Rider Training

Down in the ACT we have to learn how to ride a motor bike before they give us a license. Not a bad idea at all.

So today I spent half the day at rider training and tomorrow I will do the same. Good news, I didn’t fall off. Bad news, didn’t to too well with the gears.

Doug and Pete are good instructors that know what they are doing, have a lot of experience and are generally nice guys.

Tomorrow we get to go out on the road.

Update: Well I have passed, tomorrow I get my learners and a 250cc scooter. Wish me luck!

Going on two

Well I am doing it! I am going to be using two wheels to get to work very soon.

I am selling my old large six cylinder car and getting a Scooter. Yep a scooter! This will save me a lot of money in running costs and give me a little joy on the way to work.

Now I have put a deposit on it and will be picking it up in a couple of weeks, so until then here is the stock image.

Forza Scooter

Now this isn’t you usual little scooter, this is a 250cc step-over sport scooter.

A day in the Capital

Ok today was an interesting day, started as usual driving to work. Like most people, I have to be careful of other traffic and pedestrians, however this morning I had to give way to a kangaroo as it crossed the road in front of me.

Lunch time saw me drive to the city to have Pizza with a good friend, Jim, just arrived from Brisbane. After parking I was walking down the street to be caught in a 1 minute hail storm. Each piece of hail was no bigger than a drip of water. Now in Brisbane when it hails you run for cover as the golf ball sized ice really does crack open skulls.

This afternoon and evening is has been quietly snowing, my kids have loved it! This is the first time any of us have seen falling snow.

All in all an interesting day.

Web Designer, Me?

Ok I have had my first website design published. About a year ago friends of mine asked if I could help update their business website. They were expecting increased focus on the business and realised that the site was not “up to scratch”. Well it was pretty bad, you know the type, put together by someone with little experience using Microsoft Frontpage like a notepad.

Well me being a little particular wanted to do a liquid layout, using XHTML and CSS only. They did not require an active site, just the company information so this should be easy. After talking to my friends I got some great ideas and directions. I did all the graphics (hardest part for me), layout and hand coding. The site layout and navigation was accepted nearly 8 months ago but a new addition to their family delayed the deployment.

So earlier this week we published what we had and put “placeholders” for the infromation yet to come.

White Australia??

Ok, over the last two days I am getting really worried about our society and where it is heading. Last night the current affairs show ACA had a guest. An associate professor in the Department of Public Law at Macquarie University, Andrew Fraser, was on to explain his views on immigration.

This all started with Andrew reading an article on how a Sudanese family had just become Australian Citizens and deciding to voice his opinion (which is not that of the University) in an email to his government representitive and the paper in question, the Sydney Morning Hearald.

This academic has said things like:

  • “an expanding black population is a sure-fire recipe for increases in crime, violence and a wide range of other social problems”
  • “these racial and ethnic conflicts are intractable”
  • “black Africans have been shown to have an average IQ of 70”

To support his first view he quotes a google search “black on white homocide”, that shows US of A crime figures. Now I am pretty sure that even if the link is good and accurate, the history of slavery and continued repression of the American black community is DIFFERENT from the history and current situation of the Sudanese (and other) immigrants in Australia. I have yet to find a link to his IQ information.

Ok now to state my view. I think this guy must be the worst academic in history. If you want to convince people you must have an argument and base that on facts! My understanding is that the research he quotes has been disproved or discredited, also no reasoning seems to exist other than we will loose our common identity.

I thought I would give this Canadian Born Academic a little history lesson. Australia was populated by Aboriginees prior to being discoverd by the Portoguese and the English. It was used as a dumping place for the worst of the criminals of England, Ireland and Scotland. After gold was discoverd, the European and Chinese people came in great numbers. Towns like Briadwood and Ballerat were build by European and Chinese people working, living and growing together. Long after this when Australia undertook it’s largest infrastructure project ever, the Snowy River Hydro plan, it was the Italians, Greeks and other displaced immigrants that made it happen.

The history, the culture the flavour of Australia is our acceptance of people, from anywhere, from any background, location, race and religion into our country. Has it been always smooth, no! Will it be always perfect no! But together Australians old and new work together and build a new identity better and stronger than the past.

Loosing Comments

For those making comments and them not appearingl, I am sorry.

My site is being floaded by spam comments at the moment, approx 100 – 200 a day, and I am loosing real comments in the clean up.

I will be installing the newest version of wordpress soon to hopefully make things easier.

edit: Ok the new version of WordPress is in and hopefully things will be easier.

London Shaken

I am currently watching the news with some horror. In London a whole world away it seems there has been a large co-ordinated terrorist attack.

Now at this point I must say one thing, the English are just so different from their mainland neighbours. They seem so calm in the face of this compared to the Russians and Spanish that have gone through similar things recently. This is the real Brittish “Stiff upper lip”.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all people in London.

Social Comment

After reading an entry on Tonya’s site, and having a chat with my good friend (pommie_al), I have decided to write up some things that have been nagging me for a while. Our continuing drive to growth, wealth creation, corporate and private greed is going to be the undoing off our society. However I am getting ahead of myself and I do want to express this argument logically.

Currently we see several issues that are effecting our society and I hope to engage in meaningful discussion about them over the next few posts. Now I understand that some of the stuff we will post will be controversial and we are going to be trying to “solve the worlds problems”.

OK I know that this is a little heavier than you usually see on my site, but things are starting to annoy me and I think it is about time I stood up and gave an opinion, or at least point to opinions I agree with.

Photo Night

Last night on the news we saw an article on World Refugee Day and that some buildings in Canberra were specially lit for the night. So my daughter and I braved the 5 degree night and shot some photos.

Rugged up we went out and passed the fountain lit in neon blue, we found a park, walked to the lake edge and …. they’d turned off the fountain. 😥 Well you can catch some of the other photos on my Flickr page.

Surgery Update

My wife had her surgery today, and it went well. She has been sleeping of the General today and I will get to talk to her and the doctor tomorrow.

Arrgh! Computers!

Well the other day the house’s second computer decided to stop working. The thing would not stay turned on, it would just shutdown, if you were lucky it would run for 10 minutes then stop. So I had a look and figured out the power supply was not working right. The repairs will have to wait a week or too so I have time and money to fix.

Today however my computer decided to die. Freezing within minutes of turning on! I think it is memory or CPU related, so those repairs will have to wait as well.

So in the space of days we have gone from two working computers down to none. I could not even salvage enough common parts to make any hybrid work (one is an old celeron the other an AMD, different memory everything).

So I have set up my work laptop, we have no access to our photos, email or games. Looks like a computer spend is on the cards 😥

Ecstatic and terrified ….. all at the same time !!!!

After my many, many ….. many problems with my health, struggling with my hormones, coping with my girly works becoming so unreliable that it was making me ill all the time. After fighting peri-menopause, struggling to fall pregnant and failing, and facing the fact of no more children. And after fighting doctors tooth and nail for the last 2 years for some sort of definative answer. After all that ….. today I finally got an answer.

After moving here, I decided to try again, and so I saw a new gyno today. The poor man looked at the novel sized pile of documentation I gave him, and looked more than a little startled. I was a little more forceful with what I wanted from him …… a hysterectomy. He listened to me, asked some questions …. and showed a great deal of shock when I told him the opinions of my previous gyno’s. He quizzed me about my hormonal issues, which I was a little reluctant to mention, for fear that he would insist I try chemical control methods (yet again).

And finally he looked at me and said … “Well obviously its a no brainer. I feel the best management would be a complete hysterectomy and estrogen implant”. Not only is he going to give me the hysterectomy I wanted, but he offered to remove my ovaries, therefore removing the major cause of the other symptoms that I have suffered for nearly 20 years.

I stood at the reception desk to pay my bill, and I was shaking. I held it together until we got outside his rooms …… and then I had a good cry on hubby’s shoulder. This is what I have wanted for years. I have a chance of being able to have a normal like life, and quite possibly, some of the PCOS features in my health will be gone.

So …. in a little over 2 weeks time, I will have my mum here to look after me, and I will be starting the next phase of my life. I am scared, but incredibly happy.
Is it possible to be both?

Mothers Day

Well, I have to say that this mother’s day has been lovely, but probably not what hubby wanted to do. We have been so busy, with moving in, sorting out the house, kids etc …. and just generally freezing our bits off …… that he really hasn’t had time to organise anything.

I did receive one thing from my little boy, that hubby thought was memorable enough to blog. Mr6 wrote me a poem, which is now stuck on the fridge.

Mum I love you because: …………………..
* you buy me dessert
* you make up jokes
* you are beautiful
* you are like the sun
* you are like a berry in a tree (apparently I am sweet)
* you are lovely like the stars in the sky

Mr6 watched me read this, and then I put it onto the fridge. He looked at me and asked me, “Did it make you cry?” I have to admit it did a bit, but I just told him that it made me feel very special. He was very pleased with himself.

Canberra Update

Well as you can imagine things have been a little hectic. I have started work, the kids have started school and Dani has already put her name down to help tuckshop and the P&C. Only got my broadband back yesterday, man talk about withdrawal. 😀

Work is crazy as usual, but at least I am busy. Seems like my old area is still trying to find enough work for all their people.

The kids are really liking their new schools and both seem to be making friends easily. My daughter is continuing with her Japanese and my boy just loves the new schools playground.

I have some shots of the new house etc more will be coming.

Canberra House

Made it!

Ok we have just arrived in Canberra. Very good trip, long tiring but now complete.

We are collecting the keys to the house tomorrow and our furniture arrives on Friday.

I will post up some more information after a sleep. 🙂