm officially further behind in my To Do list - despite all the empty promises of Daylight Savings).
Matt
Monday, January 14, 2008
Last Post?
So, among my friends and family at least, it looks like I'll be the first to post anything in 2008. And we're almost three weeks in!
In fact, looking at the apparent drop off in blogging's popularity more generally, I may indeed be the last to post anything in 2008, too! We'll soon see I guess, but I hope not.
What's happened since my last post, then? Well, lots, but I'll try to keep it brief. Firstly, there was Christmas Day. We hosted my side of the family - a good portion of it anyway - and had a lovely lunch and dinner. I say "lunch" and "dinner" as if they were two separate meals, but as is oft the case, the two meals seemed to roll into one. Somewhere in between we managed a family-wide game of cricket at the park: it was heaps of fun, and something we'll have to build into a tradition...
(And Jessica got a fancy new trampoline, which she loovvves).
Boxing Day was spent with the in-laws, though I
didn't get to see quite so much of that: Jessica was exceptionally over-tired but wouldn't/couldn't sleep, so I drove her around the backroads of Nar Nar Goon North until she fell asleep, then stayed in the car with her, with the air-conditioning running, as she slept for a couple of hours. Probably the result of too much trampolining the day prior!
We didn't do anything for New Years (unless playing Scrabble counts?) but on the 2nd of January we had an informal, low key celebration of Jessica's 2nd birthday.
I put my hand up to make the cake and decorate it, but neither endeavour was especially successful. The cake was pretty bland and dry, the cake surface was wildly uneven, and the icing was pretty patchy to say the least. As I was scraping the burnt outer edge from the cake with a grater, and as the four types of Wiggles-coloured-icing kept running into one at 1am, I had to keep telling myself that it's the thought that counts. Jessica seemed to be a very happy customer - refer unsolicited photo testimonial - so all's well that ends well.
By the way, did you see the new products Apple released this week?
The new Apple Mac Pro now comes standard as 8-core - yes 8 processors! It can be configured with 4Terabytes (4,000 GBs) of hard drive space and 32GB of RAM (albeit that that particular configuration takes the price from $3999 to $32,500!).
And then on Wednesday they released the MacBook Air, a ridiculously slim notebook computer that they pulled out of an A4 envelope. Crazy stuff. I can't possibly justify a new computer in the next year or two, so if anyone else is in the market for either of these, please let me tag along with you to the store so I can live vicariously through you for the da
y. Speaking of my iMac, I'm still barely scratching the surface with Final Cut Studio 2, or even the basic applications such as Garage Band etc. I so wish we used Macs at work, so that I could pick up on this stuff while I spend my 10 hours at work each day (which is where/how I learned anything I know about PC's). Alas, I can't see that happening any time soon - we're just too heavily invested in PC's for any bean counter to approve switching over. "But Boss, just think how much faster I can type up my emails on an 8-core Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM...and how much better those spreadsheets will look on a 30-inch Cinema Display!".
Speaking of Apple products, it was my niece Erin's 16th birthday yesterday. No, Erin is not an Apple product, but a bunch of us were able to get her a 3rd Generation iPod Nano (the new one with video capabilities) as her present. From the excited call last night, I get the impression that it was a good choice: it's an amazing little (and amazingly-little) device, and really quite beautiful.
The last week or so has also seen Mum & Bec moving out of our house. It was terrific having them staying here - and it really benefitted Jessica to spend more time with them both. I tried to entice them to stay by
promising more Ice Kachang, but that only bought us a few more nights. For Christmas, Stephen & Cordy & Tanya & Jasmine bought be an Ice Kachang pack, consisting of all the ingredients and a Mr Frosty ice shaving machine, and it's great fun to make up a few bowls as a special treat (Ice Kachang is a delicious dessert made of shaved ice, red kidney beans, corn kernels, lychees, palm seeds, evaporated milk, rose syrup & grass jelly - if you want to know more, Google is your friend). Mum & Bec now seem reasonably settled in the new place, but we have scheduled dinner with them tomorrow night. As we'll be having Berwick Thai, that sounds to me like a pretty decent excuse to follow up with Ice Kachang for dessert (never mind that the latter is really a hallmark of Malaysia not Thailand). Better go get some more evaporated milk in the morning.
Well it's getting late and I should get to bed. It's a school night tonight, and there's quite a bit on my plate at work tomorrow (nothing of any significance or lasting importance, of course, but work that needs to be done nonetheless). I might just go and insert some photos first, which will probably take an hour to upload knowing my success with Blogger. The photos are all on my Facebook page also, and it's much easier to browse them, comment on them, tag them etc, so if you're interested in browsing them that way, feel free to sign up. You also get to play Scrabulous (which is a Scrabble game within Facebook) and that's a lot of fun too - I think I have 12 games running simultaneously at the moment, and I'm now just waiting for those 12 people to have their turns.
Right. Bedtime. Goodnight.
Matt
In fact, looking at the apparent drop off in blogging's popularity more generally, I may indeed be the last to post anything in 2008, too! We'll soon see I guess, but I hope not.
What's happened since my last post, then? Well, lots, but I'll try to keep it brief. Firstly, there was Christmas Day. We hosted my side of the family - a good portion of it anyway - and had a lovely lunch and dinner. I say "lunch" and "dinner" as if they were two separate meals, but as is oft the case, the two meals seemed to roll into one. Somewhere in between we managed a family-wide game of cricket at the park: it was heaps of fun, and something we'll have to build into a tradition...
(And Jessica got a fancy new trampoline, which she loovvves).
Boxing Day was spent with the in-laws, though I
didn't get to see quite so much of that: Jessica was exceptionally over-tired but wouldn't/couldn't sleep, so I drove her around the backroads of Nar Nar Goon North until she fell asleep, then stayed in the car with her, with the air-conditioning running, as she slept for a couple of hours. Probably the result of too much trampolining the day prior! We didn't do anything for New Years (unless playing Scrabble counts?) but on the 2nd of January we had an informal, low key celebration of Jessica's 2nd birthday.
I put my hand up to make the cake and decorate it, but neither endeavour was especially successful. The cake was pretty bland and dry, the cake surface was wildly uneven, and the icing was pretty patchy to say the least. As I was scraping the burnt outer edge from the cake with a grater, and as the four types of Wiggles-coloured-icing kept running into one at 1am, I had to keep telling myself that it's the thought that counts. Jessica seemed to be a very happy customer - refer unsolicited photo testimonial - so all's well that ends well.By the way, did you see the new products Apple released this week?
The new Apple Mac Pro now comes standard as 8-core - yes 8 processors! It can be configured with 4Terabytes (4,000 GBs) of hard drive space and 32GB of RAM (albeit that that particular configuration takes the price from $3999 to $32,500!). And then on Wednesday they released the MacBook Air, a ridiculously slim notebook computer that they pulled out of an A4 envelope. Crazy stuff. I can't possibly justify a new computer in the next year or two, so if anyone else is in the market for either of these, please let me tag along with you to the store so I can live vicariously through you for the da
y. Speaking of my iMac, I'm still barely scratching the surface with Final Cut Studio 2, or even the basic applications such as Garage Band etc. I so wish we used Macs at work, so that I could pick up on this stuff while I spend my 10 hours at work each day (which is where/how I learned anything I know about PC's). Alas, I can't see that happening any time soon - we're just too heavily invested in PC's for any bean counter to approve switching over. "But Boss, just think how much faster I can type up my emails on an 8-core Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM...and how much better those spreadsheets will look on a 30-inch Cinema Display!". 
Speaking of Apple products, it was my niece Erin's 16th birthday yesterday. No, Erin is not an Apple product, but a bunch of us were able to get her a 3rd Generation iPod Nano (the new one with video capabilities) as her present. From the excited call last night, I get the impression that it was a good choice: it's an amazing little (and amazingly-little) device, and really quite beautiful. The last week or so has also seen Mum & Bec moving out of our house. It was terrific having them staying here - and it really benefitted Jessica to spend more time with them both. I tried to entice them to stay by
promising more Ice Kachang, but that only bought us a few more nights. For Christmas, Stephen & Cordy & Tanya & Jasmine bought be an Ice Kachang pack, consisting of all the ingredients and a Mr Frosty ice shaving machine, and it's great fun to make up a few bowls as a special treat (Ice Kachang is a delicious dessert made of shaved ice, red kidney beans, corn kernels, lychees, palm seeds, evaporated milk, rose syrup & grass jelly - if you want to know more, Google is your friend). Mum & Bec now seem reasonably settled in the new place, but we have scheduled dinner with them tomorrow night. As we'll be having Berwick Thai, that sounds to me like a pretty decent excuse to follow up with Ice Kachang for dessert (never mind that the latter is really a hallmark of Malaysia not Thailand). Better go get some more evaporated milk in the morning. 
Well it's getting late and I should get to bed. It's a school night tonight, and there's quite a bit on my plate at work tomorrow (nothing of any significance or lasting importance, of course, but work that needs to be done nonetheless). I might just go and insert some photos first, which will probably take an hour to upload knowing my success with Blogger. The photos are all on my Facebook page also, and it's much easier to browse them, comment on them, tag them etc, so if you're interested in browsing them that way, feel free to sign up. You also get to play Scrabulous (which is a Scrabble game within Facebook) and that's a lot of fun too - I think I have 12 games running simultaneously at the moment, and I'm now just waiting for those 12 people to have their turns.Right. Bedtime. Goodnight.
Matt
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Well, we've finished our late-night trampoline building (thanks Aunty Bec and Mel for the help!) - so in just a few hours we'll get to enjoy the best present of the day!Wishing you all a fantastic Christmas, and a wonderful New Year.
M, M, J, __ & J
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Did you say DECEMBER 16th??
OK, it's late and I need to get to sleep, but if I leave this blogging any longer...well, I will have left it longer. And I'll try not to do that. Seeing the months march on without an update always gives me a mild sense of guilt, having failed to keep up with something. Yet another something. That's not to say that guilt is the only or even a very strong motivation for writing :that's definitely not the case and I genuinely do enjoy the opportunity to write something every now and then. There just seems to be more then posts than now posts these days!
What's happened recently?
We've had the privelege of hosting my Mum & my sister Bec at our house for the last few weeks. Their house sold toward the end of last month, and they're yet to find a suitable rental in the right location. It's been lovely to have them, and Jessica has really loved spending more time with them both (and I think the benefit goes both ways, just quietly). There's been a lot more trips to the local park in the evenings, more active partners for Jessica's frequent dancing, and a much larger audience of admirers for Jessica (& Jersey) than is usually the case. We'll all really miss them when they move on: Jersey will be very forlorn, and Jessica probably won't cope at all. Hopefully they'll still be here at Christmas, so they can share in Jessica's early-Christmas-morning excitement too. (We've bought Jessica one of those new-fangled SpringFree trampolines - but don't tell her that!). Speaking of Christmas Day, we'll be hosting my side of the family here. Years ago that might have put us into a bit of frantic activity for the preceding weeks, but we're learning to be a bit more casual about it all now, I hope. Really looking forward to it, even though I know that not everyone is able to make it along.
It's become a tradition in this house to work on our Family Album DVD's throughout December, but - believe it or not - mine is still not underway. I'm not sure that I'll be able to compile something in the 9 sleeps remaining, but we'll soon see I guess. It'd be a little disappointing, but you have to be realistic at some point and recognise that there's too much to do and too little time (I'll probably only recognise that on Christmas Eve!) The major reason that I'll press on and try to complete something is that I want to include a video that Mel made yesterday. It is just beautiful, and I was in tears when I first saw it (it's a compilation of photos of Jessica through the last 12 months). So I have to make a DVD for my family if only to include this one clip: it wouldn't be fair that they miss out on Mel's video just because I didn't get my act together (The Family Album that Mel does for her side of the family is well on track, so there's no dramas there).
Part of my justification for not getting the Album started yet, is that work has been a little hectic - particularly at this time of year and following 4 weeks of leave. I was also sent up to Wodonga last week to conduct a series of training sessions over successive days. It was actually one of the nicer times I've had to be away for work: there's something about that whole region that I really love. For years I've wondered (as we drove back and forth visiting family when we were based in Sydney) if we could ever afford to buy a parcel of land nearby. As a glimpse into what I love about the area, when I had finished dinner at the hotel I'd take a walk along the bank of the Murray just before 9pm, and there would be dozens of families barbecuing, with a dozen or more kids still swimming and giggling in the river. There was a paddle-steamer moored nearby, a huge chorus of birds singing away overhead, and a palpable sense that people were really living here. It actually reminded me a lot of being on family holidays in the late 70's and early 80's: warm nights, simple BBQ's, swinging on tire swings and swimming out to sand bars along the Murray. I don't have any crystal-clear memories (not even of sitting on the hot camp stove by mistake!), but the vague recollections I do have - mostly of sounds and smells - always make me smile.
Another excuse for not having done the Family Album yet (if I was interested in lining up excuses) is that we went to a Wiggles Concert this week. Yes, another one. This one was much bigger, and was held at Rod Laver Arena (the Tennis Centre). It was a big deal, with police directing traffic and closing lanes etc. Due to the size of the place it wasn't nearly as intimate as the earlier concert at Dallas Brooks Hall (where we were spoilt with seats about 3 metres from the stage). Of course it only matters that Jessica enjoyed the most recent concert - and that certainly was the case.
Today we went to Myuna Farm, for the Christmas Party for Mel's Mum's Group. She still really gets a lot from the friendships she's forged there, and they seem like a lovely group. The location was chosen as it offers lots of little animals for cuddling, and - perhaps ironically - lots of covered barbeque areas (presumably for lentil burgers only). The kids all seemed to have a great time, as did the Mums and Dads, though we're all pretty exhausted afterwards.
This week, we also went along to "Road To Bethlehem", a pageant (I guess that's the right word) staged by the Seventh Day Adventist church, and held outdoors in their Nunawading grounds. The night involves groups of about 50 being ushered through various places/events of the Christmas story, listening to Mary, being growled at by centurions, travelling from Jerusalem, meeting the wise men, coming to the Inn and stable etc etc. It was really well put together and felt like a great gift to the community (it was free, and I think I heard that 15,000 people attended across the 3 or 4 nights). If you haven't been before, I recommend it, and I'm pretty sure that it'll become part of our Christmas tradition.
And finally - in keeping with a tradition held by many people at Christmas - we watched "It's A Wonderful Life" this week. Amazingly, Mum & Bec hadn't seen it, so it felt a little special to involved in sharing such a great film with them for the first time. They must have liked it, because over the next couple of days we all also watched "You Can't Take It With You" & "Mr Smith Goes To Washington" (even the first half of "The Philadelphia Story", just because we were on a roll). There's something timeless and universal about films of that era, and those films in particular. Maybe I should buy a dozen copies on DVD, then replace the cover with something that says "Family Album 2007". I don't imagine anyone would feel shortchanged, unless of course they'd heard about the video Melissa made about Jessica. No amount of Capra would make up for missing that.
Well "Goodnight", that's enough from me: I either need to start capturing another video tape onto the computer, or I need to go to bed and hope for a more productive Family Album day tomorrow. As it's now clicked over to 1am,I think my eyes are making that decision for me....
Matt
What's happened recently?
We've had the privelege of hosting my Mum & my sister Bec at our house for the last few weeks. Their house sold toward the end of last month, and they're yet to find a suitable rental in the right location. It's been lovely to have them, and Jessica has really loved spending more time with them both (and I think the benefit goes both ways, just quietly). There's been a lot more trips to the local park in the evenings, more active partners for Jessica's frequent dancing, and a much larger audience of admirers for Jessica (& Jersey) than is usually the case. We'll all really miss them when they move on: Jersey will be very forlorn, and Jessica probably won't cope at all. Hopefully they'll still be here at Christmas, so they can share in Jessica's early-Christmas-morning excitement too. (We've bought Jessica one of those new-fangled SpringFree trampolines - but don't tell her that!). Speaking of Christmas Day, we'll be hosting my side of the family here. Years ago that might have put us into a bit of frantic activity for the preceding weeks, but we're learning to be a bit more casual about it all now, I hope. Really looking forward to it, even though I know that not everyone is able to make it along.
It's become a tradition in this house to work on our Family Album DVD's throughout December, but - believe it or not - mine is still not underway. I'm not sure that I'll be able to compile something in the 9 sleeps remaining, but we'll soon see I guess. It'd be a little disappointing, but you have to be realistic at some point and recognise that there's too much to do and too little time (I'll probably only recognise that on Christmas Eve!) The major reason that I'll press on and try to complete something is that I want to include a video that Mel made yesterday. It is just beautiful, and I was in tears when I first saw it (it's a compilation of photos of Jessica through the last 12 months). So I have to make a DVD for my family if only to include this one clip: it wouldn't be fair that they miss out on Mel's video just because I didn't get my act together (The Family Album that Mel does for her side of the family is well on track, so there's no dramas there).
Part of my justification for not getting the Album started yet, is that work has been a little hectic - particularly at this time of year and following 4 weeks of leave. I was also sent up to Wodonga last week to conduct a series of training sessions over successive days. It was actually one of the nicer times I've had to be away for work: there's something about that whole region that I really love. For years I've wondered (as we drove back and forth visiting family when we were based in Sydney) if we could ever afford to buy a parcel of land nearby. As a glimpse into what I love about the area, when I had finished dinner at the hotel I'd take a walk along the bank of the Murray just before 9pm, and there would be dozens of families barbecuing, with a dozen or more kids still swimming and giggling in the river. There was a paddle-steamer moored nearby, a huge chorus of birds singing away overhead, and a palpable sense that people were really living here. It actually reminded me a lot of being on family holidays in the late 70's and early 80's: warm nights, simple BBQ's, swinging on tire swings and swimming out to sand bars along the Murray. I don't have any crystal-clear memories (not even of sitting on the hot camp stove by mistake!), but the vague recollections I do have - mostly of sounds and smells - always make me smile.
Another excuse for not having done the Family Album yet (if I was interested in lining up excuses) is that we went to a Wiggles Concert this week. Yes, another one. This one was much bigger, and was held at Rod Laver Arena (the Tennis Centre). It was a big deal, with police directing traffic and closing lanes etc. Due to the size of the place it wasn't nearly as intimate as the earlier concert at Dallas Brooks Hall (where we were spoilt with seats about 3 metres from the stage). Of course it only matters that Jessica enjoyed the most recent concert - and that certainly was the case.
Today we went to Myuna Farm, for the Christmas Party for Mel's Mum's Group. She still really gets a lot from the friendships she's forged there, and they seem like a lovely group. The location was chosen as it offers lots of little animals for cuddling, and - perhaps ironically - lots of covered barbeque areas (presumably for lentil burgers only). The kids all seemed to have a great time, as did the Mums and Dads, though we're all pretty exhausted afterwards.
This week, we also went along to "Road To Bethlehem", a pageant (I guess that's the right word) staged by the Seventh Day Adventist church, and held outdoors in their Nunawading grounds. The night involves groups of about 50 being ushered through various places/events of the Christmas story, listening to Mary, being growled at by centurions, travelling from Jerusalem, meeting the wise men, coming to the Inn and stable etc etc. It was really well put together and felt like a great gift to the community (it was free, and I think I heard that 15,000 people attended across the 3 or 4 nights). If you haven't been before, I recommend it, and I'm pretty sure that it'll become part of our Christmas tradition.
And finally - in keeping with a tradition held by many people at Christmas - we watched "It's A Wonderful Life" this week. Amazingly, Mum & Bec hadn't seen it, so it felt a little special to involved in sharing such a great film with them for the first time. They must have liked it, because over the next couple of days we all also watched "You Can't Take It With You" & "Mr Smith Goes To Washington" (even the first half of "The Philadelphia Story", just because we were on a roll). There's something timeless and universal about films of that era, and those films in particular. Maybe I should buy a dozen copies on DVD, then replace the cover with something that says "Family Album 2007". I don't imagine anyone would feel shortchanged, unless of course they'd heard about the video Melissa made about Jessica. No amount of Capra would make up for missing that.
Well "Goodnight", that's enough from me: I either need to start capturing another video tape onto the computer, or I need to go to bed and hope for a more productive Family Album day tomorrow. As it's now clicked over to 1am,I think my eyes are making that decision for me....
Matt
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tas Mania
It's often daunting starting one of these things. I'm usually a bit anxious that not enough has happened that's of any interest, but at the same time I worry that too much has happened to be succinctly wrapped up in a few paragraphs. It's like, if you don't mow your lawn for 4 weeks, the job becomes far more difficult and the length of the grass can be enough to stop the rotors on the mower if you're not careful. On the other hand, to use a shaving analogy, if you shave too often - like if you have to shave before going out for a special dinner and then you have to shave again for work early the next morning - you end up with iritated skin. Mashing both analogies together and applying them to blogging: post too frequently and you'll become irritating, too seldom and it'll become too difficult (and may even stop the blog altogether). I'm probably just over-thinking this again, eh?
Blogs seem to have quietened down a lot lately. Maybe everyone's moved over to FaceBook and blogs are becoming "so 2006", or maybe people are just really far too busy at this end of the year. Hey, less than a month to Christmas :) We've managed to get pretty well organised for Christmas this year: the tree is up, as are the decorations on the bannister and over the fireplace, 90% of the presents are bought and wrapped and under the tree, and the first half of the 70-or-so Christmas cards went out this week (the rest will be written and sent over the weekend). Mel's the powerhouse behind most of these preparations, although we both jointly devoted a bit of this month-long holiday to getting prepared.
The trip to Tassie was good. We struggled a bit from a health perspective, with both Mel & Jessica out of action for at least some of the time there, but we did have fun. We saw some lovely places: we thought some places were heavily underrated (Chudleigh region), while others were overrated (Tamar Valley). Next time we're there we'll know where to spend more time, and where we can afford to skip. I'll think I'll post some pics now - just a handful - before heading to bed. I may follow up with some others later (incidentally, if you sign up to FaceBook which has a much better photo gallery feature - you'll see a lot more of the photos from the Tassie Trip). Goodnight, Matt
(PS. What did you think of that Election result? I can't say I'm even remotely a fan of Kevin Rudd, and I think his win merely tops off the most 'successful' fake campaign I've ever seen. With that said, I sincerely hope I'll be proven wrong in everything I think about him: I'll hope for the best, but expect...well...you know.)
Thursday, November 15, 2007
2:52...
Well it's 2:52am and I'm somehow still wide awake, so I'll try to make the most of my insomnia by posting a quick update.
What's news? Well, I'm on holiday at the moment: almost 3 weeks through the 4 week break (it's gone SO fast!). We had plans to do a bit of travelling up through NSW and QLD (including taking Jessica to Wiggles World), but a few obstacles got in the way. The biggest hurdle was that Jessica came down with Tonsillitis, and has really only perked up again from yesterday (not quite 100% yet, but heaps better than she was with the 40 degree fever, inability to eat or sleep etc...). It was a really serious infection, and it knocked her for six, so it's just wonderful to see her running around and singing and dancing again.
The holiday has been a pretty low-key affair (yeah I know, such a departure from my usual life-in-the-fastlane). We've: spent a day at Healesville Sanctuary, taken Jessica swimming a few times, been to Grace's birthday party, let Jessica help Mum feed the animals on a nearby farm, done some gardening, done a little video-editing, gone to the gym about 7 or 8 times, been to the doctors three times, and spent several days knocking over about three quarters of the Christmas shopping (Mel even has everything wrapped and carded). We have plans to put the tree up on the last day of my leave (the 26th) and at this rate we'll be able to put all of the presents under the tree at the same time: I think that's about the most organised we have ever been.
We are managing to get away for 7 days though. We're sailing over to Tassie tonight, returning on the morning of the 23rd. None of us have been there before, but keep hearing glowing reports from family and friends. We'll be in Hobart for 3 days (Port Arthur, Salamanca Markets. Mt Wellington etc) then travelling up the East Coast (Freycinet Peninsula, Wineglass Bay, Bicheno, Bay Of Fires etc) then round again to Launceston for a day or two. Expect to be inundated with photos when we get back (aren't you lucky that nobody has a slide projector, so we can't bore you with a 5 hour slide night?). When we get back, I'll be spending the rest of Friday with Susanna and some of her school friends shooting a funny music video clip, and on the Sunday we'll be at a work Family Christmas Day at Melbourne Showgrounds (a bit like the BP Christmas parties all those years ago, Dad?). And of course in between there's that pesky voting thing!
Speaking of that trip, I really do have to get to bed since it's now 2:55am and there's a HEAP of things to do tomorrow before we leave (like all the packing).
Take care - I'll talk to you again in a week or so,
Matt
P.S. our great friend Michelle convinced me to sign up to FaceBook recently, and it's been a lot of fun browsing through networks of friends and linking in with different people that you may have lost touch with etc. If you're interested in signing up for yourself and seeing what it's all about, go to http://www.facebook.com (Bec, Jon, Grace, Mel are all there too, so you don't have to be scared).
P.P.S. Congratulations on the new job Jeff!
What's news? Well, I'm on holiday at the moment: almost 3 weeks through the 4 week break (it's gone SO fast!). We had plans to do a bit of travelling up through NSW and QLD (including taking Jessica to Wiggles World), but a few obstacles got in the way. The biggest hurdle was that Jessica came down with Tonsillitis, and has really only perked up again from yesterday (not quite 100% yet, but heaps better than she was with the 40 degree fever, inability to eat or sleep etc...). It was a really serious infection, and it knocked her for six, so it's just wonderful to see her running around and singing and dancing again.
The holiday has been a pretty low-key affair (yeah I know, such a departure from my usual life-in-the-fastlane). We've: spent a day at Healesville Sanctuary, taken Jessica swimming a few times, been to Grace's birthday party, let Jessica help Mum feed the animals on a nearby farm, done some gardening, done a little video-editing, gone to the gym about 7 or 8 times, been to the doctors three times, and spent several days knocking over about three quarters of the Christmas shopping (Mel even has everything wrapped and carded). We have plans to put the tree up on the last day of my leave (the 26th) and at this rate we'll be able to put all of the presents under the tree at the same time: I think that's about the most organised we have ever been.
We are managing to get away for 7 days though. We're sailing over to Tassie tonight, returning on the morning of the 23rd. None of us have been there before, but keep hearing glowing reports from family and friends. We'll be in Hobart for 3 days (Port Arthur, Salamanca Markets. Mt Wellington etc) then travelling up the East Coast (Freycinet Peninsula, Wineglass Bay, Bicheno, Bay Of Fires etc) then round again to Launceston for a day or two. Expect to be inundated with photos when we get back (aren't you lucky that nobody has a slide projector, so we can't bore you with a 5 hour slide night?). When we get back, I'll be spending the rest of Friday with Susanna and some of her school friends shooting a funny music video clip, and on the Sunday we'll be at a work Family Christmas Day at Melbourne Showgrounds (a bit like the BP Christmas parties all those years ago, Dad?). And of course in between there's that pesky voting thing!
Speaking of that trip, I really do have to get to bed since it's now 2:55am and there's a HEAP of things to do tomorrow before we leave (like all the packing).
Take care - I'll talk to you again in a week or so,
Matt
P.S. our great friend Michelle convinced me to sign up to FaceBook recently, and it's been a lot of fun browsing through networks of friends and linking in with different people that you may have lost touch with etc. If you're interested in signing up for yourself and seeing what it's all about, go to http://www.facebook.com (Bec, Jon, Grace, Mel are all there too, so you don't have to be scared).
P.P.S. Congratulations on the new job Jeff!
Friday, October 19, 2007
Sick Bay
So, on Monday we decided to make the most of our day off, and the warm weather, by heading down to Cape Patterson. It's been a year since we were last there - I don't know how that happened - and Jessica's last time at the beach was when she was still crawling! So it was with some enthusiasm that we piled into the car in the early afternoon...
The headaches and stomach pain started just a few minutes from our destination. We talked about turning around but, as we'd been driving over an hour, it only seemed fair to Jersey to let her run around for a few minutes at least. Jersey did have a great time, as did Jessica, and we even got some lovely photos and video despite the fact that the sky had turned grey and the weather quite cold. Increasingly sore, we walked back to the car after about 30 minutes, then headed off home. That's when the vomiting started.
The trip home took two-and-a-half hours, with all of us physically ill at different intervals (we stopped at least 6 or 7 times). Mum & Bec then selflessly came to our house to help us, since we were in no state to look after Jessica properly. We spent 4 hours in Hospital - 3 of those hours waiting to be seen. Jessica & Mel continued to vomit well into the evening (12 times for Jessica in fact), and were both in a really bad way. To add to the misery, we then managed to give the bug to Mum who spent Wednesday in all sorts of pain, thanks to her caring for us from Monday night through Tuesday night (again, we're SO sorry Mum - and so very thankful).
So I don't think I could say it was a brilliant day at the seaside. On the bright side, though, we did capture some nice footage! I put some of the clips together in the wee hours of Saturday morning - about 3:30am - and have posted a very low-quality version below. I haven't posted to YouTube before so I don't know how/if the quality can be improved (it'll likely be on the Family Album though).
The song is called "Home", and it's by Phil Wickham, from his beautiful new album "Cannons". You can buy it here, and/or you can find a lot of Phil's own clips on YouTube by starting here.
The headaches and stomach pain started just a few minutes from our destination. We talked about turning around but, as we'd been driving over an hour, it only seemed fair to Jersey to let her run around for a few minutes at least. Jersey did have a great time, as did Jessica, and we even got some lovely photos and video despite the fact that the sky had turned grey and the weather quite cold. Increasingly sore, we walked back to the car after about 30 minutes, then headed off home. That's when the vomiting started.
The trip home took two-and-a-half hours, with all of us physically ill at different intervals (we stopped at least 6 or 7 times). Mum & Bec then selflessly came to our house to help us, since we were in no state to look after Jessica properly. We spent 4 hours in Hospital - 3 of those hours waiting to be seen. Jessica & Mel continued to vomit well into the evening (12 times for Jessica in fact), and were both in a really bad way. To add to the misery, we then managed to give the bug to Mum who spent Wednesday in all sorts of pain, thanks to her caring for us from Monday night through Tuesday night (again, we're SO sorry Mum - and so very thankful).
So I don't think I could say it was a brilliant day at the seaside. On the bright side, though, we did capture some nice footage! I put some of the clips together in the wee hours of Saturday morning - about 3:30am - and have posted a very low-quality version below. I haven't posted to YouTube before so I don't know how/if the quality can be improved (it'll likely be on the Family Album though).
The song is called "Home", and it's by Phil Wickham, from his beautiful new album "Cannons". You can buy it here, and/or you can find a lot of Phil's own clips on YouTube by starting here.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Flight Of The Grumble-bee
Written Wednesday 10th:
Hey there. It's 5:05am on Wednesday 10/10 (although it won't be when you're reading this), and I'm sitting in gate lounge 4 at Melbourne Airport. In my psychotic eagerness to get to the airport in plenty of time to change my seating allocation (in the hope of getting a seat where my legs aren't crushed by the seat in front), I ordered a taxi for 4am. He was early, traffic was great, and I got to the airport at 4:40 - almost an hour too early. And would you believe that I had already been allocated an exit row seat - the row with the most legroom - so I didn't need to be here early anyway!
The gatelounge TV is showing the NBC Today show, and they've been discussing the #1 issue facing that society at the moment. Iraq? Afghanistan? The Presidential Race? Crime? Nope: deodorants that leave white marks on your clothes (seriously, they are doing a full-on investigation). So I've switched over to the iPod and this laptop - and I'm currently listening to a weekly current-events trivia podcast, NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" (It's a great show, and I've learned a lot about U.S. politics too - so make sure you subscribe to it if you have iTunes installed somewhere).
So I'm heading back up to Brisbane today, and staying though until Friday night. I can really think of at least seventeen dozen places I'd rather be, principal among them being back in bed and not far from M & J & __? (thanks for the notes of congratulations, too!). I know, I know, I keep predicting that each trip will be my last, so I won't make that mistake this time 'round. It's funny (in a sad way) that when I first flew to Brisbane earlier this year for work, I dismissed the idea of joining the Frequent Flyer program on the basis that I was never going to be a frequent flyer. Then, with every subsequent flight, I lament that I never joined up, but I again rationalise that this really is my last flight so i again avoid joining up. Given that this is now my 10th trip in 8 months, I'd probably have enough points to fly to New York by now if I had joined. Idiot! What's the bet that if I bite the bullet now and join up, Murphy's Law will dictate that that'll be the end of my travelling? Maybe that's reason enough to join!
Well, I might pack this up and take a stroll before we board: us old codgers need to loosen up.
Written Friday 12th:
OK, now it's 4:05pm on Friday, and I've just arrived at the Brisbane gatelounge for my trip home. Looking back at what I wrote earlier, I can be so whiney! I'm really looking forward to getting back home of course, but Brisbane wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, or as I intimated it would be above. The motel I stayed in was very, very old and basic, but at the same time it was clean and quiet - and on the list of my wants and needs when travelling, they;re pretty much the top of the list. They also had a great cook, who prepared coconut prawns with Atlantic salmon, with a Margaret River cheese platter etc. You had me at "cheese".
I was also invited out to he home of some friends who recently moved from the Vic office to the Brisbane site (Kate & I used to sit together, and her husband Chris worked two desks away) - and we all had a great evening together. They have two kids - Danny, 17 and Tara, 20, and apparently I wasn't too old and daggy for them - that's always nice! The work I'm here to do has been pretty straightforward but at the same time very productive and on top of that, the weather has been 32 degrees today. The plane has been delayed though - in keeping with every other Friday afternoon flight I've had at Brisbane - but since I'm now looking at the bright side of things, this at least lets me go and stretch those old-codger legs again, eh? Have a great weekend.
(Oh and last but certainly not least, I just learned that my sister got a full time job today - one that she looks set to really enjoy - despite originally going in to interview for a totally separate part-time role. CONGRATULATIONS Bec!)
Hey there. It's 5:05am on Wednesday 10/10 (although it won't be when you're reading this), and I'm sitting in gate lounge 4 at Melbourne Airport. In my psychotic eagerness to get to the airport in plenty of time to change my seating allocation (in the hope of getting a seat where my legs aren't crushed by the seat in front), I ordered a taxi for 4am. He was early, traffic was great, and I got to the airport at 4:40 - almost an hour too early. And would you believe that I had already been allocated an exit row seat - the row with the most legroom - so I didn't need to be here early anyway!
The gatelounge TV is showing the NBC Today show, and they've been discussing the #1 issue facing that society at the moment. Iraq? Afghanistan? The Presidential Race? Crime? Nope: deodorants that leave white marks on your clothes (seriously, they are doing a full-on investigation). So I've switched over to the iPod and this laptop - and I'm currently listening to a weekly current-events trivia podcast, NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" (It's a great show, and I've learned a lot about U.S. politics too - so make sure you subscribe to it if you have iTunes installed somewhere).
So I'm heading back up to Brisbane today, and staying though until Friday night. I can really think of at least seventeen dozen places I'd rather be, principal among them being back in bed and not far from M & J & __? (thanks for the notes of congratulations, too!). I know, I know, I keep predicting that each trip will be my last, so I won't make that mistake this time 'round. It's funny (in a sad way) that when I first flew to Brisbane earlier this year for work, I dismissed the idea of joining the Frequent Flyer program on the basis that I was never going to be a frequent flyer. Then, with every subsequent flight, I lament that I never joined up, but I again rationalise that this really is my last flight so i again avoid joining up. Given that this is now my 10th trip in 8 months, I'd probably have enough points to fly to New York by now if I had joined. Idiot! What's the bet that if I bite the bullet now and join up, Murphy's Law will dictate that that'll be the end of my travelling? Maybe that's reason enough to join!
Well, I might pack this up and take a stroll before we board: us old codgers need to loosen up.
Written Friday 12th:
OK, now it's 4:05pm on Friday, and I've just arrived at the Brisbane gatelounge for my trip home. Looking back at what I wrote earlier, I can be so whiney! I'm really looking forward to getting back home of course, but Brisbane wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, or as I intimated it would be above. The motel I stayed in was very, very old and basic, but at the same time it was clean and quiet - and on the list of my wants and needs when travelling, they;re pretty much the top of the list. They also had a great cook, who prepared coconut prawns with Atlantic salmon, with a Margaret River cheese platter etc. You had me at "cheese".
I was also invited out to he home of some friends who recently moved from the Vic office to the Brisbane site (Kate & I used to sit together, and her husband Chris worked two desks away) - and we all had a great evening together. They have two kids - Danny, 17 and Tara, 20, and apparently I wasn't too old and daggy for them - that's always nice! The work I'm here to do has been pretty straightforward but at the same time very productive and on top of that, the weather has been 32 degrees today. The plane has been delayed though - in keeping with every other Friday afternoon flight I've had at Brisbane - but since I'm now looking at the bright side of things, this at least lets me go and stretch those old-codger legs again, eh? Have a great weekend.
(Oh and last but certainly not least, I just learned that my sister got a full time job today - one that she looks set to really enjoy - despite originally going in to interview for a totally separate part-time role. CONGRATULATIONS Bec!)
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
More, please?
That's a favourite phrase of Jessica's: whether in response to a soggy, empty icecream cone, the fading out of a song she was gyrating to, or the credits rolling on a Wiggles DVD. It's also somewhat apt for this post.
Do you know what you're doing on May 11, 2008?
We do. We're having a baby!
(since the first one turned out so beautifully, why wouldn't you?)
We had the first scan today, and everything is progressing really well (it was nice to see that our Obstetrician had a photo of 2-week-old Jessica up on his wall, and we were able to reintroduce them to each other). Mel & baby are both doing well, but Mel is feeling queasy for a LOT of the day. Baby's at 9 weeks and 3 days, so hopefully the morning sickness will abate in a few weeks time. Naturally, we'll keep you posted.
Well, I've gotta go pack my bag and try to get to bed, as it's a 3am start tomorrow (heading to Brisbane again until Friday night). Lucky me :(
Matt
Do you know what you're doing on May 11, 2008?
We do. We're having a baby!
(since the first one turned out so beautifully, why wouldn't you?)
We had the first scan today, and everything is progressing really well (it was nice to see that our Obstetrician had a photo of 2-week-old Jessica up on his wall, and we were able to reintroduce them to each other). Mel & baby are both doing well, but Mel is feeling queasy for a LOT of the day. Baby's at 9 weeks and 3 days, so hopefully the morning sickness will abate in a few weeks time. Naturally, we'll keep you posted.
Well, I've gotta go pack my bag and try to get to bed, as it's a 3am start tomorrow (heading to Brisbane again until Friday night). Lucky me :(
Matt
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
21 today!!!
Months, that is.(I can't bear to think about her ever being 21 YEARS old!)
She keeps getting more precious by the minute, and I'm very conscious that this blog has done very little justice to that fact...especially of late. Will try very hard to post at least one or two clips of the increasingly-wonderful Jessica in October. And implicit in that is that you'll also see some clips of the wonderful Melissa, too.
Come to think of it, I'll need to be making video clips at a pretty speedy rate from now on, as it's just over 12 weeks to Christmas (and therefore, 12 weeks to "Family Album 2007"). Add to that the fact that I'll spend probably 11 of those weeks trying to get some rudimentary comprehension of the new software, and I'm in some real trouble!! It must be high time for all those family members with cameras and video cameras to step in and replace me, no?! Trust me, it really is very easy - I just make it LOOK difficult.
Matt
Monday, October 01, 2007
Pro Creation
People often ask me why I haven't left my job yet.
Lots of people.
It's a question that seems to unite disparate groups of people, who may not agree on very much else except their shared conviction that I need to leave my job. In fact, I was asked the question again tonight.
I certainly don't mind the question - not in the slightest - and I take it as a reminder that people genuinely care about my welfare (and also that I might need to tone down the extent of my whingeing!). And since I occasionally ask myself the same question (some weeks much more often than others), I really can't blame others for wondering too. Well, the reasons that I stay in my job are both complicated and very simple. Although now's not the time to elaborate on those arguments, today emphasised just one of those key reasons...
A couple of months ago I wrote that I was hoping to one day purchase Final Cut Studio 2. (If you don't believe me, here's that post). "FCS2" is a highly-advanced video editing, soundtrack design, 3D motion and DVD authoring suite from Apple, and it's used by Emmy-award winning TV shows & Oscar-winning movies etc etc.
It's quite expensive by my standards (you could very convincingly argue that it's worth ten times it's R.R.P., but that's not the point here - it's still very expensive regardless of it's value). The software I use now, MediaStudio Pro 8, costs about one-third of what FCS2 costs (and even then, I only use MSP8 because I was given a free copy by the company!), but if I'm to ever 'graduate' to a more polished and professional quality level, I'll need to move up to learning FCS2; it's the 
industry standard. The fact that Ulead/Corel seem to be discontinuing MSP after this version certainly helped to make that decision (and push us away from PC's to the Mac itself).Well yesterday, after a few months of saving - helped by a bonus from work - I was finally able to...[insert drumroll please]...purchase Final Cut Studio 2! Apple have already shipped it, and the tracking website predicts that it will arrive here tomorrow. I'm very excited. I'm not a shopper by any stretch, and I really don't get excited about buying things for myself (case in point being my wardrobe consisting
almost-exclusively of decades-old clothing from K-Mart). I actually get very anxious about buying things - particularly things for myself - but this particular purchase excites me because of what it represents. The potential to be unlocked here is immense, and I've had many sleepless nights wrestling with all of the possibilities. I actually have something of a grand plan in mind - I guess it's been brewing for at least the last 18 months - and yesterday's purchase is a big stepping stone on the way to reaching those larger goals. (I may share some of that grand plan here on day, but if you think my current posts are long and rambling, wait until you get me talking about THAT!).Anyway, the bottomline is that, while I may not love my job, and while they may not always treat me particularly well, and while it may not be leading me where I ultimately want to be going, I am immensely thankful for it. It's an avenue, a stepping stone, a springboard, and a great means to end. In a very real way, it affords me the opportunity to pursue something bigger and better, and I'm getting pretty excited about those future prospects (if you have an hour free sometime, I'll bore you with my big plans!).
Well, I really need to go get to bed. It's a big day at work tomorrow, followed by a big evening installing all 9 DVD's of Final Cut Studio 2. And then I have to start on the 6 BIG, heavy manuals, which will probably take weeks to read and months to understand (I've been reading what training materials I can find on the web, and downloading tutorial podcasts, but it's not really working without the software in front of me). So, you'll either see a very excited post from me tomorrow night, or you won't hear from me for the next 3 months while I try desperately to get my head around it all.Probably both.
Good night,
Matt
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