Buttsy's Space

Further exp

2011-10-14T09:19:00.001+10:00

This time direct from my iPhone

second test

2011-10-14T08:59:00.003+10:00

from external drive via mobile modem/laptop

in my office

test post

2011-10-13T20:21:00.000+10:00

Using a new mobile broadband modem.

Garden view 1

Garden view 2

Update #2 8:00pm Sunday

2009-10-25T18:51:00.001+10:00

A looong day, but here we are at Eaglehawk Holiday Park, which is actually in NSW, on the far north-eastern edge of the greater Canberra area. The kids were amused that we actually drove into the ACT on the Barton Hwy, then turned onto the Federal Hwy to go back into NSW. A downpour greeted us, but all kids are now organized in their rooms, and fed (lasagna & chips) and watered. Miss Carroll and Mrs Brennan are distributing the children's special camp shirts now, in readiness for tomorrow, when we visit Parliament House.

Everyone enjoyed Western Plains Zoo. I believe the siamangs, giraffes and spider monkeys were the most popular exhibits.

Another video on the bus, and we arrived at the Parkes Radio Telescope in time to see it swing around 180 degrees. Lunch, and then a fairly quiet trip through to Canberra.

Some random highlights of the day:

Alec Schmidt: Dubbo Zoo
Adam Nearhos: sleeping on the bus
Hamish McGovern: the Dish

Photos to come soon.

An entry directly from Word

2009-10-20T10:48:00.001+10:00

Another experiment. This time, the blog post is being written using Word's "New blogpost" option.

Experiment with MI

2009-10-18T16:17:00.003+10:00

Today I am uploading two photos and some text using my Telstra Moibile internet connection. There are a couple of reasons why I am doing this.

First, I wanted to check the Picasa editing/resizing tools. The two photos appearing here have been resized from about 900k and 780k to both under 100k. I am curious as to what size on the page they will appear. If I’m not happy, I will look at using one of the other editing programs to do this.

Second, I am of course interested in how long it takes to upload text and photos using the IM service. Time is of the essence!

The process I have used is this: photos loaded from camera to PC. In this case, I have used photos I took a couple of weeks ago during the “Great Dust Storm of ‘09”. Photos were resized, and placed in a new folder. The text has been written and edited in Word, and will be uploaded to Blogger once I am online. I need to check out the blogging by email functionality of Blogger. I Have already noted to differences to WordPress. 1. Only one page in your blog and 2. Some of the gadgets don’t want to work properly.

From my Eudora email account.

2009-10-18T16:01:00.002+10:00

This post is an experiment using the upload by email option in Blogger.
This facility could be of great use while travelling, as the connect
time can be considerably less than when writing directly into
Blogger, or even when writing in Word and importing to Blogger.
I'm looking forward with some excitement to using these facilities
over the next couple of weeks.

Back in the real world

2009-09-07T07:06:00.003+10:00

Three days away at a conference - interesting, challenging and all the rest of it. Then home and Father's Day yesterday, and a really enjoyable day. I was sitting in Mass yesterday morning thinking how renewed and re-invigorated I felt. Out walking this morning and running ideas through my mind for this afternoon's staff meeting - jumping right in, no cooling off period.

Then the realities this morning, as people start ringing in sick, and providing excuses and making other people's lives more difficult - not mine here I might add, but I know of at least two other people who are not going to be happy campers when they hear what's going on.

The greatest impediment to innovation and clear thinking is dealing with the detritus of other people's issues.

Leading a Digital School Conference

2009-09-04T11:02:00.006+10:00

Lucky me - on the Gold Coast for 3 and a half days attending a conference on Leading a Digital School.

Sessions so far have included Marc Presnky, Chris Betcher, Tom March and John Pearce - plenty more still to go.

Ideas to take back to OLSCC include a College blog attached to the website, significant staff PD about embracing change (not advancing backwards). Lots more in my notes.

Even get to use an iPod touch while I'm here - slowly getting used to it, as I am getting used to Twitter. Have set up an account, tweeted, and even have a couple of followers. The first couple were 'interesting', but I decided it may be judicious to block them. You never know, perhaps they were genuine and I was about to get lucky.

What I forgot to do, though was bring a camera with me, so the memory of what I have seen better be good. I am taking lots of notes, and downloading heaps.

My Fair Lady

2009-01-18T22:37:00.003+10:00

For the first time in perhaps 30 years I watched 'My Fair Lady' right through today, and let me say, "I enjoyed it!"

It was a father/daughter day because the rest of the family is away for a day or two, and it was effectively the last day of holidays for me. So we went out to breakfast, wandered through a craft market, and went shopping, which was where we bough the MFL dvd, because we had been joking about Groundsman Willie singing "Wouldn't it be adequate" on the Simpsons this week.

I had sort of forgotten the whole class class struggle aspect to the story, and the lack of respect shown by the upper class for the working class; the difference in morality between the middle class and the 'undeserving poor' as explained by Alf Doolittle; the incredible piss-taking of the upper class at Royal Ascot. I also noted (after reading on the Internet Movie Database ) that the 'educated' men speak their lines in pitch rather than sing - thus showing intellectualism and a lack of emotion, so my daughter and I had great fun listening carefully to Rex Harrison, and his performance, especially of 'I've grown accustomed to her face', noting how he changed between speaking and singing lines in the song. A fascinating insight!

A most enjoyable day.

Actors in the family

2008-12-29T17:09:00.004+10:00

Extraordinarily, in my extended family there are a total of four people who are either professional actors, or who aim to become one. In fact, only one of them has achieved this already - and she is quite happy to tell the others how much waitressing and bar work she still does. She has appeared on the (professional) stage in Sydney and Melbourne, and has had television work (All Saints and Bed of Roses, and commercials). She is self-assured, fairly humble, tells self-depracating stories, does not gossip about colleagues, whispers things like "I can't tell you what's going to happen, but it will really be worth watching!" She left school some ten years ago, and has worked mainly to support her acting ambitions ever since. She has great experience as a waiter and bar manager in both Australia and Britain. All the time her aim has been to be an actor, and she has worked so hard top that end. When she scored her first TV role we were all so proud of the achievement - a reward for years of effort. She is still a 'poor' actor, needing other work to support herself.

The other three are staggeringly different people. Two are school leavers, and the other still in Yr 11. They all think they will be able to make it.

No 1 is a braggart and always has to have a better story, a more outrageous incident in which she has been involved. She doesn't seem to understand the whole concept of appropriate beahviour or language - there's a time and a place, and frankly I don't want to hear her crap. She has struggled over the past year with mental illness, and while I haven't seen her in action, so to speak, she can put on an extraordinary display of petulance, for which she apparently never apologises. Since she's 'sick' everyone will understand. How she can cope with a university course and the demands of acting are beyond me, but that's what she plans to do next year.

No 2 has also just finished school, and is planning to work for a year before studying theatre at university. Less of a braggart ( or perhaps he just couldn't compete over Christmas with No1) he is actually a bit of a snob wanting only to perform on stage, and preferably in musicals. Good luck - there's not that much work going around.

No 3 acts all the time, much to her family's distress. She's sick (dreadfully) or upset (a tantrum) or hates everybody (comes as a shock when she can be all smiles one minute and melting down the next). While I understand there are some temperamental actors, those in regular work have, I believe, some talent to make up for the crap everyone else has to endure.

What to do on a rainy day

2008-12-12T22:42:00.004+10:00

A rainy day today on the Gold Coast - when I woke just before 5am, and pretty much all day until about 5pm.

Kathy went shopping at Harbour Town, and after dropping her off there, Rowie and I visited the Gold Coast City Art Gallery at Bundall and another at Mudgeeraba, where we saw the Darcy Doyle competition exhibition.

At GCCAG we were able to view a new exhibition "The History of Violence", a study of the convict settlement of Australia some 22o years ago. As a contemporary exhibition by two artists, i was impressed by the variety of the work we saw. Retrospection is of course a wonderful way to view the past, but many of the pieces made quite an impact on us.

A couple of views follow - a "Sorry" sculpture, and bust made with various fabrics (one of a series). All very naughty, really, as no photos are allowed in the gallery.

Thoughts while on holiday... No1

2008-12-10T12:33:00.004+10:00

While walking along the beach south from Broadbeach this morning I noticed a strange sociological phenomenon.

A number of Chinese tourists were on the beach at Kurrawa. It is clear that going to the beach is not a normal part of life in China (or at least for this group), because of what they were doing...

None of them seemed prepared for the beach, even though it must have been in their itinerary. Rolled up trousers, non-beach shoes being carried etc

Going to elaborate lengths to video themselves as 'having fun' - running from a wave, pretending to splash the person with the camera and so on

Some of them seemed fascinated by what the 'Australians' were doing: watching dad dig in the sand with a little kid; watching children frolicking. But NOT looking 25m further down the beach where the Kurrawa SLSC Nippers had their surf skis out and were in full holiday practice!

And, just little more bizarrely, the Australians being watched by the Chinese seemed to not notice the attention, as if they couldn't see them! It made me think of animals on display in a zoo.

Currently reading

2008-12-08T10:17:00.005+10:00

'London Mystery Selection No 98'; purchased for 10c at the Dalby Spring Fair

Kottler & Kottler, 'Students Who Drive You Crazy'; $57 from online Education supplies store

Christopher, '20 Things You Didn't Know About Everything'; borrowed

O'Donoghue & Stone, 'Surfing the Menu'; Christmas gift

NYT list

2008-12-08T05:12:00.001+10:00

New York Times 100 notable books of 2008

Books to be read

2008-12-07T10:48:00.016+10:00

Aravind Adiga ‘The White Tiger’
Venero Armanno 'The Dirty Beat'
Margaret Atwood 'The Handmaid’s Tale'
Margaret Atwood 'Oryx and Crake'
Dean Bakopoulos ‘Please Don’t Come Back From The Moon’
Alex Boese ‘Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments’
Roberto Bolano ‘2666’
S.J. Bolton 'Sacrifice'
William Brodrick ‘A Whispered Name’
Henry Campbell 'Whatever Happened to Tanganyika?' non-fiction
Toby Cresswell '1001 Songs: Rockwiz Edition' non-fiction
Dave Cullen 'Columbine'
Robert Drewe ‘The Rip’
R. J. Ellory 'A Simple Act of Violence'
Louise Erdrich ‘The Plague of Doves’
Joe Giacobbe ‘The Spirit of Racing’ non-fiction
Thomas Glavinic ‘Night Work’
Rivka Glachen 'Atmospheric Disturbances'
Peter Goldsworthy ‘Everything I Knew’
Kate Grenville ‘The Lieutenant’
Kathryn Harrison 'Envy'
David Hill ‘1788’
Tom Holland 'Rubicon'
Kazuo Ishiguro 'When We Were Orphans'
Kazuo Ishiguro 'Nocturnes'
Susan Jacoby 'The Age of American Unreason' non-fiction
Ma Jian ‘Beijing Coma’
Gail Jones 'Sorry'
Jonathon King ‘The Western Front Diaries’
Natsuo Kirino ‘Real World’
Christopher Koch 'The Memory Room'
Carmen Lawrence 'Fear and Politics'

David Lodge 'How Far Can You Go?'
Gabriel Garcia Marquez ‘Memories of my Melancholy Whores’
Ian McEwan ‘On Chesil Beach’
Peter MacInnes 'Australia's Pioneers, Heroes and Fools'
David Mitchell ‘Cloud Atlas’
Rita Monaldi & Francesca Sorti ‘Imprimatur’ (also ‘Secretum’ and ‘Veritas’)
Haruki Murakami‘After Dark’
Haruki Murakami ‘A Wild Sheep Chase’
Gerald Murnane 'Tamarisk Row' +others
Joyce Carol Oates ‘Missing Mom’
Joyce Carol Oates ‘My Sister, My Love’
Flannery O’Connor
Andrew O’Hagan ‘Be Near Me’
George Pell ‘God and Caesar: Selected Essays on Religion, Politics & Society’
Marisha Pessl 'Special Topics in Calamity Physics'
Barry Ralph 'Savage Wilderness'
Ian Rankin ‘Doors Open’
Mary Roach 'Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex'
Philip Roth ‘The Plot Against America’
Philip Roth ‘Indignation’
Salman Rushdie 'Shalamar the Clown'
Miranda Seymour ‘Thrumpton Hall’
Mary Swan 'The Boys in the Trees'
Tom Vanderbilt 'Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us)'
Norah Vincent 'Self-Made Man'
William T Vollmann ‘Europe Central’
Bill Waterhouse ‘What Are The Odds?’ non-fiction
Sarah Waters 'Fingersmith'
Irvine Welsh ‘Crime’
Lijia Zhang 'Socialism is Great!: A Worker's Memoir of the New China' non-fiction